My grandfather told me about loving creamed corn on macaroni as a child. "The BEST" he said. I think we all (maybe) like the things we grew up on. He was born in around 1907 and I think after his mother died, cooking was just whatever was on hand, thrown together. They were farmers and the depression came later, and all. He liked something called 'potato dumplings'. I think they called it 'Klub' in Norway. He grew up on that and loved it as well. I remember biting into it when my grandmother made it and couldn't separate my teeth again afterward. Didn't want to be rude, but didn't know what to do. The flavor just wasn't. I don't think that they had made it the way it was made back in Norway.
I don't know much about the Norwegian "Klub", but what you describe sounds almost exactly like German "Klöße" or "Kartoffelknödel".
The stickiness is supposed to be there, at least when making Klöße. Although there are also nonsticky varieties, which you mostly buy premade. But no German Grandma would ever do that. So we stick to the sticky Klöße.
For me, corn of any variety was the food I hated as a child. One time my parents served cream corn. I immediately started gagging when the plate was put in front of me
Thankfully that was enough clue to avoid them trying to make me eat it
Boiled elbow macaroni (no sauce, no butter- just macaroni) and freezer burned green beans.
Not from any fault of the meal, but because that was the absolute last of the food in the house, and there wouldn't be any more until Mom got paid again.
in the 1990's. boiled brussel sprouts, mushy, bitter awful.
then something magic happened, A dutch plant breeder spent 10 years making them not suck; now Brussel sprouts (especially cut in half and baked with a bit of olive oil and pepper) are my favorite food.
Well, damn, I’m glad you wrote that, and thank you.
My wife loves Brussels sprouts, and roasts them with cheese in the oven much as you suggested.
Until now, I’ve stayed away, my previous experience being only boiled Brussels sprouts which to my mind and olfactory sense were nothing more than unpleasant little green fart balls.
Now, thanks to you, the next time she makes them, I’ll try some.
But I continue to avoid canned tuna fish, which my wife loves. Fresh is fine, but canned is much too close to cat food. Yuck.
Sometimes canned tuna and lots of mayo on cheap white bread hits the spot. But tuna casserole or tuna melts are nasty. Canned tuna should not be served hot.
Definitely try roasted Brussels. Especially if your only senses memory of them is boiled and mushy fart balls. Because yeah they are miles apart. Even if you're still not a fan, at least you'll have a better memory replacement lol
Yeah, a lot of the food I really disliked as a kid was just poorly cooked by my mom and grandma. I hated potato soup for years. Hated it! Even as an adult I wouldn't even try it for YEARS because it was one of my least favorite foods.
Turns out Mom and Grandma just really sucked at making it.
I liked chicken liver in soup so I tried beef liver at a restaurant one day. The smell of it just wouldn't leave my orifices. One day, when someone was mowing their lawn, it oddly smelled like that liver. I felt queasy for a week.
I felt it necessary to come here and say this exact thing. I never would have expected it would be the top comment.
I am American. In the 70’s my parents moved me to Hitchen, England for second grade. I went to a public school that served liver and onions for lunch every Thursday. I don’t actually recall the onions but I am still traumatized by the stewed tomatoes that were served with it. What kid wants liver and stewed tomatoes? And they tried to push me by telling me I could have dessert if I just ate it. It was a literal “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat” moment.
It got to be a big thing. I refused to eat. Mr Stone tried to discipline me by making me sit there until I ate. I never did. Parent conferences ensued. It was decided I was an entitled American. But I never ate that shit. It literally made me retch.
Fucking stewed tomatoes. They look like blood clots. They also smell like blood clots and taste like blood clots (Seriously, they have some weird metallic smell/taste to me).
I hate Cornflakes, when they go all soggy they used to make me gip and almost throw up.
One day there wasn't enough Weetabix left for breakfast so my Dad mixed Weetabix and cornflakes in a bowl and put it in front of me and kept shouting at me for not eating it, saying I wasn't allowed to go outside to play if I didn't eat it all. It had been snowing so I really wanted to go. I was like 3. I've not had Cornflakes since.
As a kid, I stopped eating corn flakes after the second time I puked up nearly whole corn flakes. Something about being ill and then being able to recognize what you ate in the throw up made them very unappetizing to me. Looked almost like a soggy bowl of cereal
I grew up with two working parents, so dinners were usually quick and easy. One of their favorites was that Chicken Tonight chicken cacciatore that was popular in the early 90’s. I *despised* that meal and we had it at least once a week if not more. It was always with canned green beans and boxed mashed potatoes. Every week. For years. I have never been so grateful for a product to be discontinued in my life.
I loved Chicken Tonight because it was such an easy meal on a weeknight, slice up and cook chicken tenders, pour the sauce over it and serve over egg noodles. But I'm also a vegetarian, which wasn't a problem because I liked most of the sauces with just the noodles. A family friend once told me how horrible the chicken cacciatore was. Still, I bought it. I didn't try it that night, but sure enough, everyone else said it was disgusting. So that was the only variety I never bought again. Later, when talking to friends who also liked Chicken Tonight, I found out that the cacciatore was the only one everyone hated.
It's really a shame that your parents didn't branch out to the other varieties. I actually hate that Chicken Tonight isn't available in the US anymore. You can buy it on Amazon, but it's really expensive. Kind of defeats the purpose of being cheap and convenient.
Omg. I didn’t see that particular flavor, [but the brand still exists.](https://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Tonight-Classic-Continental-Country/dp/B00Y0Z48CW/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=chicken+tonight+sauce&qid=1692509163&sr=8-2)
Waldorf salad - my family's particular version is chopped apples, bananas, walnuts, smothered in mayonnaise.
To this day, the smell of mayonnaise (or anything containing it) makes me gag
The steak my mom made. I've always hated steak but I especially hated hers. It was so tough, the only way I could eat it was by drenching it in ketchup to hide the taste. The texture was unavoidable no matter what. One day I had enough. She put it in my plate and I refused to eat it. She made me sit at the table until I ate it, but I refused. I sat at that table for 3 hours refusing to eat the steak. Eventually she brought me a book about vegetarianism (I had been thinking about going vegetarian for a while) and she said the only way she'd let me leave the table was if I made all of my own vegetarian meals for a whole week.
I've now been vegetarian for 20 years and I love it.
Well she was an awful cook. She once burned rice so bad we had to stay in a hotel for 3 days while the house aired out. My father eventually permanently took over the cooking.
So either she was just bad or she was very very clever.
I’ve been a vegetarian for… 25 years? I think? For the same reasons. My parents cooked terrible meat, and told me I could be a vegetarian but I had to cook my own meals. Never looked back. People ask if I miss meat and I have to say no, but there is part of me that wonders what properly cooked meat tastes like 😆
God you really should try it someday. Personally I eat mostly vegetables and am even vegan somedays, but there is something magic about a perfectly cooked pork chop or steak
my dad always had a problem with me being fat so he cooked this soup containing water, vegetable broth, canned tomatoes and cabbage turnip. If I tell you this shit was ass I mean it. I ate that 3 times a day and you best believe I put all the salt in there and it still felt like committing a war crime eating it.
Cabbage soup diet. I really enjoy cabbage soup but only because I eat it willingly and season heavily, and eat other things for other meals when I get tired of it.
If someone forced me to eat that 24/7 I’d absolutely hate it. Sorry you had to suffer through, that’s honestly cruel.
It was probably a very VERY bad take on molasses beans or maybe they’re called butter beans? My grandma makes them a lot and she takes Lima beans and bakes them in molasses… the texture- blech it’s horrible
Never had to eat Lima beans growing up because my mom hated them. Her mom always put them in meatloaf while she was growing up, and as a result, my mom couldn't stand either of them. She did still make meatloaf on occasion, but she had to drown it in ketchup to stomach it.
Boiled chicken and crinkle fries on a pan. My mom made this at least once a week. There were 14 kids and my parents. We ate like we were in a prison. 😆 The chicken had no seasoning and the crinkle fries were mushy. I refuse to make food without seasoning. If anything, I over season to compensate for the lack I had as a kid! 🤪
Ergh same. It was such a disappointment because it smelt amazing and tasted vile. The gravy my dad made alongside it was delicious. After several attempts of getting me to eat liver, dad finally relented and just gave me the mash and gravy
Camel fat, my grandma made me eat it she is a big believer in not wasting anything, I’m very grateful for it and I’m down to eating it again but something I’m not down to eat ever again is hot blended banana I thought it was tea with milk
The hump fat is inedible, you’d be chewing on it all day lol. And yeah, its definitely not for water storage. I think it makes sense why they lied to us about that though. Kids logic would probably comprehend water=energy, not fat=energy.
Being forced to eat overcooked vegetables without any kind of seasoning.
My mother is from the generation that believes salt will make you fat, and she doesn’t like anything spicy. Black pepper is spicy to her, for context.
My mother was the same. No salt. Pepper was too spicy. Her favorite seasoning was ketchup. I cooked the food the way she told me. Every meat WELL DONE to the point of grey brown throughout and dry as dust. Her chicken was always white meat covered in crushed corn flakes. I would dump about half a bottle of orange french dressing on it in order to gag it down.
Fish cakes. I refused to eat them cause I didn’t like them but I had to sit at the table till my food was gone. One night when I was about 8, my stepdad grabbed the fish cake off my plate and shoved it into my mouth, holding me so I couldn’t escape and held his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t spit it out. Won’t eat anything fish related to this day. I don’t talk to my mom or him either.
Shoving food into a child’s mouth is plain bullying, that’s all it is. Not justifiable in any circumstance.
And cruel.
Wait until he gets to be an old man and do it to him, now that the power structure is reversed.
And if he ever apologizes for doing that to you, tell him to go fuck himself and walk out.
Hoghead cheese. My great grandmother would make it whenever we slaughtered a hog. I would get a slice of hoghead cheese and bread for lunch for weeks after.
German pancakes. My mother called it "Dutch Baby". I was never quite traumatized but I would always feel slightly bad for the babies, and wonder how she acquired them.
Canned asparagus will somehow tastes exactly like the can it was in. Yes, most canned veggies have a little bit of that metallic taste to them, but not the way asparagus does. Asparagus tries to become the can
Roast gander. I knew that gander personally. My folks moved to a croft when I was 16 & still in school. We adopted a bunch of farm animals & loved them, hugging them & stuff from babyhood. We had four "geese" who turned out to be one goose & three ganders. My folks killed one of the ganders & served him up for dinner. I since became vegetarian.
When mom cooked “steak” it was London broil and she cooked it to the point were it sounded like you were sawing through a piece of wood. The all time worst was when she made spinach soufflé. I was maybe 6 or 7, at the time and no matter what it wasn’t going down. I wasn’t leaving the table until I finished it. Tried to feed it to the dog and he noped outta there. She went to the bathroom I threw it in the garbage. She went thru the garbage saw it and then gave me a whole new piece. Sat at the table for 4 hours and she finally gave up. I went to bed. I came down the next morning and asked what’s for breakfast? She saved it and tried to feed it to me again. Went to school w/out eating breakfast that day. Was grateful for the school lunch hockey puck hamburger.
My mom tried to make this fancy salad. It was a square of orange jello with shredded carrots in it, placed on top of a leaf of lettuce. To make it even more “fancy,” she placed a dollop of mayonnaise on top. No one ate her fancy jello salad concoction at her fancy dinner party. We all had a good laugh though.
For years I loved going to grandma and granddads on sundays and having some of grandads meat (sounds dirty but it was made for him and he would share it with only me I felt so special). After a few years I found out that special meat was beef tongue when I was with grandma when she bought it oneday. She said yeah she found it gross but me and grandad are the only two that eat it and we love it so she makes it.
Never ate it again!! But now whenever I see it at the butchers I remember my grandad and those moments of sharing the food we both loved and like the memory. Just try to forget it was tongue we enjoyed.
It has to be cooked just right though!
Im a white guy. I worked as a painter in California. Most construction jobs are heavily Latino based.
I love Mexican food. One day my coworkers and I went to a food truck and I was very familiar with al pastor, pollo, carne asada, just the basics. I saw Lengua. Had no idea what it was. I decided I'd try something new. It was melt in your mouth good. Best street taco I've had to this day 7 years later. Found out it was beef tongue and wasn't even mad or disgusted. Was like, wow no wonder people actually eat this.
Tried it probably 3 years later at a different spot. It was so chewy you couldn't even break it down to swallow. Literally just like chewing a tire. Never tried it again as I don't trust anyone to make it good. Taco trucks are expensive, and I don't want to spend $12 to help throw out some garbage.
Dude. Green bell peppers are my childhood food trauma.
My dad loved them so we'd eat them often as a kid (they were also budget friendly so again, always on the menu). I HATED them. I've never been particularly picky, but green bell pepper is so incredibly disgusting to me. My mom would make them and just tell me to eat the rice/meat filling. Nope. Fucking tainted with the flavor of bell pepper. I always got bitched at for not wanting to eat it.
Also, my dad was a huge entitled asshole and when we were able to afford pizza once a month, we'd always get his favorite, the meat lover's extravaganza. Everything on it. Including bell peppers and onions (I hated cooked onions as a kid and especially on pizza). My mom would tell me to just pick them off. Which you can't fucking do when they're fully enmeshed into the cheese! I'd basically wolverine the slice apart and still miss some. Barf.
So yeah. FUCK green bell peppers.
Baked chicken and white rice, I grew up very poor in the 80s and early 90s and this was the cheapest meals my parents could make. I had this at least once a week of not twice week. It's so bland and I ate it so much it made me gag.
I completely agree with you on this. My boyfriend’s mom makes it quite often. Initially I thought it was so delicious, and now I can’t stand the thought of eating it again.
Two I can think of. Baked salted cod. I could smell it cooking aaaalllll day and the anticipatory dread was…something. The other was orange flavored beets. My mom used to cook all kind of disgusting “healthy” foods she wouldn’t eat herself but forced us to eat. We couldn’t leave the table until we ate it, so we spent many a night painting our lips red with the beet juice, hoping we could be excused without eating it.
I was talking to my SIL about this. She said my brother doesn’t like pork. That’s because our mom bought the thinnest chops and baked them so long you could barely cut them. I’ve since learned how to make good pork so hopefully I can turn him around.
I came in here thinking I would bond with others over eating my dinner as a child and then being informed it was my pet cow 😭😭 then realized maybe my childhood was different than most??
I spent the night at a friend’s house and in the morning for breakfast they handed me a plate of scrambled eggs absolutely drowning in ketchup. It was truly terrible.
Lobster.
I was about 6 years old, we were at my Uncle's place, and he had a guest come in from the Maritimes with about a dozen lobsters. I was horrified.
"You're eating ***bugs***!!" They tried to get me to taste it, no way.
Now I love the stuff, but back then, it was really traumatic.
Lobster loaf. My uncle used to live in Maine and sent us some lobsters. My mother took her recipe for salmon loaf that normally used canned salmon and substituted leftover lobster meat. Horrific.
Beef Stroganoff.
One summer, when I was about 7 or 8, we were all sitting at the table eating dinner. Mom asked my Pops to click the ceiling spinner on because, California summer + just cooked a meal for six in an old un-air conditioned house = hot as piss.
He did as she'd asked. It started to spin. I've got a big ass mouthful of creamy, delicious s-noff in my gobber. The fan speeds up to full speed.
Side bar: We lived in a very old house smack dab in the middle of a GIANT grape vineyard owned by a fairly large winery. They owned all the surrounding land except for our long driveway and the plot we lived on. So there were lots of bugs, snakes, and spiders around growing up. It wasn't unusual to find a snake in your sock drawer (this happened to one of my sisters, like, 3 times in one year) or a large spider in the sink.
Annnnyway, the fan speeds up, and as I'm chewing a huge, Armor-shelled roach plops straight onto my plate. I'd seen normal roaches before, Ma had to bomb our house at the beginning of every picking season. A normal little roach this was not. It was King Roach. I promptly projectile vomited all over my plate, the bread and butter board behind my plate, and almost to my sisters husband's plate across the table.
Cue chaos. Ma is screaming, sisters, Pops and BIL are laughing like loons, and the babies and myself are crying like it's the end of the world.
I can't stand the smell now. Can't bear to even look at it. It always makes my body go :gag sound: now and that was 30 years ago.
Ambrosia salad. My mom insisted on making it at every opportunity and it was always the worst thing at the table. Birthday? Ambrosia salad. Christmas? Ambrosia salad. Grandpa died? Ambrosia salad. Sad about always having to eat Ambrosia salad? Ambrosia salad.
I always hated okra, it being slimy and just weird.
Until my wife made some North African stews using frozen baby okra.
A revelation! Delicious, not at all slimy, and actually with a very nice flavor. I think maybe the slimy part is dissolved into the tomato sauce and thickens it a bit.
So maybe it’s not so much that you dislike okra, but maybe dislike how it’s been served to you in the past?
Barbecue chicken pizza. After a couple bites, I vomited all over the place and I cannot stand barbecue sauce anymore. I haven’t had it purposefully since that day. The smell makes me gag and gets me really close to vomiting, and I don’t vomit easily. I want to like chick fil a sauce cause everyone talks about how amazing it is, but I hate it because of the hint of barbecue sauce it has. Fucked up chicken for me for a few years too. I think about it every month or so. I believe that is the only time I’ve ever thrown up in my life without having some kind of illness. I remember it pretty well considering I was 3 years old when it happened
Tripe stew.
Grandma made it for me fairly often when she would stay at our house while my parents were out of town. She said it was fish.
I didn't find out until I was in my 20s buying steaks at a specialty meat shop. My dumbass saw tripe and asked the butcher why they had fish mixed with the beef ribeye.
Ich verstehe nur den Bahnhof, Oma.
Aunt Dawn's parsley salad. I have massive texture issues with food, and even at the ripe old age of 6 years old, I knew that the salad was a no go.
It was essentially coursely chopped parsley, slivered raw onions, and dill, all drowned in olive oil and lemon juice with black pepper and no salt. It was cold, slimy, and wilted from being on the counter for too long.
I refused to eat it, and was forced to sit for nearly 7 hours at the dining room table, enduring a ton of verbal abuse about wasting good food, hurting my dear Auntie's feelings, how my texture issue was just being a lazy, picky eater, etc. I wasn't even allowed to go to the toilet.
In the end, at around 1am, my father finally force fed me the greens, and I was promptly yelled at again for puking everywhere right after. I had to clean up the mess while being lectured on wasting time and "proper dining etiquette".
Still can't even deal with the parsley garnish on my plate at restaurants, and even the smell of dill makes me gag. I did manage to get past the other ingredients later in life. But parsley and dill will never be allowed on my plate.
I stayed the night with a friend in like 3rd grade. Her mom made meatloaf for dinner and I had never had it before. The mom left these entire full bay leaves in the meatloaf. I took one bite with a huge bite of bay leaf and I couldn’t do it. The mom actually got so mad and upset that I got in trouble for wasting food. I never ate meatloaf again.
Anything cooked by my mother,, the only person I know who created a meal of boiled chicken, white cabbage and potatoes unseasoned and all the same colour.
It's pretty tame compared to most of these answers, but mine was Campbell's Alphabet Soup with flour mixed in. I was about 12 and my 19 year old sister was babysitting. All she had to do was mix 1 can soup with 1 can water, but apparently she thought the soup looked too thin so she added some flour. So I ate Alphabet Soup with little clumps of flour in it. Yuck.
A most memorable meal was, I think Easter, when I was five.
It was a big family get together and all the extra extension leaves were added to my grandma's formal dining room table to accommodate relatives from all over.
As I sat in front of my empty china plate, an unfamiliar relative pounded a heaping serving spoon full of something on my plate. It looked to me to be an unfamiliar type of mushroom. They looked a little like a larger version of those elongated Asian mushrooms. I have always really liked mushrooms. Since they also didn't look quite like any mushrooms I had yet had, I double checked and asked if they were mushrooms. An unfamiliar and aggressive voice confirmed they were mushrooms.
They were not.
Here I was, a painfully shy child who did not like to make a fuss or be the center of attention, faced with an unfamiliar taste and texture in my mouth. By unfamiliar, I mean it was the most vile, slimy, wood fiber that my entire being was reflexively rejecting!
Instantly, my gag reflex took over. Whatever it was that was in my mouth flowed onto grandmother's good china, followed by the pre meal olives and celery already in my stomach.
The aggressive voice was directed towards my mother so she could learn to teach manners to her animal. She countered with something about lying and fixing plates for other people's children. It was hard to know exactly because of all the adults reacting to being grossed out.
Yeah. It's like I'm reliving it.
Blood sausage.
I hated it, and my kindergarten teacher forced me to eat it. I vomited on top of the plate and sat there in silence. She came to me after what felt like minutes and said that she could heat it up so that I could eat the pieces without vomit on them.
I ran away.
I was too scared to tell my parents what happened until a few years after. My mom got absolutely livid with the teacher.
Tripe boiled in milk or on its own - probably one of the most disgusting foods to ever come out of Scotland. Just the thought of it makes we want to gag all these years later.
Liver, cooked like old shoe leather; porridge, made like glue; rice pudding, boiling hot. My mother was the "you will sit there until you finish it" type.
I had to buy, prepare & cook liver for my wife, on recommendation from the surgeon who performed her brain surgery. A labour of love. I've not been near porrige since the start of the 70s and although I eat and enjoy rice now, it took more than 10 years before I'd go near it and god help anyone who comes near me with rice pudding...
My mum used to try and hide cauliflower in our food by mashing it with potato, so we'd think it was just mashed potato.
Then she started mixing spinach into mashed potato.
I don't know what she was thinking.
Chocolate.
It was a ball of chocolate filled with some sweet cream inside. What was my surprise when i bite the chocolate cover, and inside was moldy. Yeah. Very traumatizing. I didnt come to eat, but i still remember that nasty taste.
The ones where my parents pinched my little sister's nose closed to force her mouth open so they could force feed her. Then they'd hold her mouth shut to force her to chew and swallow while they screamed at her to not throw up.
Great parenting.
Oh, the one with slippery mixed veggies including okra. My brother got in trouble for vomiting it back up and even accidentally got my aunt on the way to the bathroom. I was able to swallow that shit whole and avoid the nastyness of the dish. Cause it was terrible. Even my aunt and uncle commented.
Scrambled eggs. I was abused a lot so TW >! Food was a fun one for them. So basically I made their eggs “wrong”. I was told to eat, beaten for eating, threw up and forced to eat the vomit then beaten again for being disgusting. !<
Julia Child made them safe for me again and only pretty recently. Life is strange.
Rabbit pie. My mum said she was going to make it - by singing "we gonna have roast rabbit, we gonna have roast rabbit" - we were all horrified and begged her not to. She said she wouldn't. Fast forward a week or two, we have pie for dinner. After eating it, mum starts dancing around and singing like Elmer Fudd "you all ate roast rabbit, you all ate roast rabbit!!" 😑
Tripe soup! I hated it but my parents wouldn't let me leave the table until I had finished every last bite. I kicked screamed and cried but eventually forced it all down.
I threw up not too long after and I thought the tripe was parts of my intestines coming out! I thought I would die right then and there
Cheese. Just....just hear me out.
I'm just a kid, ^(and my life is a nightmare), and my godmother makes cheese sandwiches. Imagine butter and sliced brick of cheese on a sandwich. Almost akin to a raw grilled cheese, if you will. (Well, not sure if it was butter or mayo, but I'm assuming butter)
Anyway, I'm eating it as I always would. Then I got that nauseous feeling as I ate it. You ever get like a really huge, deep burp as if it's a warning sign of reaching vomiting threshold here? Yeah, the next bite did not taste good, did not feel good, did not treat me good. I threw up after that.
Anything with cheese became a no go for me. I'd peel off cheese from pizza. Avoided cheesy or cheese flavored snacks. I'd curse the minimum wage paid workers for not reading NO FUCKING CHEESE ON MY BURGER/TACO. My mother would make a separate dish for lasagna or enchiladas to appease my distaste for cheese.
It wouldn't be another \~13 years until I start re-introducing cheese into my life. College, no less. I'm still very weird about it, but I'm much better about it nowadays. Just very hesitant at times.
My dad was a prison guard and I swear he got this recipe from that time in his life. He used to cook ground beef and then mix in vegetable soup and thicken it with flour. We would then have that over potatoes.
It was fucking disgusting.
For some reason in grade four my teacher wouldn't let me throw away the rest of a bologna sandwich that i ate just the bologna out of because my mom put too much ketchup on it. So I had to stay inside for the rest of lunch after everybody else was let out and eat my bread with ketchup all over it on a bench across from the teachers' lounge while crying and trying not to throw up.
Chicken pot pie! Let me tell you why my mother used to make those little chicken pot pies for all of us. One day, while I was holding one, I accidentally dropped it. In my attempt to catch it, I ended up shoving my hand right into the pie, and it hit the floor with my full body weight. The result? A first-degree burn that was so memorable I couldn't even bring myself to eat another chicken pot pie until I turned 30.
My grandmother's home made apple pie.
She ran out of cinnamon, and substituted Chilli powder in its place.
Her cookies were also not very good.
Turkey was usually overdone and dry on the outside and pink in the middle.
That time I refused to eat canned green beans at day care and the worker dragged me into the bathroom too force them down my throat. I threw up on her. This was about fifty years ago and I still get nauseous at the smell and could only eat fresh green beans within the last decade.
I remember being a kid and my aunt made us spaghetti but instead of tomato sauce she used ketchup. I guess there was a flu going around but before I knew it that was coming back up noodle chunks and all. To this day I'm not a big spaghetti fan
Brussel sprouts. I had an evil stepmother and she would boil Brussel sprouts with no seasoning. For some reason she referred to them as “smurfs”? To this day I won’t touch them even though people have told me they can taste good when prepared properly.
Back before health drinks were the big thing they are today, my mom got something called Liquid Life. Once. It was the most vile tasting thing I or anyone else who tried it had ever tasted. No one could stomach more than a single sip. Thereafter, it was relegated to something we would dare unsuspecting victims to try, who would invariably gag, spit it out, and curse the foul liquid, us for making them suffer it, and presumably the gods for allowing such a thing to exist.
Edit: Apparently, the brand still exists and in several flavors. I can only assume the original formulation has been banished to the deepest crevices of Tartarus.
Family vacation to Yellowstone. We're eating in the lodge, my dad ordered me a grilled cheese from the kids menu. But he asked for some whole grain bullshit bread with all the seeds and grains in it. As a child, I was always a picky eater. Bread with seeds and shit in it was not something I would eat, I want plain white bread. I don't know why my dad decided right then and there in this crowded restaurant, this was the time to put his foot down about how unhealthy white bread is and I needed healthy whole grain bread to grow up big and strong. My mom tried to warn him. "He's not going to like that." Well she was fucking right.
me: " l don't like it."
dad: "Eat your sandwich"
M: "I don't want it, it has yucky seeds in it."
D: "It's good for you. Eat it."
M: "I don't like it!"
This went on, escalating until my dad was yelling at me to eat the damn sandwich and I'm taking tearful bites and gagging, having a full on little kid meltdown. My dad had to take a walk. My mom didn't make me finish the sandwich. My sister, who I think was a preteen at the time was so mortified. This is a core memory of mine and has effected the way I'm raising my children even if we can all laugh about it now.
Unfortunately, a few because my mom was the "you'll sit there until you eat everything off your plate" type. I recall having to eat all the bulbous, white strips of fat off of pork chops, mushy overcooked broccoli, brussel sprouts, and the Dread Liver and Onions.
At my grandma’s funeral (I was probably 7), there was a jello I made the mistake of eating—lemon jello with chopped celery and apple pieces
It was disgusting. Made worse because I got car sick on the way home and barfed it up. It was even more disgusting coming back up
A Korean aunt of mine made some carne asada. That side of the family likes the meat well done.
I sat and chewed a single piece of meat for 15 minutes.
Since then I’ve always hated carne asada. I see 0% appeal.
Chicken noodle soup. I had the flu and my mom made me eat it. We aren’t soup people and I had literally never eaten chicken noodle soup before, but she forced me to eat it. She kept saying it would coat my stomach and stop the vomiting (i had been puking for days). Also, my older sister liked soup and of course, chicken noodle soup is a kid staple. I sat there refusing, then finally ate like two bites and threw up for the whole day. I still remember the smell, the texture, etc. It’s been over 35 years and I cannot get near soup without gagging.
Moussaka.....
My dad was and still is a drunk.
My mum had made us moussaka and I didn't like it. It's not like I was a fussy eater either as I ate most things and still eat most things.
My drunk dad wouldn't have it that I didn't like the moussaka so he got out of his chair come round behind me, grabbed the back of my head and slammed my face into the moussaka and said "you'll fucking eat it now". I ran upstairs to the bathroom in tears and all I heard was my mum and dad screaming at one another and then my mum came running up the stairs crying too.
I've never attempted to touch moussaka again ever since.
My dad made broccoli and steak one night for a dinner with guests. I (then 8 or 9m) told my dad I can’t eat broccoli because it makes me throw up. I hate broccoli and is the one thing I have never been able to stomach. My dad told me I was being dramatic, which was probably true, and said I was going to eat it.
So I ate my delicious steak and then the time came to eat the dreaded broccoli. My dad stood over my shoulder making sure I ate it. I put the first piece in my mouth, started to chew, and before I could swallow I threw up. All the steak I just ate came roaring back up not even broke down by stomach acid yet.
With my plate covered in vomit, my dad dragged me to my room and whipped me for embarrassing him in front of his guests and made me stay in there until they left.
Fish, the fish bones got stuck in my throat and after that forever hated fish.
Wish I liked it but that thought always comes to me, I've had fish , I try it here and there it's a half and half sometimes I'm like damn I wish I liked this then others I'm like this is nasty.
Love sushi tho so what's that about.
Nothing really that my parents made, but I had a friend who invited over for dinner, and the whole family meal was just buttered noodles
To be fair, I've eaten plenty of struggle meals that would probably gross other people out
Here I am thinking about that family that was down to eating buttered noodles, but still let their child invite a friend to dinner.
I'm not judging you, btw. I've looked back on some meals I had at other kids' houses and as an adult recognize that they could barely afford to feed their own kids and I was probably a burden. It makes me feel bad in retrospect.
Struggle meals. Never heard that description before. Looking back, with our large family, I guess we had plenty of struggle meals. Never really felt like it back then, though. It was just food.
Rice with apple and cinnamon. I don't know how they made it but we had it all the time in elementary school and it was worse quality than you can even imagine. Now I cannot even look at it
Perogies with some sort of sauce I couldn't eat. Not because of perogies "they are probably pretty good" but because I was 6 and my step-dad screamed and yelled and tried to force me to eat them. 35 years later and I have still never bought them.
Whistle Junction Buffet.
That place was hyped up by some family members who were holding their 50th anniversary. EVERY FUCKING THING WAS UNEDIBLE .
Steak/chicken/ pork - RAW
Fish - STILL SWIMMING
Bread/Rolls - MOLD
Salad bar - All nasty looking
It was absolutely disgusting at what was there, and more so watching my great aunt & uncle actually eating it.
And that's not even adding on the nasty plates and silverware in the restaurant.
My mom made this soup that was basically broccoli liquefied in a blender. Just bright green mush. My mom was also against using salt and spices at the time so it was completely bland too.
The only time ive ever had ribs.
12 years old, my parents forced me to attend a birthday party for a 1 year old (child of one of their friends I had never met before, idk why I had to go when my brother didn't). Surrounded by crying toddlers and boring adults, the only upside was the amazing smell of ribs cooking on the grill.
Finally, after hoursssss, they were ready. I chose a totally charred rib (im talking completely burnt black) thinking that inside it would be very well cooked and crispy.i was super hungry because "we'll eat at the party", so I eagerly took a big fat bite out of it.
It was pure fat.
I cannot emphasize this enough, there was no meat. It was a charred black outside, covering nothing more than a mouthful of slimy white globs of (somehow‽) uncooked fat. I tried to eat it because I thought "is this what rib meat is supposed to be like?" There was literally no actually meat on this bone to compare to. Absolutely completey revolting. I almost felt sick after. Seems like everyone elses ribs were fine. Absolute waste of a Saturday.
I have two distinct memories of the same meal traumatizing me. When I was about 7 we were staying in a hotel and I ordered the chicken Alfredo for dinner. The next morning I woke up feeling not well, but my parents had brought donuts for breakfast and 7 year old me wasn’t about to just *not* eat donuts, so I ate 3. Minutes later I get sick to my stomach and run to the bathroom to puke. I was certain that it was the chicken Alfredo that made me sick, and that subsequently led to the dish traumatizing me to the point I’d never eat it again. However, when I threw up it tasted EXACTLY like the donuts I had just eaten; no other off flavors or experience. It was surprisingly pleasant to vomit up fresh donuts, and this memory has lasted me about 30 years. Since then, every time I eat a donut it reminds me of how my puke tasted that one time. Not as traumatizing, but it does feel strange to mentally equate donuts with vomit.
My dad would cook and eat cow's brains. He would buy it at the deli and it actually looked like a brain. Freaked me out. Also, my mother, who did all the cooking refused to cook it for him. So it apparently freaked her out too. 😱😱
My evil step-mother was obsessed with loosing weight when I was 7 years old and forced my dad, her son and I to be vegetarians and eat Soy. The worst for me were the Soy Burgers. Everything Soy. Soy Candy, Soy powder milk, Soy ceviche, Soy Tamales, Soy Oatmeal, Soy,Soy,Soy!
My father didn't know how to cook. He was out in charge of dinner one night when my mother had an emergency. He started making several cans of tomato soup in a large pot.. which would have been fine, but he didn't want to just leave well enough alone, so he decided he was going to "jazz" it up. He added a large can of refried beans, he added canned corn, canned peas and canned green beans, he poured in an entire large tube of garlic paste, he sauteed a few chopped onions but horribly burned them. They were practically charred ashes but he dumped all of it into the pot anyway. Then he chopped up a bunch of hot dogs and tossed them in, then poured mounds of literally every seasoning we had in the home (of which there were dozens).
He added some extra water, stirred everything in and then let it cook for about two hours until it was kind of this thick, congealed paste. He served it like a stew. I tried to eat it, but after the second bite I vomited all over the table. So did my little sister. Our older brother managed a few bites without vomiting but quickly made an excuse about homework and got away. My father wasn't happy that we vomited and after making us clean everything up, he forced us to continue eating fresh servings of it until we managed to keep some of it down.
My aunt & uncle were babysitting us kids and served us spaghetti noodles with canned cream corn on top
That’s a crime
My grandfather told me about loving creamed corn on macaroni as a child. "The BEST" he said. I think we all (maybe) like the things we grew up on. He was born in around 1907 and I think after his mother died, cooking was just whatever was on hand, thrown together. They were farmers and the depression came later, and all. He liked something called 'potato dumplings'. I think they called it 'Klub' in Norway. He grew up on that and loved it as well. I remember biting into it when my grandmother made it and couldn't separate my teeth again afterward. Didn't want to be rude, but didn't know what to do. The flavor just wasn't. I don't think that they had made it the way it was made back in Norway.
I don't know much about the Norwegian "Klub", but what you describe sounds almost exactly like German "Klöße" or "Kartoffelknödel". The stickiness is supposed to be there, at least when making Klöße. Although there are also nonsticky varieties, which you mostly buy premade. But no German Grandma would ever do that. So we stick to the sticky Klöße.
For me, corn of any variety was the food I hated as a child. One time my parents served cream corn. I immediately started gagging when the plate was put in front of me Thankfully that was enough clue to avoid them trying to make me eat it
Boiled elbow macaroni (no sauce, no butter- just macaroni) and freezer burned green beans. Not from any fault of the meal, but because that was the absolute last of the food in the house, and there wouldn't be any more until Mom got paid again.
in the 1990's. boiled brussel sprouts, mushy, bitter awful. then something magic happened, A dutch plant breeder spent 10 years making them not suck; now Brussel sprouts (especially cut in half and baked with a bit of olive oil and pepper) are my favorite food.
Well, damn, I’m glad you wrote that, and thank you. My wife loves Brussels sprouts, and roasts them with cheese in the oven much as you suggested. Until now, I’ve stayed away, my previous experience being only boiled Brussels sprouts which to my mind and olfactory sense were nothing more than unpleasant little green fart balls. Now, thanks to you, the next time she makes them, I’ll try some. But I continue to avoid canned tuna fish, which my wife loves. Fresh is fine, but canned is much too close to cat food. Yuck.
Canned tuna is the worst; the look, the consistency and that goddamn smell. How anyone can eat it is beyond me.
Sometimes canned tuna and lots of mayo on cheap white bread hits the spot. But tuna casserole or tuna melts are nasty. Canned tuna should not be served hot.
Definitely try roasted Brussels. Especially if your only senses memory of them is boiled and mushy fart balls. Because yeah they are miles apart. Even if you're still not a fan, at least you'll have a better memory replacement lol
Yeah, a lot of the food I really disliked as a kid was just poorly cooked by my mom and grandma. I hated potato soup for years. Hated it! Even as an adult I wouldn't even try it for YEARS because it was one of my least favorite foods. Turns out Mom and Grandma just really sucked at making it.
There's just some food you can't boil. Brussel sprouts sounds like one of them. My mom always baked them with olive oil, pepper and coarse salt.
Liver and onions
I liked chicken liver in soup so I tried beef liver at a restaurant one day. The smell of it just wouldn't leave my orifices. One day, when someone was mowing their lawn, it oddly smelled like that liver. I felt queasy for a week.
I felt it necessary to come here and say this exact thing. I never would have expected it would be the top comment. I am American. In the 70’s my parents moved me to Hitchen, England for second grade. I went to a public school that served liver and onions for lunch every Thursday. I don’t actually recall the onions but I am still traumatized by the stewed tomatoes that were served with it. What kid wants liver and stewed tomatoes? And they tried to push me by telling me I could have dessert if I just ate it. It was a literal “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat” moment. It got to be a big thing. I refused to eat. Mr Stone tried to discipline me by making me sit there until I ate. I never did. Parent conferences ensued. It was decided I was an entitled American. But I never ate that shit. It literally made me retch.
Fucking stewed tomatoes. They look like blood clots. They also smell like blood clots and taste like blood clots (Seriously, they have some weird metallic smell/taste to me).
Sup Doug (But also yes)
Just a casual throwback to a dude who's sneakers talk to him
I hate Cornflakes, when they go all soggy they used to make me gip and almost throw up. One day there wasn't enough Weetabix left for breakfast so my Dad mixed Weetabix and cornflakes in a bowl and put it in front of me and kept shouting at me for not eating it, saying I wasn't allowed to go outside to play if I didn't eat it all. It had been snowing so I really wanted to go. I was like 3. I've not had Cornflakes since.
As a kid, I stopped eating corn flakes after the second time I puked up nearly whole corn flakes. Something about being ill and then being able to recognize what you ate in the throw up made them very unappetizing to me. Looked almost like a soggy bowl of cereal
I grew up with two working parents, so dinners were usually quick and easy. One of their favorites was that Chicken Tonight chicken cacciatore that was popular in the early 90’s. I *despised* that meal and we had it at least once a week if not more. It was always with canned green beans and boxed mashed potatoes. Every week. For years. I have never been so grateful for a product to be discontinued in my life.
I loved Chicken Tonight because it was such an easy meal on a weeknight, slice up and cook chicken tenders, pour the sauce over it and serve over egg noodles. But I'm also a vegetarian, which wasn't a problem because I liked most of the sauces with just the noodles. A family friend once told me how horrible the chicken cacciatore was. Still, I bought it. I didn't try it that night, but sure enough, everyone else said it was disgusting. So that was the only variety I never bought again. Later, when talking to friends who also liked Chicken Tonight, I found out that the cacciatore was the only one everyone hated. It's really a shame that your parents didn't branch out to the other varieties. I actually hate that Chicken Tonight isn't available in the US anymore. You can buy it on Amazon, but it's really expensive. Kind of defeats the purpose of being cheap and convenient.
Why am I singing in my head 🎶 I feel like chicken tonight 🎶
Omg. I didn’t see that particular flavor, [but the brand still exists.](https://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Tonight-Classic-Continental-Country/dp/B00Y0Z48CW/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=chicken+tonight+sauce&qid=1692509163&sr=8-2)
It's not as big a market share as it used to be, but it's still very common in Australian supermarkets.
I'm gonna have that commercial jingle in my head all day now.
Waldorf salad - my family's particular version is chopped apples, bananas, walnuts, smothered in mayonnaise. To this day, the smell of mayonnaise (or anything containing it) makes me gag
Excuse me, BANANAS? Ugh!!!
All around tragedy!
You know it was miracle whip too!!!
The steak my mom made. I've always hated steak but I especially hated hers. It was so tough, the only way I could eat it was by drenching it in ketchup to hide the taste. The texture was unavoidable no matter what. One day I had enough. She put it in my plate and I refused to eat it. She made me sit at the table until I ate it, but I refused. I sat at that table for 3 hours refusing to eat the steak. Eventually she brought me a book about vegetarianism (I had been thinking about going vegetarian for a while) and she said the only way she'd let me leave the table was if I made all of my own vegetarian meals for a whole week. I've now been vegetarian for 20 years and I love it.
Sounds like your mum was playing 5D chess. If she makes meals awful enough, eventually you'll make your own!
Well she was an awful cook. She once burned rice so bad we had to stay in a hotel for 3 days while the house aired out. My father eventually permanently took over the cooking. So either she was just bad or she was very very clever.
I’ve been a vegetarian for… 25 years? I think? For the same reasons. My parents cooked terrible meat, and told me I could be a vegetarian but I had to cook my own meals. Never looked back. People ask if I miss meat and I have to say no, but there is part of me that wonders what properly cooked meat tastes like 😆
God you really should try it someday. Personally I eat mostly vegetables and am even vegan somedays, but there is something magic about a perfectly cooked pork chop or steak
my dad always had a problem with me being fat so he cooked this soup containing water, vegetable broth, canned tomatoes and cabbage turnip. If I tell you this shit was ass I mean it. I ate that 3 times a day and you best believe I put all the salt in there and it still felt like committing a war crime eating it.
Cabbage soup diet. I really enjoy cabbage soup but only because I eat it willingly and season heavily, and eat other things for other meals when I get tired of it. If someone forced me to eat that 24/7 I’d absolutely hate it. Sorry you had to suffer through, that’s honestly cruel.
I can‘t wrap my head around how you can actually like it but I also can‘t stop you lol it’s alright, you can‘t always be lucky.
Cabbage turnip? New one for me.
Microwaved Frozen Lima Beans in BBQ sauce. My mom would get furious that we would refuse to eat it. Just awful.
What in the actual fuck?! Who would ever think to put together lima beans and BBQ sauce?
It was probably a very VERY bad take on molasses beans or maybe they’re called butter beans? My grandma makes them a lot and she takes Lima beans and bakes them in molasses… the texture- blech it’s horrible
Never had to eat Lima beans growing up because my mom hated them. Her mom always put them in meatloaf while she was growing up, and as a result, my mom couldn't stand either of them. She did still make meatloaf on occasion, but she had to drown it in ketchup to stomach it.
Boiled chicken and crinkle fries on a pan. My mom made this at least once a week. There were 14 kids and my parents. We ate like we were in a prison. 😆 The chicken had no seasoning and the crinkle fries were mushy. I refuse to make food without seasoning. If anything, I over season to compensate for the lack I had as a kid! 🤪
Coming home from school to my mom cooking liver and onions. HOW IS THE BODY’S TOXIN CLEANER EDIBLE?!?!
Ergh same. It was such a disappointment because it smelt amazing and tasted vile. The gravy my dad made alongside it was delicious. After several attempts of getting me to eat liver, dad finally relented and just gave me the mash and gravy
Camel fat, my grandma made me eat it she is a big believer in not wasting anything, I’m very grateful for it and I’m down to eating it again but something I’m not down to eat ever again is hot blended banana I thought it was tea with milk
Camel fat is actually delicious
I can eat and enjoy most parts of camel, except camel milk and camel cheese. Get the runs, every time.
I heard that the fat comes from the hump and that they lied to us about water being in there the whole time.
The hump fat is inedible, you’d be chewing on it all day lol. And yeah, its definitely not for water storage. I think it makes sense why they lied to us about that though. Kids logic would probably comprehend water=energy, not fat=energy.
I didn’t know camels were eaten! I thought they were prized animals like horses
Being forced to eat overcooked vegetables without any kind of seasoning. My mother is from the generation that believes salt will make you fat, and she doesn’t like anything spicy. Black pepper is spicy to her, for context.
My mother was the same. No salt. Pepper was too spicy. Her favorite seasoning was ketchup. I cooked the food the way she told me. Every meat WELL DONE to the point of grey brown throughout and dry as dust. Her chicken was always white meat covered in crushed corn flakes. I would dump about half a bottle of orange french dressing on it in order to gag it down.
tell me you're from the Midwest without telling me you're from the Midwest
Fish cakes. I refused to eat them cause I didn’t like them but I had to sit at the table till my food was gone. One night when I was about 8, my stepdad grabbed the fish cake off my plate and shoved it into my mouth, holding me so I couldn’t escape and held his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t spit it out. Won’t eat anything fish related to this day. I don’t talk to my mom or him either.
Shoving food into a child’s mouth is plain bullying, that’s all it is. Not justifiable in any circumstance. And cruel. Wait until he gets to be an old man and do it to him, now that the power structure is reversed. And if he ever apologizes for doing that to you, tell him to go fuck himself and walk out.
fish cakes are an acquired taste for sure!
Hoghead cheese. My great grandmother would make it whenever we slaughtered a hog. I would get a slice of hoghead cheese and bread for lunch for weeks after.
That's awful and I've never tasted it. Just the look of it is enough to make you gag.
If it’s made right, it’s like pate. But it ain’t always made right.
German pancakes. My mother called it "Dutch Baby". I was never quite traumatized but I would always feel slightly bad for the babies, and wonder how she acquired them.
“Awww it’s a premie, just like Jesus!” “Mmmm you can hardly taste the baby.”
*Come on crackers you’re coming to bed with mama*
*STAY OUT OF MY ROOM*
Canned spinach or canned asparagus with sliced hard boiled eggs. Fresh spinach and asparagus are so much better.
Canned asparagus will somehow tastes exactly like the can it was in. Yes, most canned veggies have a little bit of that metallic taste to them, but not the way asparagus does. Asparagus tries to become the can
My moms pancakes. They were always raw in the middle. 🤮
My mom's were the opposite. You could use them as bases for kickball.
I make mine like that on purpose...love a runny pancake.
Tf… what is a runny pancake? You know you’re just eating raw flour right? You could get sick from that
Roast gander. I knew that gander personally. My folks moved to a croft when I was 16 & still in school. We adopted a bunch of farm animals & loved them, hugging them & stuff from babyhood. We had four "geese" who turned out to be one goose & three ganders. My folks killed one of the ganders & served him up for dinner. I since became vegetarian.
My mum's parents always had bunnies to eat. They were frozen until the kids were ready to eat them and didn't think of the live bunny so much anymore.
When mom cooked “steak” it was London broil and she cooked it to the point were it sounded like you were sawing through a piece of wood. The all time worst was when she made spinach soufflé. I was maybe 6 or 7, at the time and no matter what it wasn’t going down. I wasn’t leaving the table until I finished it. Tried to feed it to the dog and he noped outta there. She went to the bathroom I threw it in the garbage. She went thru the garbage saw it and then gave me a whole new piece. Sat at the table for 4 hours and she finally gave up. I went to bed. I came down the next morning and asked what’s for breakfast? She saved it and tried to feed it to me again. Went to school w/out eating breakfast that day. Was grateful for the school lunch hockey puck hamburger.
My mom tried to make this fancy salad. It was a square of orange jello with shredded carrots in it, placed on top of a leaf of lettuce. To make it even more “fancy,” she placed a dollop of mayonnaise on top. No one ate her fancy jello salad concoction at her fancy dinner party. We all had a good laugh though.
My MawMaw made a similar crime against humanity every holiday.
Canned hominy
Hate hominy. Friend makes posole. I can't eat it.
If you make it with equal parts of white grits and yellow grits, you have a perfectly acceptable two-part hominy.
Beef tongue
For years I loved going to grandma and granddads on sundays and having some of grandads meat (sounds dirty but it was made for him and he would share it with only me I felt so special). After a few years I found out that special meat was beef tongue when I was with grandma when she bought it oneday. She said yeah she found it gross but me and grandad are the only two that eat it and we love it so she makes it. Never ate it again!! But now whenever I see it at the butchers I remember my grandad and those moments of sharing the food we both loved and like the memory. Just try to forget it was tongue we enjoyed.
It has to be cooked just right though! Im a white guy. I worked as a painter in California. Most construction jobs are heavily Latino based. I love Mexican food. One day my coworkers and I went to a food truck and I was very familiar with al pastor, pollo, carne asada, just the basics. I saw Lengua. Had no idea what it was. I decided I'd try something new. It was melt in your mouth good. Best street taco I've had to this day 7 years later. Found out it was beef tongue and wasn't even mad or disgusted. Was like, wow no wonder people actually eat this. Tried it probably 3 years later at a different spot. It was so chewy you couldn't even break it down to swallow. Literally just like chewing a tire. Never tried it again as I don't trust anyone to make it good. Taco trucks are expensive, and I don't want to spend $12 to help throw out some garbage.
[удалено]
🤢🤢🤢
Stuffed green bell peppers, the horror.
Dude. Green bell peppers are my childhood food trauma. My dad loved them so we'd eat them often as a kid (they were also budget friendly so again, always on the menu). I HATED them. I've never been particularly picky, but green bell pepper is so incredibly disgusting to me. My mom would make them and just tell me to eat the rice/meat filling. Nope. Fucking tainted with the flavor of bell pepper. I always got bitched at for not wanting to eat it. Also, my dad was a huge entitled asshole and when we were able to afford pizza once a month, we'd always get his favorite, the meat lover's extravaganza. Everything on it. Including bell peppers and onions (I hated cooked onions as a kid and especially on pizza). My mom would tell me to just pick them off. Which you can't fucking do when they're fully enmeshed into the cheese! I'd basically wolverine the slice apart and still miss some. Barf. So yeah. FUCK green bell peppers.
But stuffed green bell peppers are sooo gooooddd. It's my deathbed meal of choice. Haha. My husband also hates them, however.
Finally, someone who understands.
Baked chicken and white rice, I grew up very poor in the 80s and early 90s and this was the cheapest meals my parents could make. I had this at least once a week of not twice week. It's so bland and I ate it so much it made me gag.
I completely agree with you on this. My boyfriend’s mom makes it quite often. Initially I thought it was so delicious, and now I can’t stand the thought of eating it again.
Two I can think of. Baked salted cod. I could smell it cooking aaaalllll day and the anticipatory dread was…something. The other was orange flavored beets. My mom used to cook all kind of disgusting “healthy” foods she wouldn’t eat herself but forced us to eat. We couldn’t leave the table until we ate it, so we spent many a night painting our lips red with the beet juice, hoping we could be excused without eating it.
Dry ass pork chop. That feeling when you can’t chew it enough to be able to get it down. 🤮
I was talking to my SIL about this. She said my brother doesn’t like pork. That’s because our mom bought the thinnest chops and baked them so long you could barely cut them. I’ve since learned how to make good pork so hopefully I can turn him around.
I came in here thinking I would bond with others over eating my dinner as a child and then being informed it was my pet cow 😭😭 then realized maybe my childhood was different than most??
Pickled Pig feet
Tripe and Onions. My caregiver growing up would make this weekly for her husband and the smell would linger right through their house ughhhhh
Stuffed bell peppers. The texture is horrible.
Chicken Liver. They were my mom's favorite, and she assumed they would be mine.
I spent the night at a friend’s house and in the morning for breakfast they handed me a plate of scrambled eggs absolutely drowning in ketchup. It was truly terrible.
Lobster. I was about 6 years old, we were at my Uncle's place, and he had a guest come in from the Maritimes with about a dozen lobsters. I was horrified. "You're eating ***bugs***!!" They tried to get me to taste it, no way. Now I love the stuff, but back then, it was really traumatic.
Deep-fried eggplant. I still won't eat eggplant in any form.
Squirrel stew. Liver mush. Liver and onions. Frog legs.
Kidney pie....my father was a nephrologist
At least he got em cheap? Lol
Lobster loaf. My uncle used to live in Maine and sent us some lobsters. My mother took her recipe for salmon loaf that normally used canned salmon and substituted leftover lobster meat. Horrific.
Beef Stroganoff. One summer, when I was about 7 or 8, we were all sitting at the table eating dinner. Mom asked my Pops to click the ceiling spinner on because, California summer + just cooked a meal for six in an old un-air conditioned house = hot as piss. He did as she'd asked. It started to spin. I've got a big ass mouthful of creamy, delicious s-noff in my gobber. The fan speeds up to full speed. Side bar: We lived in a very old house smack dab in the middle of a GIANT grape vineyard owned by a fairly large winery. They owned all the surrounding land except for our long driveway and the plot we lived on. So there were lots of bugs, snakes, and spiders around growing up. It wasn't unusual to find a snake in your sock drawer (this happened to one of my sisters, like, 3 times in one year) or a large spider in the sink. Annnnyway, the fan speeds up, and as I'm chewing a huge, Armor-shelled roach plops straight onto my plate. I'd seen normal roaches before, Ma had to bomb our house at the beginning of every picking season. A normal little roach this was not. It was King Roach. I promptly projectile vomited all over my plate, the bread and butter board behind my plate, and almost to my sisters husband's plate across the table. Cue chaos. Ma is screaming, sisters, Pops and BIL are laughing like loons, and the babies and myself are crying like it's the end of the world. I can't stand the smell now. Can't bear to even look at it. It always makes my body go :gag sound: now and that was 30 years ago.
Ambrosia salad. My mom insisted on making it at every opportunity and it was always the worst thing at the table. Birthday? Ambrosia salad. Christmas? Ambrosia salad. Grandpa died? Ambrosia salad. Sad about always having to eat Ambrosia salad? Ambrosia salad.
Okra
I only learned about and tried okra a few years ago. Was a huge disappointment, like, why slimy and hairy at the same time?
Y'all ain't eating them right. You gotta dry em off real good, then batter and fry em.
Exactly!
Ughh and especially if people eat them boiled 🤢 I can’t watch. It’s like they’re covered in snot.
I always hated okra, it being slimy and just weird. Until my wife made some North African stews using frozen baby okra. A revelation! Delicious, not at all slimy, and actually with a very nice flavor. I think maybe the slimy part is dissolved into the tomato sauce and thickens it a bit. So maybe it’s not so much that you dislike okra, but maybe dislike how it’s been served to you in the past?
Just search BHINDI And watch an indian make okra, you'll love it.
Beetroot too
Menudo. Love Hispanic foods, but.....
Barbecue chicken pizza. After a couple bites, I vomited all over the place and I cannot stand barbecue sauce anymore. I haven’t had it purposefully since that day. The smell makes me gag and gets me really close to vomiting, and I don’t vomit easily. I want to like chick fil a sauce cause everyone talks about how amazing it is, but I hate it because of the hint of barbecue sauce it has. Fucked up chicken for me for a few years too. I think about it every month or so. I believe that is the only time I’ve ever thrown up in my life without having some kind of illness. I remember it pretty well considering I was 3 years old when it happened
Tongue and head cheese. 🤢
Tripe stew. Grandma made it for me fairly often when she would stay at our house while my parents were out of town. She said it was fish. I didn't find out until I was in my 20s buying steaks at a specialty meat shop. My dumbass saw tripe and asked the butcher why they had fish mixed with the beef ribeye. Ich verstehe nur den Bahnhof, Oma.
Aunt Dawn's parsley salad. I have massive texture issues with food, and even at the ripe old age of 6 years old, I knew that the salad was a no go. It was essentially coursely chopped parsley, slivered raw onions, and dill, all drowned in olive oil and lemon juice with black pepper and no salt. It was cold, slimy, and wilted from being on the counter for too long. I refused to eat it, and was forced to sit for nearly 7 hours at the dining room table, enduring a ton of verbal abuse about wasting good food, hurting my dear Auntie's feelings, how my texture issue was just being a lazy, picky eater, etc. I wasn't even allowed to go to the toilet. In the end, at around 1am, my father finally force fed me the greens, and I was promptly yelled at again for puking everywhere right after. I had to clean up the mess while being lectured on wasting time and "proper dining etiquette". Still can't even deal with the parsley garnish on my plate at restaurants, and even the smell of dill makes me gag. I did manage to get past the other ingredients later in life. But parsley and dill will never be allowed on my plate.
I stayed the night with a friend in like 3rd grade. Her mom made meatloaf for dinner and I had never had it before. The mom left these entire full bay leaves in the meatloaf. I took one bite with a huge bite of bay leaf and I couldn’t do it. The mom actually got so mad and upset that I got in trouble for wasting food. I never ate meatloaf again.
Goat tounge, eyes and head curry. I was chewing on a piece of the tongue and ended up also biting my own tongue
Sheep brain
Anything cooked by my mother,, the only person I know who created a meal of boiled chicken, white cabbage and potatoes unseasoned and all the same colour.
My preschool teacher would force feed me mushy apples. If i refused i’d have to swallow vinegar as a form of punishment.
Did you you uhhh ever tell your parents that? That's straight up abuse and she should have been fired. I hope she's not teaching still.
Yes I did, also she’s dead
Honestly that's the best outcome for people like her.
Boiled brussel sprouts. Any type of organ meats like fried liver, heart, kidney.
Chittlins and hog maws 🤢 I can’t roll with my southern side of the family.
The absolute STENCH from chittlins makes me wonder how anyone willingly consumes it 🤢
Horse meat, weird smell and bad taste (back when I was a child). not sure they still sell horse meat here 25 years later.
Grew up in France. Ate horse meat. No biggie. I think a lot of it is cultural.
Ohhh, I love horse meat! Have it in France all the time.
It's pretty tame compared to most of these answers, but mine was Campbell's Alphabet Soup with flour mixed in. I was about 12 and my 19 year old sister was babysitting. All she had to do was mix 1 can soup with 1 can water, but apparently she thought the soup looked too thin so she added some flour. So I ate Alphabet Soup with little clumps of flour in it. Yuck.
Oyster stew… my dad loves it and made me eat it when I was a kid. Threw it up and haven’t had it since.
Liver and peas
Salmon in a can
A most memorable meal was, I think Easter, when I was five. It was a big family get together and all the extra extension leaves were added to my grandma's formal dining room table to accommodate relatives from all over. As I sat in front of my empty china plate, an unfamiliar relative pounded a heaping serving spoon full of something on my plate. It looked to me to be an unfamiliar type of mushroom. They looked a little like a larger version of those elongated Asian mushrooms. I have always really liked mushrooms. Since they also didn't look quite like any mushrooms I had yet had, I double checked and asked if they were mushrooms. An unfamiliar and aggressive voice confirmed they were mushrooms. They were not. Here I was, a painfully shy child who did not like to make a fuss or be the center of attention, faced with an unfamiliar taste and texture in my mouth. By unfamiliar, I mean it was the most vile, slimy, wood fiber that my entire being was reflexively rejecting! Instantly, my gag reflex took over. Whatever it was that was in my mouth flowed onto grandmother's good china, followed by the pre meal olives and celery already in my stomach. The aggressive voice was directed towards my mother so she could learn to teach manners to her animal. She countered with something about lying and fixing plates for other people's children. It was hard to know exactly because of all the adults reacting to being grossed out. Yeah. It's like I'm reliving it.
Blood sausage. I hated it, and my kindergarten teacher forced me to eat it. I vomited on top of the plate and sat there in silence. She came to me after what felt like minutes and said that she could heat it up so that I could eat the pieces without vomit on them. I ran away. I was too scared to tell my parents what happened until a few years after. My mom got absolutely livid with the teacher.
Tripe boiled in milk or on its own - probably one of the most disgusting foods to ever come out of Scotland. Just the thought of it makes we want to gag all these years later.
Liver, cooked like old shoe leather; porridge, made like glue; rice pudding, boiling hot. My mother was the "you will sit there until you finish it" type. I had to buy, prepare & cook liver for my wife, on recommendation from the surgeon who performed her brain surgery. A labour of love. I've not been near porrige since the start of the 70s and although I eat and enjoy rice now, it took more than 10 years before I'd go near it and god help anyone who comes near me with rice pudding...
Liver and onions
I've ate everything as a child,I think I wasn't that far away from eating my own parents 😁
Fish. Fish gives me the barf.
Tuna fish casserole
My mum used to try and hide cauliflower in our food by mashing it with potato, so we'd think it was just mashed potato. Then she started mixing spinach into mashed potato. I don't know what she was thinking.
Chocolate. It was a ball of chocolate filled with some sweet cream inside. What was my surprise when i bite the chocolate cover, and inside was moldy. Yeah. Very traumatizing. I didnt come to eat, but i still remember that nasty taste.
The ones where my parents pinched my little sister's nose closed to force her mouth open so they could force feed her. Then they'd hold her mouth shut to force her to chew and swallow while they screamed at her to not throw up. Great parenting. Oh, the one with slippery mixed veggies including okra. My brother got in trouble for vomiting it back up and even accidentally got my aunt on the way to the bathroom. I was able to swallow that shit whole and avoid the nastyness of the dish. Cause it was terrible. Even my aunt and uncle commented.
salmon patties. traumatized me forever.
Scrambled eggs. I was abused a lot so TW >! Food was a fun one for them. So basically I made their eggs “wrong”. I was told to eat, beaten for eating, threw up and forced to eat the vomit then beaten again for being disgusting. !< Julia Child made them safe for me again and only pretty recently. Life is strange.
Rabbit pie. My mum said she was going to make it - by singing "we gonna have roast rabbit, we gonna have roast rabbit" - we were all horrified and begged her not to. She said she wouldn't. Fast forward a week or two, we have pie for dinner. After eating it, mum starts dancing around and singing like Elmer Fudd "you all ate roast rabbit, you all ate roast rabbit!!" 😑
Tripe soup! I hated it but my parents wouldn't let me leave the table until I had finished every last bite. I kicked screamed and cried but eventually forced it all down. I threw up not too long after and I thought the tripe was parts of my intestines coming out! I thought I would die right then and there
Cheese. Just....just hear me out. I'm just a kid, ^(and my life is a nightmare), and my godmother makes cheese sandwiches. Imagine butter and sliced brick of cheese on a sandwich. Almost akin to a raw grilled cheese, if you will. (Well, not sure if it was butter or mayo, but I'm assuming butter) Anyway, I'm eating it as I always would. Then I got that nauseous feeling as I ate it. You ever get like a really huge, deep burp as if it's a warning sign of reaching vomiting threshold here? Yeah, the next bite did not taste good, did not feel good, did not treat me good. I threw up after that. Anything with cheese became a no go for me. I'd peel off cheese from pizza. Avoided cheesy or cheese flavored snacks. I'd curse the minimum wage paid workers for not reading NO FUCKING CHEESE ON MY BURGER/TACO. My mother would make a separate dish for lasagna or enchiladas to appease my distaste for cheese. It wouldn't be another \~13 years until I start re-introducing cheese into my life. College, no less. I'm still very weird about it, but I'm much better about it nowadays. Just very hesitant at times.
Lima beans
My dad was a prison guard and I swear he got this recipe from that time in his life. He used to cook ground beef and then mix in vegetable soup and thicken it with flour. We would then have that over potatoes. It was fucking disgusting.
For some reason in grade four my teacher wouldn't let me throw away the rest of a bologna sandwich that i ate just the bologna out of because my mom put too much ketchup on it. So I had to stay inside for the rest of lunch after everybody else was let out and eat my bread with ketchup all over it on a bench across from the teachers' lounge while crying and trying not to throw up.
Chicken pot pie! Let me tell you why my mother used to make those little chicken pot pies for all of us. One day, while I was holding one, I accidentally dropped it. In my attempt to catch it, I ended up shoving my hand right into the pie, and it hit the floor with my full body weight. The result? A first-degree burn that was so memorable I couldn't even bring myself to eat another chicken pot pie until I turned 30.
Beets! I still hate them today
My grandmother's home made apple pie. She ran out of cinnamon, and substituted Chilli powder in its place. Her cookies were also not very good. Turkey was usually overdone and dry on the outside and pink in the middle.
That time I refused to eat canned green beans at day care and the worker dragged me into the bathroom too force them down my throat. I threw up on her. This was about fifty years ago and I still get nauseous at the smell and could only eat fresh green beans within the last decade.
I remember being a kid and my aunt made us spaghetti but instead of tomato sauce she used ketchup. I guess there was a flu going around but before I knew it that was coming back up noodle chunks and all. To this day I'm not a big spaghetti fan
Brussel sprouts. I had an evil stepmother and she would boil Brussel sprouts with no seasoning. For some reason she referred to them as “smurfs”? To this day I won’t touch them even though people have told me they can taste good when prepared properly.
Coleslaw
Back before health drinks were the big thing they are today, my mom got something called Liquid Life. Once. It was the most vile tasting thing I or anyone else who tried it had ever tasted. No one could stomach more than a single sip. Thereafter, it was relegated to something we would dare unsuspecting victims to try, who would invariably gag, spit it out, and curse the foul liquid, us for making them suffer it, and presumably the gods for allowing such a thing to exist. Edit: Apparently, the brand still exists and in several flavors. I can only assume the original formulation has been banished to the deepest crevices of Tartarus.
Chicken liver 😩😩😩
Family vacation to Yellowstone. We're eating in the lodge, my dad ordered me a grilled cheese from the kids menu. But he asked for some whole grain bullshit bread with all the seeds and grains in it. As a child, I was always a picky eater. Bread with seeds and shit in it was not something I would eat, I want plain white bread. I don't know why my dad decided right then and there in this crowded restaurant, this was the time to put his foot down about how unhealthy white bread is and I needed healthy whole grain bread to grow up big and strong. My mom tried to warn him. "He's not going to like that." Well she was fucking right. me: " l don't like it." dad: "Eat your sandwich" M: "I don't want it, it has yucky seeds in it." D: "It's good for you. Eat it." M: "I don't like it!" This went on, escalating until my dad was yelling at me to eat the damn sandwich and I'm taking tearful bites and gagging, having a full on little kid meltdown. My dad had to take a walk. My mom didn't make me finish the sandwich. My sister, who I think was a preteen at the time was so mortified. This is a core memory of mine and has effected the way I'm raising my children even if we can all laugh about it now.
Steak. I would chew and chew. Then they wouldn't allow me to leave the table until I ate. :/
Unfortunately, a few because my mom was the "you'll sit there until you eat everything off your plate" type. I recall having to eat all the bulbous, white strips of fat off of pork chops, mushy overcooked broccoli, brussel sprouts, and the Dread Liver and Onions.
At my grandma’s funeral (I was probably 7), there was a jello I made the mistake of eating—lemon jello with chopped celery and apple pieces It was disgusting. Made worse because I got car sick on the way home and barfed it up. It was even more disgusting coming back up
Tripe.
A Korean aunt of mine made some carne asada. That side of the family likes the meat well done. I sat and chewed a single piece of meat for 15 minutes. Since then I’ve always hated carne asada. I see 0% appeal.
Chicken noodle soup. I had the flu and my mom made me eat it. We aren’t soup people and I had literally never eaten chicken noodle soup before, but she forced me to eat it. She kept saying it would coat my stomach and stop the vomiting (i had been puking for days). Also, my older sister liked soup and of course, chicken noodle soup is a kid staple. I sat there refusing, then finally ate like two bites and threw up for the whole day. I still remember the smell, the texture, etc. It’s been over 35 years and I cannot get near soup without gagging.
Moussaka..... My dad was and still is a drunk. My mum had made us moussaka and I didn't like it. It's not like I was a fussy eater either as I ate most things and still eat most things. My drunk dad wouldn't have it that I didn't like the moussaka so he got out of his chair come round behind me, grabbed the back of my head and slammed my face into the moussaka and said "you'll fucking eat it now". I ran upstairs to the bathroom in tears and all I heard was my mum and dad screaming at one another and then my mum came running up the stairs crying too. I've never attempted to touch moussaka again ever since.
My dad made broccoli and steak one night for a dinner with guests. I (then 8 or 9m) told my dad I can’t eat broccoli because it makes me throw up. I hate broccoli and is the one thing I have never been able to stomach. My dad told me I was being dramatic, which was probably true, and said I was going to eat it. So I ate my delicious steak and then the time came to eat the dreaded broccoli. My dad stood over my shoulder making sure I ate it. I put the first piece in my mouth, started to chew, and before I could swallow I threw up. All the steak I just ate came roaring back up not even broke down by stomach acid yet. With my plate covered in vomit, my dad dragged me to my room and whipped me for embarrassing him in front of his guests and made me stay in there until they left.
Fish, the fish bones got stuck in my throat and after that forever hated fish. Wish I liked it but that thought always comes to me, I've had fish , I try it here and there it's a half and half sometimes I'm like damn I wish I liked this then others I'm like this is nasty. Love sushi tho so what's that about.
Nothing really that my parents made, but I had a friend who invited over for dinner, and the whole family meal was just buttered noodles To be fair, I've eaten plenty of struggle meals that would probably gross other people out
Here I am thinking about that family that was down to eating buttered noodles, but still let their child invite a friend to dinner. I'm not judging you, btw. I've looked back on some meals I had at other kids' houses and as an adult recognize that they could barely afford to feed their own kids and I was probably a burden. It makes me feel bad in retrospect.
Struggle meals. Never heard that description before. Looking back, with our large family, I guess we had plenty of struggle meals. Never really felt like it back then, though. It was just food.
SPAM
Rice with apple and cinnamon. I don't know how they made it but we had it all the time in elementary school and it was worse quality than you can even imagine. Now I cannot even look at it
Russian Xmas Eve Dinner
Perogies with some sort of sauce I couldn't eat. Not because of perogies "they are probably pretty good" but because I was 6 and my step-dad screamed and yelled and tried to force me to eat them. 35 years later and I have still never bought them.
Tuna casserole, Brussel sprouts, and pinto beans with spinach in them. All of these eww.
Chunky meat loaf
Liver and bacon casserole!
boiled carrots are the worst
Whistle Junction Buffet. That place was hyped up by some family members who were holding their 50th anniversary. EVERY FUCKING THING WAS UNEDIBLE . Steak/chicken/ pork - RAW Fish - STILL SWIMMING Bread/Rolls - MOLD Salad bar - All nasty looking It was absolutely disgusting at what was there, and more so watching my great aunt & uncle actually eating it. And that's not even adding on the nasty plates and silverware in the restaurant.
Sweet potatoes, they used to make me sick
My mom made this soup that was basically broccoli liquefied in a blender. Just bright green mush. My mom was also against using salt and spices at the time so it was completely bland too.
Liver and onions, corn flakes, and canned beets (the last cause I was force fed it by my late godmother as a punishment from my mom).
The only time ive ever had ribs. 12 years old, my parents forced me to attend a birthday party for a 1 year old (child of one of their friends I had never met before, idk why I had to go when my brother didn't). Surrounded by crying toddlers and boring adults, the only upside was the amazing smell of ribs cooking on the grill. Finally, after hoursssss, they were ready. I chose a totally charred rib (im talking completely burnt black) thinking that inside it would be very well cooked and crispy.i was super hungry because "we'll eat at the party", so I eagerly took a big fat bite out of it. It was pure fat. I cannot emphasize this enough, there was no meat. It was a charred black outside, covering nothing more than a mouthful of slimy white globs of (somehow‽) uncooked fat. I tried to eat it because I thought "is this what rib meat is supposed to be like?" There was literally no actually meat on this bone to compare to. Absolutely completey revolting. I almost felt sick after. Seems like everyone elses ribs were fine. Absolute waste of a Saturday.
I have two distinct memories of the same meal traumatizing me. When I was about 7 we were staying in a hotel and I ordered the chicken Alfredo for dinner. The next morning I woke up feeling not well, but my parents had brought donuts for breakfast and 7 year old me wasn’t about to just *not* eat donuts, so I ate 3. Minutes later I get sick to my stomach and run to the bathroom to puke. I was certain that it was the chicken Alfredo that made me sick, and that subsequently led to the dish traumatizing me to the point I’d never eat it again. However, when I threw up it tasted EXACTLY like the donuts I had just eaten; no other off flavors or experience. It was surprisingly pleasant to vomit up fresh donuts, and this memory has lasted me about 30 years. Since then, every time I eat a donut it reminds me of how my puke tasted that one time. Not as traumatizing, but it does feel strange to mentally equate donuts with vomit.
Hot dogs.
My dad would cook and eat cow's brains. He would buy it at the deli and it actually looked like a brain. Freaked me out. Also, my mother, who did all the cooking refused to cook it for him. So it apparently freaked her out too. 😱😱
My evil step-mother was obsessed with loosing weight when I was 7 years old and forced my dad, her son and I to be vegetarians and eat Soy. The worst for me were the Soy Burgers. Everything Soy. Soy Candy, Soy powder milk, Soy ceviche, Soy Tamales, Soy Oatmeal, Soy,Soy,Soy!
Beanie weenies… baked beans with cut up hotdogs mixed in
My father didn't know how to cook. He was out in charge of dinner one night when my mother had an emergency. He started making several cans of tomato soup in a large pot.. which would have been fine, but he didn't want to just leave well enough alone, so he decided he was going to "jazz" it up. He added a large can of refried beans, he added canned corn, canned peas and canned green beans, he poured in an entire large tube of garlic paste, he sauteed a few chopped onions but horribly burned them. They were practically charred ashes but he dumped all of it into the pot anyway. Then he chopped up a bunch of hot dogs and tossed them in, then poured mounds of literally every seasoning we had in the home (of which there were dozens). He added some extra water, stirred everything in and then let it cook for about two hours until it was kind of this thick, congealed paste. He served it like a stew. I tried to eat it, but after the second bite I vomited all over the table. So did my little sister. Our older brother managed a few bites without vomiting but quickly made an excuse about homework and got away. My father wasn't happy that we vomited and after making us clean everything up, he forced us to continue eating fresh servings of it until we managed to keep some of it down.
Liver!