What is something you grew up being served that you hate to eat or won't eat?

[DawnM]

My mom was not a great cook.   And she sometimes liked to try those nasty things posted in Good Housekeeping like pimento loaf stuff......

But the thing she ALWAYS made for holidays, including Easter, was jello salad with all kinds of nasty stuff in it......cottage cheese, pineapple, cherries, etc.....

I won't eat jello to this day.  I will ONLY eat it if I am in the hospital on a liquid diet and that is all I can have, and even then, I gag a bit.  But add in gross stuff and 🤮

You?

[Laura Corin]

Egg sandwiches. My mum didn't make them but they often came up at other people's houses. For some reason I found them almost disgusting.

Oh, butter on sandwiches. There are still Brits who use both butter and mayonnaise in a sandwich. Inexplicable.

My mum was a pretty good cook 

Edited April 21, 2019 by Laura Corin

[elegantlion]

Hamburger macaroni - not sure if it had a name, but not cheesy macaroni, just some gross noodles with bits of hamburger. Hamburger helper would have been a step up. 

Minute steaks - they were cheap and full of gristle. They were gross. Why even bother with meat if you can't eat it. 

My mom was not a good cook - she could do spaghetti. She is, however, a great baker, and that was an issue. We had too many sweets in the house. She makes lovely cinnamon rolls from scratch. I will still eat those. 

[HomeAgain]

Pinto beans.  They were cheap, plentiful, and a pot could simmer for days.  While I can appreciate most of what I ate growing up and how my mom stretched a short food budget with a lot of healthy things, pinto bean soup will never be on our menu here at my house. 

@elegantlion, my husband's hated food was hamburger, eggs, and noodles.  No seasoning beyond salt and pepper.  Just all mixed up like that with a side of canned veggies. 

ETA: I will be pretty interested in what my kids say their most hated food was growing up.  I'm sure couscous will be up there on my oldest's list.

 

Edited April 21, 2019 by HomeAgain

[Pippen]

Liver and onions. And canned peas.

M y mom could cook. I just hated these. And we had to take at least three bites of everything. 

[Arcadia]

My mom rarely cooks and my dad doesn’t cook. What I still won’t eat is bean sprouts whether it was my aunts’ cooking or food court food. I just tell whoever cooking to make my noodle dish without bean sprouts.

I gag on leafy vegetables. So while I don’t hate them, I avoid them or eat very slowly. I puked a few times on those so my relatives know why I avoid them.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Arcadia
Typing error

[Carol in Cal.]

So many things.

Bubble and squeak.

Meatloaf made out of cheap ground beef, the approximate texture of a very wet sponge.

Slimy spinach or anything containing it.

Canned vegetables other than corn

Cooked carrots.

Peas.  
OMGosh how I hate peas.

Squash unless very disguised.

[Selkie]

Meat. I could never stand it, even as a little kid.

Also, my mom made this weird wilted spinach salad. I have no idea what was in the dressing, but it actually smelled and tasted like garbage to me, so my brother and I always called it Garbage Salad.😂

[lavender's green]

Spam.

Some dish my mom called "sh!t on a shingle." Toast with a nasty salty white chunky gravy plopped on top.

Potato soup that my grandma made. Huge slices of potatoes and onions simmered in water for not nearly long enough, with a dash of milk, and a ton of black pepper. It had a nasty texture and no taste, except for the onions.

My parents' meatloaf, cooked with a thick layer of ketchup on top. 

Every single one of my aunts had their own version of that jello salad stuff, and they'd get extremely offended at holiday meals if I didn't try theirs. I was a compliant, people-pleaser child, and I have ten aunts. Never again.

[Lady Florida.]

My mom was a good cook but she's from a generation when commercially canned food was a new and convenient thing, especially since we were city dwellers. The only things I wouldn't eat today that she used to serve are Campbell's soups and some canned vegetables. In her later years she got away from that, but when she was a single working mother, that convenience was a big help to her.

The main dishes she cooked were always good. 

[DesertBlossom]

I don't really remember much of what my mom cooked, except our Sunday pot roasts. I don't think I was a picky eater. 

But I hated poached eggs, served with a piece of toast and then covered in the poaching liquid. The soggy toast was more than I could handle.  I have made poached eggs a few times recently and I actually like them, but I don't serve them with soggy toast.

[Tap]

Venison, Elk, Bear.

My family were big into  hunting. I can't stand any kind of meat that is gamey. I know people will say that it wasn't hung right if it was gamey, but my parents definitely knew what they were doing. (My dad owned a sporting goods store at one point and was a avid outdoors man). I just don't like game meats.

[Carrie12345]

My mom was a decent cook. Her parents owned a tavern, so I guess she *had to be good at the basics!  But she constantly tried to force feed me broccoli, even though it made me puke.  I do not eat broccoli.  Some of my kids eat it, but not all of them, and that’s a-okay by me!

[MEmama]

My mom was a great cook--she went through ethnic food kicks after trips to places like Morocco and Turkey, and took lots of Asian cooking classes at the community college. I definitely benefitted from her culinary excursions. And my dad cooked a lot of fantastic southern foods and was a terrific baker. 

However. I am a product of the 70's and much of her cooking definitely reflected the era. Creamed vegetables, meatloaf, tuna casseroles and stroganoff, pimento spread, jello with weird stuff...all of that was commonplace. And because she liked to experiment, things like head cheese, cow tongue, steak tartar (raw meat with I think raw egg?), eels that my brother caught, bran muffins (gag!!), rattlesnake that my brother shot in the backyard...everything was fair game. And ALL of it had to be eaten (except the head cheese, I was exempt from that). 

It took me 30 years before I would willingly eat a Brussels sprout--I love the way I cook them, so it seems a shame. Just the thought of the smell of bran muffins still makes me want to throw up, and none of my other childhood trauma food I wouldn't make today anyway.

It's funny how many of the same foods DH and I grew up eating and gagging over. We have never, ever forced DS to eat anything and he's an adventurous eater, so hopefully he won't bear the same culinary scars and hang ups that we have. 

[bluemongoose]

Hamburger helper, canned veggies, Lima beans, shake and bake, rice a Roni, tuna casserole, cabbage salad, Velveeta cheese, and empty the fridge goulashes...ie take every leftover from the fridge and put them into a lot together...warm and serve.

 

My mother was a good cook, but she worked and so we often had fast meals.

[May]

German chocolate cake with coconut chocolate frosting. I can eat it if I’m a guest in someone’s home though.

[Loowit]

Liver and onions.  Mom didn't like it either though.  Mom only served it once a year when dad's uncle was butchering his cows.  The only ones who liked it were dad and my brother so mom usually made sure there was other stuff to eat also.

I also dislike wax beans and squash of any kind (expect pumpkin pie).  My parents used to make me eat it but it made me gag.  After I threw up after trying a bite of wax beans once they never made me try it again.

[AK_Mom4]

Organ meat - liver, tongue, kidney, whatever.  Just gags me - I ate it as a kid because that’s what we had to eat but no thanks.

There are a few other things I do t choose to eat - chicken salad - but mostly because I dont like the taste. 

DD17 dislikes the taste of Mexican food.  I’m not sure where I went wrong raising her......

[73349]

Fortunately, meatloaf was not served very often. I have never made it as an adult.

[MrsMommy]

Lima beans. I have always hated them. And sometimes, we had them on Christmas, and I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I ate them. On CHRISTMAS, for cryin' out loud! I will never make them. I will never eat them. And I certainly will never make my children eat them!

OK, I'm better now. 😉 

[gingersmom]

Lamb chops, steak, hamburgers

Just say no. My mother cooked them (badly) several times a week.

[Night Elf]

My mom makes salmon patties using canned salmon. There are always bones in it that crackle when I try to chew the pattie. Yuck!! I mashed the heck out of it when I was a kid and had to eat it. I know she still makes it but if I have anything to say about it, I never want to eat one again!

[TrixieB]

Liver

Canned spinach

Butter on sandwiches

Pot roast - I would guess there is some way to prepare it that doesn't end up with a very dry texture.  My mom didn't use a meat thermometer; instead she cooked the meat extra long to be sure it was done.  She did that for all types of meat, but I remember pot roast being the driest.

[PrincessMommy]

cooked frozen brussel sprouts.  

that jello thing with pre-grated cheese and pineapple.  Nasty stuff

creamed spinach

macaroni and cheese (boxed kind) with cut-up cheap hotdogs.

canned tuna and noodle casserole. 

pretty much any kind of canned vegetable.

Edited April 21, 2019 by PrincessMommy

[WendyLady]

Canned green beans. Yuck!  My parents always made me eat a couple to taste them. So slimy!!  And why did we eat them so often? I have never in my adult life needed to make canned green beans. 

I am planning to make bacon wrapped green beans with fresh green beans for dinner tonight! They are great and not slimy. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Pippen said:

Liver and onions. And canned peas.

M y mom could cook. I just hated these. And we had to take at least three bites of everything. 

Ha! That’s mine, too. My mom loooooves liver! I think it’s very distrubing. And canned peas were so revolting. 

My mom used to make this casserolle she called “Red Capped Franks.” This was a panful of (bad) macaroni and cheese, with hot dogs sitting on top of it, split down the center and each with ketchup in the split. I despised this meal on so many levels - everything was touching, none of these things tasted good on their own and I DO NOT like ketchup on hot dogs. 

 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, WendyLady said:

Canned green beans. Yuck!  My parents always made me eat a couple to taste them. So slimy!!  And why did we eat them so often? I have never in my adult life needed to make canned green beans. 

I am planning to make bacon wrapped green beans with fresh green beans for dinner tonight! They are great and not slimy. 

There are whole categories of vegetables I hated until I was in my twenties because I had only ever eaten them from a can and cooked to death. I had no idea vegetables could be so tasty. 

[TechWife]

Meatloaf 

Canned soup 

[Junie]

I realized long after child that most of my food aversions relate to texture rather than taste.  Even smooth textures like soup and yogurt bother me.  If I had been born more recently, I would have ended up in feeding therapy and gotten over most of these.  Maybe.

 

meatloaf (with chopped onions mixed in)

tomato soup

cooked pudding (instant is fine)

 

I'm sure there are more, but I have tried to forget.  😉  My parents' rule was that you couldn't leave the table unless you cleaned your plate.  I sat at the table until bedtime many nights.  My parents didn't realize that if I leaned to the right *just enough* I was able to see the TV in the living room.  Or maybe they just didn't let on that they realized...  Hmmm.

 

My stepmother made me and my sister eat hog-maw one time because her son requested it for his birthday dinner.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Junie

[DesertBlossom]

I feel like the theme of this thread is poor quality foods like canned vegetables and convenience foods that were common in the 70s and 80s. And overcooked vegetables. I think convenience foods have improved a lot, and internet access to a billion recipes and their reviews have seriously improved our dinners in America. Because most of these hated foods I don't *think* people eat much anymore.

The first time I made posole DH was rather skeptical because his only experience with hominy was plain. Like straight out of a can. I don't know where she got it or why his mom had it, but she didn't know what to with it. That would definitely scare a kid away from it.

[Pen]

Meatloaf

though  dc had a kids meat muffin recipe that wasn’t too bad

mutton and mint jelly

[MercyA]

God bless my mother; she never made me eat anything I didn't like. ❤️

But there were some things she served that I still won't eat: peas, squash, sweet potatoes, cooked cabbage, and PB&J (just PB or just J, please!) At Christmas, I couldn't stomach her rum balls or the gifted fruitcake with the fake little pieces of fruit in it.

I don't understand all the hate toward meatloaves. I'm a vegetarian now, but I'd love a good veggie loaf. It's a comfort food to me, like mac & cheese. 

[HomeAgain]

1 hour ago, WendyLady said:

Canned green beans. Yuck!  My parents always made me eat a couple to taste them. So slimy!!  And why did we eat them so often? I have never in my adult life needed to make canned green beans. 

I am planning to make bacon wrapped green beans with fresh green beans for dinner tonight! They are great and not slimy. 

Oh, gosh!  I wasn't familiar with cooked vegetables (other than what went into a sauce or corn) until I was an adult.  The first time I ate a canned green bean I was so repulsed!  WHY would someone do that to a vegetable??

I made green beans for dinner tonight.  Sauteed fresh ones with a bit of garlic and salt...I only cooked up half of what I bought because it was a LOT.  The kids looked at the spread of food and went straight for the beans, polishing them off as quick as I set them down.

[Mbelle]

6 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

This reminded me, I don’t do Kraft Singles anymore.  This individually wrapped “processed cheese food” slices.  They taste so plastic-y to me now.  But...they do still make a good grilled cheese lol.  

Ughh..me either or baloney  Baloney sandwich makes my tongue furry feeling and it all stuck to the top of my mouth. GROSS!!!  

[Mbelle]

Oh, and banana and mayo sandwiches, and those "pear salads".  The half of pear with mayo in the center and grated cheddar on top of that with a cherry to top it off! LOL

 

[Zoo Keeper]

4 hours ago, MrsMommy said:

Lima beans. I have always hated them. And sometimes, we had them on Christmas, and I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I ate them. On CHRISTMAS, for cryin' out loud! I will never make them. I will never eat them. And I certainly will never make my children eat them!

OK, I'm better now. 😉 

 

4 hours ago, Dotwithaperiod said:

I haven’t seen a Lima bean in years. I remember they were huge in my mouth, and so dry. It was strenuous to try to swallow them without milk.

 

Add me to the Anti-Lima Bean League.  I have zero plans to ever serve them to my family.  So dry and tasteless. (Sorry, Mom. I still love you anyway.)

My husband actually likes them, and wants to know why I never make them...

[ScoutTN]

Tuna noodle casserole 

Canned soup

Jello salad 

Boxed mac and cheese 

Frozen pot pies

Thankfully, my mom was generally a great cook and never made us eat things we disliked. The above items were a tired, single mom's easy weeknight dinners. I will never eat tuna casserole or "congealed salad", but the other items, I enjoy as long as they are homemade. We never had canned veggies, thankfully.

My step mother was not a good cook and did occasionallt try to make me eat some things I detested like hominy, lima beans, eggs, cooked tomatoes/tomato sauce. I always won the power struggle over food.  That is one mistake I haven't made as a parent! 

 

Edited April 21, 2019 by ScoutTN

[Rosie_0801]

Weetbix.

My father used to microwave them in winter. The smell would linger in the air after he left for work, until sucked up the nostrils of the unsuspecting children getting up for school.
Dd has to eat them now. She claimed breakfast cereal was a human rights abuse, which I cannot quite agree with, but I promised I would continue never serving it to her. The consumption of Weetbix will die out in this generation of my family.

[Arctic Bunny]

Oh dear! I love weetabix - cold, with cold milk all sopped up! Ds12, too!

I am, however, firmly in the no Lima bean or canned green bean camps.

[Corraleno]

I think its hilarious that almost every "worst childhood food" list includes some variation of jello salad. My mother's version was shredded red and green cabbage, grated carrots, cucumber chunks (including skin and seeds), and crushed pineapple, in a matrix of lime jello mixed with cole slaw dressing and left to set. The combination of dressing and green jello created a translucent mucus effect. We (kids) called it "Dumpster Wiggle."

Vegetables were almost always canned: lima beans, wax beans, green beans, and, for special occasions, canned asparagus that was cooked into slimy gray mush. The "meat" was worse: lots of frozen "veal cutlets" covered in orange cornflake crumbs and gray "minute steaks" with the texture of shoe leather. If we chewed a piece for more than a few minutes and still couldn't swallow it, we'd discreetly spit it into a napkin and then slip it under the table to the dog. My little brother was always blowing our cover though because he'd take too big of a bite and then the dog would choke on it, so my mom would put the dog out. Then we'd be forced to store any pieces of inedible gristle in our cheeks until we could be excused to go to the bathroom, where we'd spit it in the toilet.

Anyone remember canned "chow mien"? It came in a big can with a little can taped to the top that contained fried noodles. The "chow mien" itself was about 90% celery in a slimy green sauce the color and consistency of snot. It was served over white Minute Rice. Gag.

Dessert, if we had any, was usually canned "fruit cocktail" or canned peaches. My school lunches were usually either jelly sandwiches or lettuce and mayo on white bread, with a thermos full of Kool Aid. So nutritious. 🙄

[scoutingmom]

Split pea soup, cream of mushroom soup.

I hated scalloped potatoes (and ham.... I hated it when dinner was ham and scalloped potatoes!), but I like scalloped potatoes now.

 

When I was growing up, most of my friends had to eat liver and onions about once a week...  it really seemed to be a thing.  I was so fortunate because my parents NEVER made it.   Turns out....  my dad bought our 'hamburger meat' at a butcher, and had a special formula.  I'm not sure the exact ratio, but it was something like 5% kidney, and 20% liver.  So we got that extra iron or whatever nutrition with almost every meal... And it didn't give it that horrid taste.  (I did it a few times as an adult.  Works great.... unless you thaw it in the microwave.   I don't know why, but that makes that horrid liver smell and taste permeate everything!

[itsheresomewhere]

7 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I think its hilarious that almost every "worst childhood food" list includes some variation of jello salad. My mother's version was shredded red and green cabbage, grated carrots, cucumber chunks (including skin and seeds), and crushed pineapple, in a matrix of lime jello mixed with cole slaw dressing and left to set. The combination of dressing and green jello created a translucent mucus effect. We (kids) called it "Dumpster Wiggle."

Vegetables were almost always canned: lima beans, wax beans, green beans, and, for special occasions, canned asparagus that was cooked into slimy gray mush. The "meat" was worse: lots of frozen "veal cutlets" covered in orange cornflake crumbs and gray "minute steaks" with the texture of shoe leather. If we chewed a piece for more than a few minutes and still couldn't swallow it, we'd discreetly spit it into a napkin and then slip it under the table to the dog. My little brother was always blowing our cover though because he'd take too big of a bite and then the dog would choke on it, so my mom would put the dog out. Then we'd be forced to store any pieces of inedible gristle in our cheeks until we could be excused to go to the bathroom, where we'd spit it in the toilet.

Anyone remember canned "chow mien"? It came in a big can with a little can taped to the top that contained fried noodles. The "chow mien" itself was about 90% celery in a slimy green sauce the color and consistency of snot. It was served over white Minute Rice. Gag.

Dessert, if we had any, was usually canned "fruit cocktail" or canned peaches. My school lunches were usually either jelly sandwiches or lettuce and mayo on white bread, with a thermos full of Kool Aid. So nutritious. 🙄

I remember that canned chow mien nastiness.  It smelled and looked like it vomit to me.  And my mom loved it.  I praised the grocery store near us that stopped carrying it for some reason.  

I didn’t know until I was older what properly cooked brussel sprouts were.  My mother used to make “Swedish” meatballs often and I still can’t stand it.  I have no idea what exactly is in hers but let me say that ikea’s version is not hers.  Her version has some nasty gravy that you can’t figure out exactly what is in it,served over noodles.  Add her scalloped potatoes from a box along with hamburger helper.  I can’t stand those either.  

[Shoeless]

Campbell's chicken noodle soup and tuna fish sandwiches, served with milk.  Gag. 

My father is not an adventurous eater, (he eyes white rice suspiciously), so a can of chicken noodle soup with half of a tuna sandwich is what he calls "Good Eats".  For desert, you can have an Oreo or two with milk.  He still offers me this when I visit him, and actively tries to discourage going to a restaurant because "I can just make us some soup and tuna fish sandwiches.  Maybe an Oreo or two after.  How about that?"  Ugh, no!  As a kid, I complained it was like eating in post-War Germany.   

To this day, I hate all of it.  Ironically, I craved chicken noodle soup while pregnant and ate it by the gallon, but never the slop from a can, only home made.   

 

[G5052]

Liver and onions. Both of my parents loved it, and I hated it. 

[Pippen]

6 hours ago, whitehawk said:

Fortunately, meatloaf was not served very often. I have never made it as an adult.

I  grew up with typical meatloaf and never really cared for it. I decided to give it another try as an adult and after trying a number of recipes have come up with both turkey and hamburger recipes we really liked. The hamburger one has veggies mixed in which makes the flavors a lot more complex. I'm pleasantly surprised.

[Pippen]

48 minutes ago, scoutingmom said:

Split pea soup, cream of mushroom soup.

I hated scalloped potatoes (and ham.... I hated it when dinner was ham and scalloped potatoes!), but I like scalloped potatoes now.

 

When I was growing up, most of my friends had to eat liver and onions about once a week...  it really seemed to be a thing.  I was so fortunate because my parents NEVER made it.   Turns out....  my dad bought our 'hamburger meat' at a butcher, and had a special formula.  I'm not sure the exact ratio, but it was something like 5% kidney, and 20% liver.  So we got that extra iron or whatever nutrition with almost every meal... And it didn't give it that horrid taste.  (I did it a few times as an adult.  Works great.... unless you thaw it in the microwave.   I don't know why, but that makes that horrid liver smell and taste permeate everything!

Liver was really, really cheap. I'm sure that's why it was routine  at our house.

[Pippen]

2 hours ago, MercyA said:

God bless my mother; she never made me eat anything I didn't like. ❤️

But there were some things she served that I still won't eat: peas, squash, sweet potatoes, cooked cabbage, and PB&J (just PB or just J, please!) At Christmas, I couldn't stomach her rum balls or the gifted fruitcake with the fake little pieces of fruit in it.

I don't understand all the hate toward meatloaves. I'm a vegetarian now, but I'd love a good veggie loaf. It's a comfort food to me, like mac & cheese. 

Overcooked, dry, salty meatloaf was standard fare at my house.

Now rum balls are another story. I loved those, as do my kids.But I'm the only fruitcake eater.

[Katy]

This thread reminded me of this hilarious YouTube video.  DH has called her "The Jello Lady" ever since.

 

[Pam in CT]

10 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

My mom was a good cook but she's from a generation when commercially canned food was a new and convenient thing, especially since we were city dwellers. The only things I wouldn't eat today that she used to serve are Campbell's soups and some canned vegetables. In her later years she got away from that, but when she was a single working mother, that convenience was a big help to her.

The main dishes she cooked were always good. 

Mine as well.  All the stuff she used that I don't are -- Minute Rice (!!!), instant mashed potatoes, hot dogs, every canned vegetable under the sun -- fall into the category of new and/or convenient foods.  

But what lured me into this thread is...

7 hours ago, MrsMommy said:

Lima beans. I have always hated them. And sometimes, we had them on Christmas, and I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I ate them. On CHRISTMAS, for cryin' out loud! I will never make them. I will never eat them. And I certainly will never make my children eat them!

OK, I'm better now. 😉 

Oh my word lima beans.  No child of mine has ever seen a lima bean.

 

 

[*****]

11 hours ago, lavender's green said:

Some dish my mom called "sh!t on a shingle." Toast with a nasty salty white chunky gravy plopped on top.

 

Ha, we used to have that too, I remember that name!  Also known as 'chipped beef', but I wonder to this day what kind of meat it really was, or if it was real at all.  My mom would make it out of 2 small packages and slice it up.  

City chicken anyone?  Again, what kind of meat was that?  It was on a popsicle stick!

And pickle and bologna sandwiches, no thank you!  

Gosh, what our parents did to make the food bill stretch.  I must admit, idk how they did it with such a large family.  However, I do love a good pot of simmering pinto beans!