Childhood Food memories.. BAD ONES!!

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GrillingFool

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So what were some of the childhood traditional dinners that you HATED?

I have one: Manhattan Clam Chowder.

My parents only made it once a year, thank goodness, because I
absolutely hated it. I like New England style, but the thin tomatoey
stuff they made was just NASTY.

And here's the worst part:
1. We HAD to eat a bowl of it before we could leave the table.
2. It was served on Christmas Eve, before we opened presents.

What's yours?
 
Oooooo! My Dad made the best manhattan clam chowder EVER. But it sure wasn't watery.

I think any traditional meal that included mashed potatoes would be on my ICK list. There are stories about me as a kid being forced to choke down mashed potatoes and ... well ... returning those mashed potatoes rather spectacularly at the table. Its a texture thing. I'm a bit better now. I can eat them about twice a year.
 
I don't remember any really, but could be that I was so traumatized that I blocked it out completely lol! Maybe pumpkin. My family would just boil it and serve it, don't remember what it was served with.
 
Cauliflower cheese. I still don't eat it.
There is also my grandmas pasta salad which aint like any pasta salad anyone else ever made.
 
Mashed potatoes. I could not stand them. My parents would make me sit at the table and eat them, telling me I was going to dry up and blow away. I would sit and sit, and they would get cold and disgusting. I usually won and didn't have to eat them.

What I learned later in life was that I don't actually hate mashed potatoes--just my mom's. :LOL: So dry and pasty and bland, ick! (Don't tell her I said that).
 
Oatmeal. I have never been much on breakfast, but my mother insisted I have a nutritious meal before I went to school, and oatmeal was big on her list. Every time I tried to take a bite, I'd gag. She claimed that was all in my mind, and would insist that I not leave the table until I'd eaten the stuff. Of course the colder it got, the worse it tasted.
Finally one day, my dad, who worked second shift, happened to get up during one of these stand-offs, and told her to quit making me eat that stuff..."It tastes like snot," he said.

And that was the end of that. Thank you Daddy!
 
Liver. I can remember crying throughout the entire meal cause I had to eat at least 1/2 of it. Now, I will not even allow that stuff in my home. yuk
 
Oatmeal. I have never been much on breakfast, but my mother insisted I have a nutritious meal before I went to school, and oatmeal was big on her list. Every time I tried to take a bite, I'd gag. She claimed that was all in my mind, and would insist that I not leave the table until I'd eaten the stuff. Of course the colder it got, the worse it tasted.
Finally one day, my dad, who worked second shift, happened to get up during one of these stand-offs, and told her to quit making me eat that stuff..."It tastes like snot," he said.

And that was the end of that. Thank you Daddy!


Great story, Connie! I wish I could have had that kind of intervention for butternut squash. A consistent and reliable way to get me to puke at the dinner table.

Now, I love it! Go figure.
 
Gosh, I can't remember any bad food memories. I remember my mom cooking stuff that I wish she wouldn't...like Shepherd's Pie...but then when I ate it I loved it. I remember eating stuff because I knew it disgusted my mom!!!!!!!!!! :LOL: ...like very rare steak, smoked oysters, sardines... LOVED sending her screaming out of the room.

I can't think of one thing... this will be on my mind all day!!!!!!
 
My parents were/are fabulous cooks, & as such we grew up trying all sorts of things that no else our age had ever heard of, never mind eaten - lol! My parents were great in that they never forced us to eat anything, BUT we had to taste everything once before we were allowed to decline. We weren't allowed to make that decision based on what something sounded like or looked like. I credit that policy with developing my brother & I into fairly adventurous eaters.

That said, I have to say that one of my dad's most favorite meals was/is calves liver, which remains to this day gag city for me. He adored it in the traditional fashion, with bacon & onions. Bacon & onions I like; liver? Nada. However, once - just ONCE - I do recall my mom making calves liver in a way that I found tolerable - if I remember correctly, she cut it into strips & sauteed it first, then folded it into a mushroom/cream/wine sauce. That I ate & "tolerated". But not enough to ever want to make it myself - lol!!!
 
Liver did it to me also, especially when served with buckwheat pancakes (they were a puky shade of green). I now love the pancakes, but still gag on liver.
 
What's interesting is that I LOVE chicken livers, & also really enjoyed Italian-style stuffed pork livers when they were sometimes available at - believe it or not - a particular Pathmark supermarket back in NY.
 
Another scary memory were some hamburgers with peanuts in them that Dad
made once. EWWWWWWW.

My parents were the "sit there till you eat it" variety, so I got good at stuffing food into my pockets.
Once I forgot to empty them, and Mom got a handful of moldy boiled potatoes when checking the pockets before laundry.
I got.... boiled potatoes for dinner that night!
 
Canned tomato soup, to this day I can't stand the smell. Also the ginger snap and raisin sauce that is served with sauerbraten or ham steak. A like ham steak and the sauerbraten roast but not the sauce
 
Canned beets. Those are the nastiest things in the world and my mother served them WEEKLY. I could never subject my daughter to those horrid things, EVER.

YUCK. Oh, YUCK. Now I need to go get another beer to get the memory of the taste out of my mouth.
 
I still love chips(the potato ones that come in packets). My mother wanted to preserve my teeth, so as junk food I got chips rather than sweet things.

I still love eating those fat and MSG loaded chips that are the enemy of my waistline, but my teath are in almost perfect condition. :)

Mel
 
I remember my grandmother making me mix cooked carrots with my mashed potatoes. yuk!!! See I hated cooked carrots but loved mashed potatoes, she figured if I mixed them together I'd like them. NO WAY NO HOW!!!! She was also the stay there till it's gone type. I use to hate going there knowing I had to eat dinner.
 
Coleslaw or anything with cabbage. I had bunnies and when I learned that cabbage killed rabbits I had a fit and would never eat it. Now I can't even allow coleslaw on my plate and apparently in the south they like to put coleslaw on a lot of things like burgers and it seems to be the side of choice and if you don't say "don't allow it near my plate" it shows up. Gives me shivers.
 

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