Least favorite dish from childhood?

The thread started by Eric about goulash got me thinking about some of the things we were served growing up. My mom was a very good basic cook, and it couldn't have been easy or much fun to cook for five active children plus my Dad, of course. We had a lot of baked chicken, bone-in sirloin steaks, fried pork chops, pressure cooker pot roast, etc. I almost always liked what she made and it usually brought a smile to my face when I smelled our dinner when riding my bike up the driveway after some very strenuous tennis practices.

There was one dinner I just could not eat though, and on those nights I would eat a bowl of fruit loops or cocoa crispies.
She would take cube steaks (you know the ones with all of the sinew running through them), and put them on a baking sheet. She'd top each one with a big slice of onion, a big slice of fresh tomato and salt and pepper. It would then be baked, but really, it was more like "steaming" because of the moisture created from the onions and tomato. What came out of the oven was a very tough, piece of gray-colored meat swimming in vegetable juices. She never could understand why I didn't like it.

How about you guys? What was your least favorite family meal?

Maybe my memory is clouded by warm thoughts, but I can't recall anything my Mom used to make that I didn't like.

I do recall sitting at the kitchen table, for what seemed like hours, because I refused to eat some vegetable or another, but I think that was more about power struggles and less about the food.

Child rearing is so much more advanced now.

Any day we saw food on the table and enough to go around was a good day. But, I must admit, I still have a very visceral gag reflex at the sight (and smell) of green peas, and my children have never heard of round steak.

Lima beans - nasty, pasty, tasteless, gluey, vomit green colored instruments of torture. I still can't eat them.

Any day we saw food on the table and enough to go around was a good day.

Good point. I was always grateful for that.

Lima beans - nasty, pasty, tasteless, gluey, vomit green colored instruments of torture. I still can't eat them.

Eeewwwwwwwww!!!!!

Although it wasn't made by my mother, the duck blood soup my grandmother made was my least favorite dish from childhood. My brother tricked me into tasting it one time, telling me it was chocolate soup. It was bad.

Liver and onions. I simply refused to eat it. Still do.

My dad loved it, so my mom made it fairly often. Just the smell makes me want to gag to this day.

Disliked just about everything especially veggies, but before you donk me I did like V-8.

Mom was a good cook and I loved most things she made. Creamed tuna on toast was served way too much during a period in my life. It was tasty, however. I suppose mom was having financial burdens but she never complained to me. Cube steaks were a big deal at our house, because beef was a rare treat. I grew up eating home grown chicken, rabbits and whatever fish was caught in the ocean, just four blocks from our house. I never really like those cube steaks, tasty as mom would make them, I think it was the texture. The love of my life, who is now my husband, opened up a whole new world for me when I met him at 19 years old. Beef from the butcher shop he owned. They called them "Butcher Shops: because they did just that...butcher. I found out about thick New York steaks, huge Prime Rib roasts, pork chops big enough to stuff. Wow! The first time he came to our house for dinner, mom served those cube steaks. It was much later when I learned that he hated those things. I still see them in the meat department and always remember that night we served them to my to be husband.

Although it wasn't made by my mother, the duck blood soup my grandmother made was my least favorite dish from childhood. My brother tricked me into tasting it one time, telling me it was chocolate soup. It was bad.

I've never heard of this, was it really duck blood? Where did one buy that? Sounds awful!

Well I just found this explanation and recipe if anyone is interested in making it....shivers!
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Duck-Soup-Czarnina/Detail.aspx

Liver and onions. I simply refused to eat it. Still do.

My dad loved it, so my mom made it fairly often. Just the smell makes me want to gag to this day.

That was my pick as well. The texture was the worst part for me.

\ My brother tricked me into tasting it one time, telling me it was chocolate soup.

ROTFLO. Sounds as if I would have gotten along really well with your brother. Chocolate Soup! That's a great one.

When I worked in our deli, we used to have strands of dried, red chile peppers hanging from hooks, waiting to be ground into crushed chile flakes. When the non Italian kids came in, who had presumably never seen such a thing, and asked what they were, my stock answer was always the same; "Dried strawberries. Would you like to try one?" More than a few bit, to their palate's displeasure.

Hey, I had to keep myself entertained somehow.

Liver and onions. I simply refused to eat it. Still do.

My dad loved it, so my mom made it fairly often. Just the smell makes me want to gag to this day.

Eeewwwwww!!!!!

The first time he came to our house for dinner, mom served those cube steaks. It was much later when I learned that he hated those things. I still see them in the meat department and always remember that night we served them to my to be husband.

I just love these kind of stories. Makes you work real hard and appreciate where you are and where you've come from in life, doesn't it? The first time my would be husband came to our house (I was 17), the gas had been turned off. He kept asking if I wasn't cold. I kept pushing up the thermostat and declaring I didn't know why he was uncomfortable -- it felt okay to me!

John - hmmmm. You must know my brother!

Yes, czarnina. Quite the delicacy. As to where the blood came from, if you're faint of heart you may want to skip this part. I have many a memory coming to my grandparents house at Easter or some other occasion. We would enter through the garage/basement. There would be the ducks, their little heads removed, hanging upside with buckets to catch the blood. My dad of course would be ecstatic. The rest of us...not so much.

Liver and onions would definitely be on my unhit parade as well. Gah! The smell. My dad once told my oldest sister that it had negative calories. She started eating it, and still does to this day. Haha!

My mother was also a very good cook who had also spent time in Korea and Japan with the Red Cross and there learned that vegetables didn't have to be cooked into limp submission to be edible Since we were also a family of 3, it wasn't hard to arrive at meals that we all liked, but there were certainly some foods that my parents loved that I couldn't eat, such as crab, zucchini, mushrooms, liver and stinky cheeses. Of those, I still don't eat liver and eschew the white button mushrooms that were the standard of my childhood. Since I did like vegetables, spices and ethnic foods, I wasn't that tough to cook for. However, lunches were torture for my mother, as I didn't like sandwiches or hot dogs or whatever the schools served for lunch.

Mark Lipton

What's wrong with lima beans? Get some decent ones (not dried), parboil and refresh, drain, then give a quick sautee in olive oil with some salt, pepper, and fresh dill. Finish with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Don't blame the beans, blame the prep methods!

Liver and onions. I simply refused to eat it. Still do.

My dad loved it, so my mom made it fairly often. Just the smell makes me want to gag to this day.

TOTALLY AGREE...the smell used to give me a headache...and I still struggle to eat it today!

My Mom wasn't/isn't a very good cook, but I didn't really know this until I got older and had good food! We had a lot of very overcook chicken and pork and lots of gray and mushy vegetables. We had pasta with meat sauce 3 times a week and that was always good. But I always loved it all...except for the LIVER...UGGGHHH!!

Liver, lima beans and any form of seafood, except fish.

Chicken hearts in a tomato-based sauce. It only happened once but it was memorable.

Salmon loaf, made from canned salmon. I was over 40 before I found out I liked fresh salmon.

As for liver and onions, love it. Ditto well prepped lima beans.

[Jenise]

If my mom had made liver and onions, that would be my least favorite. But she didn't. Which means it's pretty much a three way tie between mom's meat loaf, pot roast, and swiss steak. There were other things around the house that I despised and could avoid having to eat, but at the dinner table my father forced us to eat some of everything, and these three meals were the ones I ate with a fork in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

Liver and other organ meats with that strong flavour. Still don't eat them.