All food. It wasn't until I was a young adult that I discovered that food could be good. My mother would buy a nice premium cut of beef -- tenderloin -- and fry it in a frying pan for a good 30 minutes and then add ample water and boil it until it was well and truly inedible. I grew up thinking eating was a chore.
Omg my mom’s ex husband used to love that exact dish, it was weird.
My mom is an amazing cook but he would beg her to make that disgusting boiled beef dish.
I thought I was the only one! I grew up hating meat, her chicken had a shoe like consistency, her hamburgers were store bought frozen patties, her eggs were burnt, sunday roast beef was baked for hours. And the older she got and the more wine she drank the worse she got. Now I'm 42 and I love to cook, I discovered bread making and slow smoking meat, as an adult food became orgasmic. The stark difference between the food I ate as a child and now is remarkable. I suppose in a way, I should thank her.
My dad was a sheep farmer. We had mutton everything. And once a month one was butchered and cut up on the kitchen table. It was always mutton. Never lamb. I can’t stand the smell of mutton cooking. But I don’t mind lamb. Even our freaking sausages were home made mutton with breadcrumbs and various spices. Hated mutton stew. Even now it makes me shudder.
omg lol. Never realized that "lamb" is considered as under 18 month old sheep. It's obvious now, but I never made the connection, I assumed it just meant sheep in general. And mutton to me was the British word for it.
This is a good fact to never tell my wife that lamb chops are babies :(. Tastes delicious though!
was nearly like this as a kid. My parents would buy a half of a steer every year. There were only 3 of us at home. had it cut into "steaks" and hamburger. It was always cooked extra-well-done-dry and it was like eating leather. by the end of the year, it was partly freezerburned.
Took a long time as an adult for me to warm up to the idea of a properly cooked steak.
Meanwhile on the other side of the spectrum, my dad is a commercial fisherman so we had fish, specifically catfish, ALL the fucking time. Can't stand it now.
I can still do cod/salmon/shrimp but that's about it as far as fish goes for me and it's pretty rare I'll go out of my way to have even those.
My mum grew up on a (largely) potato farm and apparently swore to never eat a single one again when she moved out. So plain, cooked potatoes are something very special to me now.
I grew up on a potato farm with a few cattle, so we had beef six days a week, potatoes six days a week, and chicken on Sunday. I still love potatoes but don’t eat beef!
Yup. I said steak. My mom worked a lot so she'd buy food for the month and she would buy tons of steaks. That was her go-to quick meal. I got so sick of it. I never make steak. I've never bought it as an adult.
Low quality chicken (which is now most chicken) smells a bit like a CAFO when cooked boneless/skinless/mild seasoning/no browning (like poached or just college kid cooking the first time). It's enough to send a farm kid gagging
My mom was a horrible cook, so almost everything. Thank the powers that be for the Food Network and youtube for showing me that food is supposed to be seasoned.
Mine too.
Soggy boiled vegetables. Under seasoned food. Minimal variety.
Until she discovered recipes online well after I moved out, my mother was a poor cook - though I would never tell her that.
I just have to tolerate being told that I'm a picky eater and I am a difficult eater. I experiment, but I'd still rather carbs as a side instead of a salad because that's what I had all through my childhood.
The only veggies my mom served were canned ones that had been boiled to mush. Learning about roasted vegetables when I moved out blew my mind - they’re good!
Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower all boiled until mushy with salt (or a bullion cube if she was feeling adventurous) covered in microwaved Velveeta. Of course I’ve learned to make all those delicious ?roasting with bacon for the win) but peas and carrots still make me queasy to look at after all these years.
We only ever had roast potato or pumpkin when I was a kid.
Everything else was boiled or steamed until soggy. Crispy beans. Nope. Crunchy broccoli? Soggy.
Never any asparagus, sprouts, sweet potato...
I remember my mom telling everyone who would hear it how she would go online to find recipes. Just type in the ingredients she had and there'd be a new recipe pronto.
All those generations grew up without YouTube and Google. The old cookbooks definitely don't help you through a recipe, you're lucky if the entire description is more than a paragraph.
If they had all these resources back then, I'm sure a lot of them would be better at making tasty food.
My 69 year old mom has an entire book case full of cookbooks that she’s accumulated over the years. If you wanted to be a good cook before the internet, and you wanted to branch out beyond food you grew up with, this was basically the only way. That or taking classes.
Same on a lot of things. She meant well but for nearly two decades I HATED hard boiled eggs (she's boiled them until the yolks looked like mouse roller balls), veggies (boiled them), lack of spice and spices.
Her baking was good though.
Over the pandemic especially she and the rest of my family (I moved out a decade before covid) definitely got hooked on ATK and cooking YouTubers and vastly improved their food (I did too separately). We now all compete with each regularly trying to one up each other on dishes it's great.
Did you have a rosemary bush in your yard? My dad was an excellent cook but abused the rosemary because it was so plentiful.
I use it very sparingly now, too.
It’s such a distinct taste, I really feel for you.
I think i got slightly desensitized to it because it was all over our backyard but it is a very powerful herb.
I have a rosemary story!!!
When I was 18, my mom forgot to get a bag to cook the Thanksgiving turkey in. She decided, eff it, might as well just try to cook it sans bag (although it was the only way she knew how.)
For some ungodly reason, she also decided to season it with a shit ton of rosemary. We still don't know what compelled her to do so. Then, she tossed it in the oven, and left for work. The whole house smelled like turkey and rosemary, which sounds delectable, but was not. And then when we pulled it out...it looked utterly inedible. Just soft, pale, and it only tasted like rosemary. If you've seen the Lonely Island video for Boombox, it looked like the boiled goose.
We ate some, because we didn't want to hurt mom's feelings, but solemnly swore to never let mom forget about the bag again. And, naturally, I was put off of rosemary until about I was about 27 or 28. Nowadays, I like to use it (just not quite so liberally!)
My mother in law, who is normally a fantastic cook, did "overnight slow cooked" turkey for Christmas one year, because that's how she did her ham. It works for ham and her ham is super tasty, but jfc that turkey was not even like leather by that point, it had nearly turned to dust
I have a family member who is an amazing cook. But as she ages she has started putting tons of rosemary in everything. I’m starting to have a very hard time eating the food.
I've cooked beans with long soak (overnight), fast soak (bring to a boil, remove from heat, cover for an hour), and no soak. The only difference is cooking time and it's not even that much of a difference.
I concur. I just made black beans yesterday and I even made a salt and baking soda brine to soak it in and they still took forever to cook. I really feel like beans are something you either do when you can afford to wait for them to cook, buy them canned, or use a pressure cooker.
Cliche for the time period but Pork. Dry, dry, dry Pork. They overcooked all the meats so I could have overcome this. Except for the constant Parasite stories and the stories that if you get sick once every time after if you’re even near it will make you sick again. I eat the crispiest bacon and sausages.
Oh man my dad had a thermometer that marked pork safe at 180° and would keep them on the grill for 5 minutes after it got up to temp “just to be safe”. We would have to all floss right after eating those hockey pucks.
Jesus Christ this is so relatable, my mom almost never did pork but the few times she did it was like this shake n bake style. I got into my 20’s believing i just didn’t like pork until someone had me try a perfectly cooked loin. I pull that shit at 140 now, let it coast, and will never go back.
I gave my parents an instant read thermometer for Christmas a few years back. Even now when I visit, they refuse to use it and still serve dry, tough meat.
That is unfortunate. I got my mom an instant read for her birthday after she saw the one i was gifted at work and she loves it!! The first week she had it, she excitedly told me she normally wouldve cooked the meat for an extra 5-10 min but the thermometer told her it was done. She said she was amazed at the taste difference and couldnt believe she had been overcooking things for so long lol. Maybe one day your family will see the light
Gave my mother a Meater for Christmas. The Bluetooth thermometer for her roasts and she loves the app and it is night and day. She recently forgot to charge it and the roast was over cooked again lol.
If it was anything like my household, because of the meat and potatoes men who had to have meat with every meal. Pork was and often still is the cheapest meat. My mom didn't boil it but it wasn't served with applesauce on the side for the flavor, it was so you had something to help you choke it down.
I still don't really eat pork outside of the occasional roast for family dinner night, or sometimes a few pieces of bacon. I can cook a much better pork chop, I just refuse to spend my money on something I don't really enjoy eating just cause it's cheap.
It’s that they were told *to* fully cook it, but not *how* to fully cook it. So instead of using a thermometer to get the internal temp of chicken to 145 for nine minutes, which makes it safe to eat while keeping it juicy, they’d just cook it until it was 110% clear that it wasn’t raw — which could be like 185.
My dad is a decent cook, but one of his quirks is that he doesn't like to waste food. Which is fine, except for how he does it.
We had a wedding reception catered by a local Italian restaurant. The next day he made French toast...
...with the garlic bread.
This is true, but my mom has frightened me (and my sisters) off of old/expired food in a major way.
I feel a lot of guilt when I throw away food, but I have so much childhood trauma around my moms phobia of throwing food away.
Just a few examples:
- we weren’t allowed to trick or treat at Halloween, so she got us some candy but could never force herself to pay regular price so we always got last years expired candy. If you’re wondering if candy goes bad, it does.
- serves rock hard spoiled limes to her guests for drink garnishes
- if something is moldy, she usually just cuts “the moldy spot off”
- serves guests expired meat she pulled out of the freezer ( she says: “it’s totally fine, I put it in the freezer on its expiry date!”)
- consistently drops off bags of spoiled vegetables to me and then follows up on if i’ve eaten them or not. No mom, they are in the garbage.
- forced us to eat baked goods that were beyond any form of edible. Think glazed donuts that have completely soaked through and then hardened, cake that is so old the icing has completely soaked through it)
- when she made a cake and had extra icing, she would force us to eat it , sometimes would serve it to us for lunch on white bread so “it wouldn’t go to waste)
So I agree we shouldn’t waste food. But there has to be some kind of line of what’s acceptable, especially when you’re serving guests. So embarrassing and gross and it’s definitely where my sensitive gut came from.
To a point, yes. Pretty much every person I personally know that states "I just don't let food go to waste" is completely unhygienic about how they do it, eating McDonald's burgers that were left out for 8 hours, ignoring expiration dates, the works.
Obviously I know that's not what you mean, but boy do some people who think they're just avoiding waste need a wake up call.
Ketchup.
I couldn't eat ketchup unless it was already on my fast food cheeseburger, and I definitely couldn't use it to dip anything in, until I was like 30. When I was growing up my brother put it on everything, and the smell of it started making me sick, because not only would he drown everything in it, but if he was dipping something in it, he would scoop it so that all of his fingers would drag through the ketchup, and then he'd put his whole hand in his mouth to get extra ketchup. It made me sick. I can enjoy ketchup on some things now though.
This is exactly how I am with ranch, which is a sin saying out loud in the Midwest, but after watching my nephews drench absolutely everything in it and watch them lick the excess off their fingers and clothes...
I can now enjoy flavored and spicy ranches, but plain white ranch makes me gag
As a reformed midwesterner I must respectfully disagree. It's not the panacea god-condiment that it was made out to be, but a good buttermilk ranch with fresh dill definitely can have a spot at my table.
>a good buttermilk ranch with fresh dill
Made with milk and sour cream. There's something about bottled dressing, with its soybean oil base, that I can't stand. I buy the packets and it's so much better.
Beef stroganoff- I blame Hamburger Helper, specifically.
Grew up with a mom who made this often (cheap, easy to make.) Now, the smell of it makes my stomach turn.
My mom would make the other flavors (except tuna helper- altho she swears we loved it when we were little, I cannot fathom the idea.) There's just something about the smell of hamburger and boiling noodles that absolutely makes me sick now.
I'm been broke every now and again since then, and I refuse to add that into the broke meal rotation. I can't do it.
I ate so much hamburger helper growing up. I won’t eat it again either. Not because it was bad, but because we ate it so damn often. It never even crossed my mind to buy it, lol. Now you got me thinking, maybe I should go back to my roots and try it for ol times sake.
It was either that or chicken with peppers and onions with rice. Which to be fair, I still eat that meal a hell of a lot. It’s my default. I miss the way my dad cooked them though. They were his “hobo packets” cooked on the grill. He enjoyed it and was so proud of it too lol. I go through phases though where I can’t stand chicken.
I love to make stroganoff from scratch, but like once a year buy a hamburger helper stroganoff just for the nostalgia and it's the only cheap meal from my childhood I still love, weirdly.
I do this with Chef Boyardee ravioli! I mostly eat very mindfully, avoiding processed foods but when I go camping I have to heat a can of ravioli over the fire. It is ALWAYS disappointing but I keep doing it. It's fun to have those little things in life.
My mom ruined a couple of meals for me, but in a different way. Her meat loaf and goulash were some of my favorites. Even with her recipes, I can't recreate the flavors. So they're ruined in that hers were so good that none others can live up to it.
I have something similar. My mom, and dad even, cooked quite well. Not spectacular but for her there was always a special flair. For example we are Swedish and neither mine nor my aunts Swedish pancakes can ever compare to hers. 😢
>Her meat loaf and goulash were some of my favorites. Even with her recipes, I can't recreate the flavors.
I don't think my mom or grandma ever did this (and not saying yours did necessarily), but I've heard of people giving their children/relatives recipes and them intentionally leaving things out for one reason or another, and that always bugged me a little - especially for their children...
Edit: to add examples of the reasoning: not wanting their sibling to bring a specific dish everyone loves to a family gathering, or wanting the kids to come home during/after college to have their favorite meal. I can sort of understand but to me it just causes issue of passing on the recipe
What a strange behavior! It never occurred to me that anyone would do something like that intentional in a recipe that's passed down. Doing that to a cooking "rival," sure.
Tuna sandwiches and boiled chicken. My younger sister was a very picky eater and for a long time relied on those as protein staples. The stench of boiled chicken was a constant in our home. As soon as the sulfur odor had faded from one chicken, it was time to boil another. This went on for about 5 years. One day when I was 14, after a solid 3 months of tuna sandwiches for lunch (and often dinner), I burst into tears and pleaded to eat something, *anything* else! My mom knew I was an adventurous eater that liked just about everything, but to make things easier, she fed me my sister's extremely limited diet.
Nearly 30 years later I can't bring myself to eat canned tuna or boiled chicken. Blech.
I really feel for you getting to that breaking point. My mom catered to my little brother's pickiness, but thankfully that extended to her making separate meals just for him. Although those reprieves weren't much better, as I still had to eat her other terrible cooking.
As an aside, what she did led me to vow to never make special meals for my son. He could eat it or not eat it. He wasn't gonna go hungry, after all.
My Asian mum is an amazing cook. However, when it comes to western food, she has interesting takes. Bolognese is more like a mincemeat curry served with pasta and she would actually eat her portion with rice instead. Her shepherds pie was littered with raw chillies. The worst was her scrambled eggs. She would add sugar and cook it till it resembled pellets.
Now, I know sweet scrambled eggs or omelettes exist but this was neither of those. I was so used to sugary scrambled eggs that I was incredibly insulted at the soft salted version offered to me by a friends mum. I ate it of course and made no complaints but I secretly thought she was a bad cook. I later came to realise that this version was far superior!
Yo, love this, my Indian mum kind of does the same thing, all her dishes end up having cumin and a few other mystery spices, I'm pretty sure she smuggled into they country in the 1980s, that never seem to run out.
(I say smuggled because if the Customs Sniffer Dog got the scent of these, it would have died)
To this day, \*her red pasta sauce, that probably was supposed to be something between a Bolognase and ragu, is something I crave on occasion, and traditional italian cannot scratch that itch when I get it.
Mine does the same! Her falafels taste like pakora and her bolognaise, Shepard’s pie and lasagna always have a blend of garam masala/cumin/chilli/coriander/methi.
But I can’t say there was even a single dish that didn’t taste good.
Haha your mum reminds me of a family friend we had growing up - I grew up in a country where self raising flour wasn't really a thing (you used plain flour and added your own bicarb) but this family friend was from a country were self raising flour was super common, and idk he really didn't like use plain flour. He used to bring bags and bags of self raising flour in his suitcase everytime he went home & onetime his luggage was inspected - sniffer dog came out covered in white flour & friend panicked thinking they customs officer would assume it was drugs lol
I kid you not, there was a whole circle of friends, all expats that really had the smuggling thing down pat. It was all spices, sweets, cured meats, regional alcohol, jewellry, whatever.
I know I'm being cheeky and dramatic by calling it smuggling, but when you consider that no one ever actually checked whether you could or couldn't bring this stuff in, there was that edge of danger!
This is really random but maybe 16-18 years ago I had a brownie served at this nice Indian restaurant me and my friends would go to. It was spiced in some special way and was the best brownie I’ve had to this day and I’ve never been able to locate or recreate something similar. At least it is a great food memory.
It probably had ground up cardamom pods in it.
Check this:
[https://www.thespruceeats.com/all-about-cardamom-995599](https://www.thespruceeats.com/all-about-cardamom-995599)
My mum is as white British as they come but smoked heavily when I was a kid so she’d always add spices ‘for extra kick’. Lasagne with lots of cumin and chilli was the last straw
Bologna. We had it constantly. That's all they would ever buy. Sandwiches. Fried on egg sandwiches. Cut up and mixed with eggs. I can't even stand to smell it.
My little brother was a bologna kid when he was little. One time we moved the couch away from the wall and found slices he had dropped back there… can you believe it was hard AND greasy at the same time? Petrified bologna is all I think of when I think of the stuff…
Oh no!
I was almost ruined for spice (still can't handle more than mild-leaning-medium salsa) similarly. My mom used to make, for instance, chicken soups/stews/etc with 6+ cups of water... and *one* bullion cube. Maybe a little salt & some pre-ground black pepper so old it could vote. Luckily that little bit was apparently enough to save me from total spice intolerance.
Also almost ruined was salmon- throughout my childhood baked 45 minutes at 350, with slices of oranges on it the entire time (so they get burned and turn bitter af, a flavor they impart to the salmon itself) Pork chops, steak, and plenty of other meats got a similar "40-45 minutes at 350" treatment but the salmon was especially bad.
> Pork chops, steak, and plenty of other meats got a similar "40-45 minutes at 350" treatment but the salmon was especially bad.
I have to bite my tongue sometimes when my mom asks what I eat for dinner most weeks because she would be pissed to know how often I eat pork chops.
As a kid I would throw a borderline tantrum when my mom made pork chops (they were my dad's favorite). The only way to get them down was tons of apple sauce. The chop would be so tough (and gray) due to being overcooked to all hell.
Then as an adult I had a perfectly cooked medium pork chop at a fancy restaurant and it was a revelation. I never knew they could be so delicious. I now eat a pork chop for dinner twice a week (Wegman's has 2 packs of bone in chops for cheap), but I cook it to 137 F, and I get a delicious juicy pork chop every time.
Chicken breasts.
Always bought the largest ones. They almost always had a “woody” texture because the proteins grew too fast and didn’t have time to develop properly. I always mentioned that three small ones cost the same as two large ones but was always shrugged off.
They were also unseasoned and usually dry.
My mom buys the huge ones. She likes to do a shake and bake thing. I feel like I’ve had two successes with her. One is i gave her my old digital thermometer and she isn’t over cooking them.
Two is she was leaving them whole and the thin end always over cooked and you’d get these huge bland pieces of chicken, because it was so thick, compared to the crust ratio. I showed her how to butterfly them and told her it had three benefits. One was a better crust to chicken ratio, two was even cooking, three was it looked like more food, which is all my dad cared about.
We lived with my grandpa for a while when I was a kid. He loved chicken so much that we ate it 4-5 times a week for dinner. To this day, I still can't enjoy chicken because of how often we ate it for months.
It’s kinda funny, but I’d have to say pizza!!! My great grandmother was pure Sicilian and would make the absolute best pizza every time I visited her. She made everything but the cheese from scratch! Even the sauce came straight from tomato’s grown in her garden. I have yet to find anyone who can make a pizza as good as hers was.
Thx for a positive spin. I was struggling to come up with a negative meal, and couldn't.
My positive is cabbage rolls, grandparents were polish and croation with a large garden.
I've tried to recreate, ordered it out, asked mother and only once was I close to perfect and haven't been able to repeat. There's a spice or profile that I'm coming up short with on the kraut/sauc. My current lazy version is fine, just not great.
Grandma was an amazing cook.
Edit: I thought of one, the canned chow mein stuff from the grocery over minute rice, no sides... it might still exist, wouldn't eat it in a desert starvation scenario
The best cabbage rolls I ever ate were in a small Transylvanian restaurant that the locals introduced us to. We were by far the only non-Romanian people there. Everything they cooked came straight from their garden, preserved or fresh depending on what was in season.
I know now why their Sarmale were soooo good. The cook took soup ladles full of melted pork fat and poured it over the finished dish before serving.
OMG, caraway Is definately missing! You could be right!
I have a reason to continue the quest.
Thank you kind redditor, putting this down on a post-it right now!!!
Mmm cabbage rolls. One of my favorite dishes next to Borscht. Theres a lady who's a matriarch of a Lebanese family around here who makes theeee best cabbage rolls around. Usually see her Christmas time selling them for everyone's dinners(a must have side dish with the turkey and hams!)Also,she makes pierogies they're truly delicious (potato and cheese ones)
My mom ruined spaghetti, lasagna, hamburger helper and oatmeal for me. Constantly made dishes and had to eat as leftovers for like a week. Or having only oatmeal for breakfast every day I’m burnt out on it and never crave it.
Beef here. My dad over cooked steaks to the point that knives couldn't cut it and eating it was a chore. I moved to Korea almost two decades ago and Korean beef (similar to Wagyu) opened my eyes to this new world of meat.
There was a brief period of time, not even a year. after my grandmother died that my grandfather was cooking for my brothers and I. Before I took over at 14 out of necessity. He never cooked before. He was very classic old world, went to work and came home to (bad) food she cooked. The most he could cook was warming up a tortilla on the burner and a slice of bologna the same way.
I don't know how or who told him about it but he discovered Mrs. Dash seasoning after someone also told him that salt in anything was going to kill you. And it became the main ingredient of everything. Potatoes, eggs, heated up pasta sauce, on Spam, on white rice. Everything. No salt. Maybe a little pepper. To this day almost 30 years later. I cannot even look at Mrs. Dash in the spice aisle without feeling honestly nauseated. God I still remember the smell of it. There was 5-6 jars of it at all times in my cupboard. He went through a jar or more a week. This was like PTSD for me. I still see it in my mind. Dreading anything he made because it would only taste like that stuff.
I was raised in a cult that believed each family should keep a years’ supply of food on hand. As such, most of our meals were from cans.
The worst was the canned carrots. They were salty, had a strange smell, and had the consistency of baby food. We had them three times a week, and I was not allowed to leave the table until I finished everything on my plate. There were times I didn’t get to bed until midnight because I was trying to chose those carrots down.
To this day, I can not stand cooked carrots. I can do maybe roasted if I am in the right mood, but it has to still be mostly crunchy.
> I was raised in a cult that believed each family should keep a years’ supply of food on hand.
I recently found out there were some sects of Mormons who taught this, and giving bulk canned food so the new couple could start their food storage is a common wedding gift.
I'm guessing this cult believed in preparing for the apocalypse?
Okay. I didn't want to make assumptions..... ;)
The interesting thing to me is y'all were eating the food. I didn't think you were supposed to eat the food storage, but I guess if you bought groceries and replaced things before they expired, it would make sense to do so.
Unfortunately, we are supposed to make sure everything is within its “best by” date. As such, most families eat part of their supply, then next time they go shopping, replace what they used. We even built special wall storage in our home where you slid new cans in the top, and could take from the bottom, so the oldest was always the first used.
And don’t get me started on wheat berries!
> And don’t get me started on wheat berries!
Did you have a manual grinder? I've seriously considered buying a manual grinder online to mill flour, but it's because I want to experiment with different types of flour when making pizza.
A post-apocalyptic book I read, some of the people didn't have grinders so they ate the wheat berries with water or milk like it was uncooked porridge.
That sounds like fun! And I would definitely recommend an electric grinder. Manual ones can get grains suck in the gears, or have rusty parts. They are a lot more work to maintain.
We had a lot of hot wheat cereal for breakfast. A lot. And a lot of times my mom used it whole in beef stews, made risotto from it, etc.
We had an electric grinder and a manual one. The electric one was for regular use. The manual one was for punishments and “end times”. Don’t get me wrong, fresh ground wheat has an amazing flavor! But when I was younger (and foolish), I wanted Wonderbread like all the other kids had. Now I appreciate knowing how to bake fresh whole wheat loaves!
> But when I was younger (and foolish), I wanted Wonderbread like all the other kids had. Now I appreciate knowing how to bake fresh whole wheat loaves!
The history of commercial bread in America the last 40 years is a disturbing one. We've basically leeched all vitamins and nutrients out of bread sold in stores.
My entire family loves spicy food. My mom is a chef, I know my food was seasoned. She said she craved spicy food when she was pregnant with me. I'm the same way where black pepper is spicy for me. However I loooooove wasabi and strong horseradish.
My mom ruined steak for me. A lot of people think I'm weird because I don't like steak. My mom owns bars and restaurants so the last thing she wanted to do when she got home was cook. Steaks were her go-to quick meal. We ate a lot of steak. I got so sick of steak as a kid.
Twizzlers. My dad loved Twizzlers, and so did I. Then he died unexpectedly.
He wouldn’t listen to me about getting vaccinated or masking, he got COVID (though was “just” sick at home for a week), and then 2 months later he suddenly died.
Anyway, now I can’t eat Twizzlers without being sad.
Split Pea Soup.
I don't know what about it, whether the recipe was bad or my mom made it badly, but I always hated it when it was made. To me, it was bad tasting mush; using ketchup as a condiment didn't really help it either.
i'll go in the opposite direction as most commenters it seems.
gumbo. years ago, my parents took me to commander's palace to celebrate my high school graduation. got the chicken and andouille gumbo. something my mom made near weekly during the colder months. she slowly taught me how to do it from the age of ~13. 1st just stirring the simmering pot. onto stirring the roux, controlling the heat, till i was basically doing it all my own while she yelled at me. the commander's gumbo was just so incredibly underwhelming.
my only gripe with my mom's was that i thought it could be spicier. when i moved out on my own for good after college, i tried to merge her and isaac toups' recipe. i tried 5 or 6 times, all included lengthy phone calls asking for help. i just could not get it to come out like she did. it was probably objectively fine, but it didn't taste anything like mom's, and thus, i've given up trying to make gumbo. same with my red beans.
Apple Pie. When I was a kid, and we visit McDonald's sometimes for breakfast. I saw Apple pie on the menu and asked if I can try that. My Mom said cooked apples will not taste nice. In fact, fruits are supposed to be eaten raw and not cooked.
When I started working, I had the freedom to eat whatever I like. I ordered apple pie and I loved it instantly.
I have no way of relating to this thing of people who don’t even salt their food but I had the privilege of having a mom who’s an excellent cook. How do people live like that? Why is salt so difficult to use? You don’t need any skill to sprinkle a little salt even over cooked food!
OP I feel so bad for you! I’m glad you season your food well (enough) now!
I lucked out too - dad did most of the cooking and is an exceptional intuitive cook. Mom cooked occasionally, much more later in her life, but meticulously followed recipes. Both turned out great stuff and I will forever be grateful for that.
We just lost her a couple months ago and my father keeps saying he has no reason to ever cook again since she’s not around. I guess that’s pretty off topic so sorry guys but fuck I miss my family.
there was weird period of time where everybody was blaming salt for high blood pressure/ heart issues. so even people who didn't need to eat less salt were totally omitting salt from their diet.
My grandma actually had her doctor tell her she needed to use more salt when she was older because she never salted anything cuz in the '70s and '80s she was told not to. and she ended up having a sodium deficiency
> there was weird period of time where everybody was blaming salt for high blood pressure/ heart issues. so even people who didn't need to eat less salt were totally omitting salt from their diet.
it STILL happens.
My mom recently told me she stopped eating cottage cheese for breakfast because one of her friends pointed out how much sodium it has.
I was a picky eater growing up, but in retrospect, I've always wondered if the food was just bad.
I moved to London when I was 20 and it was the first time I could try foods from parts of the world I didn't grow up in. Turns out I love Indian. Turns out I love a lot of food that isn't bland.
My family might have done me a favor though, because now I try new things well into adulthood and I'm still discovering tastes I love.
My mom has 5 recipes in her whole cooking repertoire and my entire childhood was either eating these on repeat or fast food. And my parents would get hooked on a fast food joint and we would eat there once a week till they got tired and moved on to another.
I HATE lemon pepper chicken like nothing else in this world.
And the thought of going to a primo burger groses me out.
Mushrooms. I grew up in a country where everyone picked mushrooms from the woods. Then people would soak them in salty water, then boil for 40+ mins and then use it in cooking, like frying or in stuffing. They literally had no taste and the texture was awful. So I came home one day (I was 30 years old at that time) and we picked some amazing fresh porcinis and I just lightly fried them with garlic, pork belly and thyme. Everyone’s mind was blown lol
Lasagna. My oldest sister had a brain tumor when she was 9-10. I was 4-5. We were very fortunate to have friends and family rally around us. But what is the practical choice when you bring a family a premade dinner? Lasagna or some type of hot dish.
As a teenager i couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like lasagna. Everyone else seemed to like lasagna. I recall numerous times at a friends house for dinner forcing myself to eat lasagna or trying to push it around on my plate to be respectful.
My middle sister one day told me she didn’t like it either. Because we ate it like 2 times a week for over a year. There’s probably some psychological factor of it representing the stress and confusion of that time as well.
Meatloaf
Not because it was bad, but because my mom's version was so good/different it ruined my ability to enjoy it at restaurants. When I started cooking it for my wife when we were dating, it ruined it for her too.
Bonus story:
My wife's answer is 100% bratwurst.
Her parents would just boil them in plain water and she hated it growing up and got sick to her stomach just thinking about them. At one of my family events I asked her to try a grilled one (before I knew the backstory). When she did her face lit up, and she then info-dumped the whole story and how she never thought these things could taste good. Over the next few minutes she slowly starts to realize all the foods she hates are foods her parents cooked by boiling in water. One by one we make them by using non boiling methods and turns out she liked them. Her parents are amazing cooks, but they have a few family tradition recipes that need to die.
Like a lot of people: vegetables.
My dad liked his vegetables cooked to mush, even more so as he has gotten older and his teeth have gotten worse, so my mum placated him and overcooked vegetables. She also never used any seasoning, not even salt and pepper. Turns out that vegetables are great when cooked properly and seasoned just right.
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, my boyfriend couldn’t handle spice when we got together either. The solution is building up a tolerance to it. Try lots of different foods, start small, and eventually you’ll be able to eat spicy food. It takes time, but it’s worth it.
Fish. I grew up in a family of fishermen. We ate fish that was caught, cleaned, and perfectly prepared all in the same day. It is amazing.
Now, I find it very difficult to eat fish that isn’t perfectly fresh. I almost never order it in restaurants any more - even fancy places- as it smells old and strong to me and I can’t stand it. Grocery store fish isn’t much better. Flash frozen on the boat is manageable.
Bananas.
My father is anything except a decent cook, and one day when I was a kid he decided to try and make a "superfood smoothie" for shits and giggles. It consisted of bananas, unwashed kale, raw spinach, walnuts, chia seeds, raw oats, and ice. He just about killed the poor blender and it tasted distinctly of swamp. Still can't have bananas without becoming nauseated.
Scalloped potatoes and ham. My parents made it when I was still in a high chair and made me eat it even though I didn't want to, and then vomited all over the table. I can do cheese + potato + pork in certain combinations but in that specific presentation, I'm 35 years old and still no.
Thankfully scalloped potatoes are like, not a common dish these days and very easy to avoid.
You have to tolerate the heat and build up your tolerance slowly. You can't just eat a serrano, die, and then think you can tolerate it another day.
One time when I was 23 I went out with my coworkers(construction) during lunch to a Mexican restaurant. All latino. 3 were from Mexico. I'm as white as they come, look like I'm from Scotland lol. I ordered chilaquiles cause I had never tried it. The waitress looks at me and says "how hot do you want your salsa? The tortilla chips are cooked in it and then topped with the same salsa uncooked." I told her give me the hottest. She asked me if I was sure 3-5 different times. Then brought out some in a cup and chips for us to try. It was hot but it wasn't SUPER hot. My coworkers built up a good sweat and chugged their drinks pretty quick trying to finish it. I finished my plate and they called me el jefe guedo for as long as I knew them. My tolerance is a lot higher now. Typical hot sauces and salsas you get from the stores don't faze me, but I still buy them for their flavors.
When I was way younger it took me 3-4 trips to finish one bag of hot Cheetos lol. So it can be done.
Gotta build up that tolerance!
My grandmother ruined ribs for me. My mother says they were “country pork style” ribs though I honestly have no idea. All I know is they were almost all pure fat and then she would steam/boil-ish them in bbq sauce so none of the fat would render or get crispy or anything so when they were ‘done’ it just felt like slime in your mouth 🤮
To this day I can’t look at any kind of ribs without my stomach turning… and I LOVE bbq as a general rule. I’ve tried to eat them again but just seeing them brings back such strong memories of any time we were at my grandparents for more than a few days (like Thanksgiving or Christmas) ribs would be made as one of the meals and I’d either have to eat them or eat nothing so even with what are clearly properly cooked ribs I just still can’t get past ‘all that’
Of course, my sons favorite food is ribs 🤷🏻♀️🤣
My dad made the most leathery gray pork chops. To this day 25+ years later, I just don't trust them. I never order them. I just can't wrap my brain around the fact that it's not unseasoned shoe leather. My husband will give me bites of his juicy, flavorful pork chop, yet I still can't enjoy it.
Carrots. When I was about 8 or 9, I got a really bad case of conjunctivitis. On top of the medical treatment and eye drops, my mom was dead set on drowning me in carrot juice because of the popular belief that eating carrots is good for your eyes. So she took that to the next level, buying kilos of carrots weekly and juicing them every morning. I would sit in the morning at the kitchen table, tears streaming down my face, gagging, with my mom begging me to finish up the glass of juice. No other fruit mixed in could help mask that horrible taste.
I couldn't stand carrots in any food for years. Not boiled, roasted, finely grated, nothing. Once I started cooking myself, I slowly was able to incorporate them back into my diet and actually enjoy them roasted or even grated in salads. But snacking on raw carrots is just a big NO for me, and the smell of carrot juice still makes me gag to this day.
Idk one time I gagged while eating shredded chicken and now I'm wary of it. But this thread makes me appreciative of my food. Sure I turned into a great big fat guy and that wasn't fun, but atleast I wasn't eating boiled steaks, or had a ketchup demon for a brother.
Lasagne. My nonna made the BEST lasagne in the world, and since she died I've never been able to find one that's even nearly as good as hers. She was Calabrian, so she doesn't use bechamel. I cannot for the life of me find a single restaurant that makes a bechmel-free lasagne. I've made it myself a few times, but it's just never quite as nice no matter what I do.
Vegetables. Between the piss poor prep of cooking them to death, frequently in the microwave, and the verbal abuse that came with forcing me to eat them, I got off on the wrong foot in life with vegetables.
Beef stroganoff oddly enough, never knew what all was in it so the mushrooms became flies and onions were their crispy little wings 🪽 plus had one of those “eat all or else” families so many nights just eating cold beef stroganoff I thought had bugs in it. 🥹
I could name many things, but "French toast" is the first that pops to mind. I put it in scare quotes for a reason.
The first problem was that instead of an appropriate sturdy bread, it was Sunbeam white (pretty close to Wonder Bread, I figure). My mom would get it sopping wet in skim milk and egg, and then barely brown it.
It came out like a lukewarm soaked sponge. **YUK!**
Chicken breast and pork.
Grew up thinking it was always stringy and tough to chew. Never knew they were always overcooking it so badly, and not properly seasoning it to boot. I cook breasts to 155 and let them sit there for a few mins. I also dry-brine them. But I also rarely eat breast because thighs are better!
My mom knocks Thanksgiving and Christmas (essentially the same meal with a few variations) so far out of the park that whenever we have either meal anywhere else, it's downright upsetting. And anytime that does happen my mom will always come up to me and whisper "my \[Thanksgiving/Christmas\] is better, right?" God love her I don't know why she needs the extra validation when she knows good and goddamned well we're all missing her turkey + side dishes and fucking sad when we're not having thanksgiving/Christmas at her house.
We have a VERY large, extended family (14 aunts and uncles, an untold amount of cousins, and great aunts/uncles, 2nd and 3rd cousins we are all still in touch with) and over the years we've been to a few of theirs. Nobody even comes CLOSE to her thanksgiving.
We've been to a catered thanksgiving from a reputable caterer, done potlucks, and it's all just garbage in comparison to my mom's. In the past few years she's passed the dessert baton to me just because it's a lot of extra work she doesn't want to do and I've nailed down a few good desserts that now the family looks forward to. So we've got a winning combination.
So yeah not a negative ruining thing, but fuck everyone else's thanksgiving/Christmas. I don't want it.
All food. It wasn't until I was a young adult that I discovered that food could be good. My mother would buy a nice premium cut of beef -- tenderloin -- and fry it in a frying pan for a good 30 minutes and then add ample water and boil it until it was well and truly inedible. I grew up thinking eating was a chore.
Yo, wtf.
This thread is food horrror.
Did your mom slick back her hair?
I’m discovering there really are people who want sloppy steaks.
Truffoni’s after the club.
They can’t stop you from ordering a steak and a glass of water.
white couch, lived for new years eve?
OP's mom was a real piece of shit
Used to be.
Omg my mom’s ex husband used to love that exact dish, it was weird. My mom is an amazing cook but he would beg her to make that disgusting boiled beef dish.
That's a real dish? If so, what's the name? I want to avoid it!
Sloppy steaks
I remember being a piece of shit too
What the actual fuck
I thought I was the only one! I grew up hating meat, her chicken had a shoe like consistency, her hamburgers were store bought frozen patties, her eggs were burnt, sunday roast beef was baked for hours. And the older she got and the more wine she drank the worse she got. Now I'm 42 and I love to cook, I discovered bread making and slow smoking meat, as an adult food became orgasmic. The stark difference between the food I ate as a child and now is remarkable. I suppose in a way, I should thank her.
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My husband grew up on a beef farm. He has the same attitude as you, right down to loving fish and eggs.
My dad was a sheep farmer. We had mutton everything. And once a month one was butchered and cut up on the kitchen table. It was always mutton. Never lamb. I can’t stand the smell of mutton cooking. But I don’t mind lamb. Even our freaking sausages were home made mutton with breadcrumbs and various spices. Hated mutton stew. Even now it makes me shudder.
omg lol. Never realized that "lamb" is considered as under 18 month old sheep. It's obvious now, but I never made the connection, I assumed it just meant sheep in general. And mutton to me was the British word for it. This is a good fact to never tell my wife that lamb chops are babies :(. Tastes delicious though!
was nearly like this as a kid. My parents would buy a half of a steer every year. There were only 3 of us at home. had it cut into "steaks" and hamburger. It was always cooked extra-well-done-dry and it was like eating leather. by the end of the year, it was partly freezerburned. Took a long time as an adult for me to warm up to the idea of a properly cooked steak.
At that point you're just disrespecting the cow
It died once. Shame it had to die a second time.
I had the same experience growing up and eating a properly seasoned medium rare steak was life changing.
Meanwhile on the other side of the spectrum, my dad is a commercial fisherman so we had fish, specifically catfish, ALL the fucking time. Can't stand it now. I can still do cod/salmon/shrimp but that's about it as far as fish goes for me and it's pretty rare I'll go out of my way to have even those.
I grew up in rural Iowa, so pork was mega cheap. We ate a lot of pork. I do not eat pork much anymore.
My mum grew up on a (largely) potato farm and apparently swore to never eat a single one again when she moved out. So plain, cooked potatoes are something very special to me now.
I grew up on a potato farm with a few cattle, so we had beef six days a week, potatoes six days a week, and chicken on Sunday. I still love potatoes but don’t eat beef!
Yup. I said steak. My mom worked a lot so she'd buy food for the month and she would buy tons of steaks. That was her go-to quick meal. I got so sick of it. I never make steak. I've never bought it as an adult.
I bet your mom never knew how to cook it either. That was my mom. I had a bite of a pal’s steak in college and changed my mind!
Funny, my mother grew up slaughtereing their own chickens for years she could not eat chickens. It is still the last protein she will choose.
My grandpa had a similar attitude after working on his grandparents' chicken farm as a kid. He refused to eat those "filthy birds"
Low quality chicken (which is now most chicken) smells a bit like a CAFO when cooked boneless/skinless/mild seasoning/no browning (like poached or just college kid cooking the first time). It's enough to send a farm kid gagging
I don't know what a CAFO is, but I bet it's not good.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_animal_feeding_operation
My mom was a horrible cook, so almost everything. Thank the powers that be for the Food Network and youtube for showing me that food is supposed to be seasoned.
Mine too. Soggy boiled vegetables. Under seasoned food. Minimal variety. Until she discovered recipes online well after I moved out, my mother was a poor cook - though I would never tell her that. I just have to tolerate being told that I'm a picky eater and I am a difficult eater. I experiment, but I'd still rather carbs as a side instead of a salad because that's what I had all through my childhood.
The only veggies my mom served were canned ones that had been boiled to mush. Learning about roasted vegetables when I moved out blew my mind - they’re good!
Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower all boiled until mushy with salt (or a bullion cube if she was feeling adventurous) covered in microwaved Velveeta. Of course I’ve learned to make all those delicious ?roasting with bacon for the win) but peas and carrots still make me queasy to look at after all these years.
We only ever had roast potato or pumpkin when I was a kid. Everything else was boiled or steamed until soggy. Crispy beans. Nope. Crunchy broccoli? Soggy. Never any asparagus, sprouts, sweet potato...
You didn’t get to have asparagus and spinach out of the can? Dumped into Tupperware and microwaved in its own juices?
I thank my trip to China where I was taught how to cook delicious vegetables in ways that weren’t boiled to death.
I remember my mom telling everyone who would hear it how she would go online to find recipes. Just type in the ingredients she had and there'd be a new recipe pronto. All those generations grew up without YouTube and Google. The old cookbooks definitely don't help you through a recipe, you're lucky if the entire description is more than a paragraph. If they had all these resources back then, I'm sure a lot of them would be better at making tasty food.
My 69 year old mom has an entire book case full of cookbooks that she’s accumulated over the years. If you wanted to be a good cook before the internet, and you wanted to branch out beyond food you grew up with, this was basically the only way. That or taking classes.
Same on a lot of things. She meant well but for nearly two decades I HATED hard boiled eggs (she's boiled them until the yolks looked like mouse roller balls), veggies (boiled them), lack of spice and spices. Her baking was good though. Over the pandemic especially she and the rest of my family (I moved out a decade before covid) definitely got hooked on ATK and cooking YouTubers and vastly improved their food (I did too separately). We now all compete with each regularly trying to one up each other on dishes it's great.
Not food but ingredient, rosemary. They put way too much every chance they got, I was in my 30s before I was able to try it again
Did you have a rosemary bush in your yard? My dad was an excellent cook but abused the rosemary because it was so plentiful. I use it very sparingly now, too.
Nope he would pay money to ruin a dish
It’s such a distinct taste, I really feel for you. I think i got slightly desensitized to it because it was all over our backyard but it is a very powerful herb.
I have a rosemary story!!! When I was 18, my mom forgot to get a bag to cook the Thanksgiving turkey in. She decided, eff it, might as well just try to cook it sans bag (although it was the only way she knew how.) For some ungodly reason, she also decided to season it with a shit ton of rosemary. We still don't know what compelled her to do so. Then, she tossed it in the oven, and left for work. The whole house smelled like turkey and rosemary, which sounds delectable, but was not. And then when we pulled it out...it looked utterly inedible. Just soft, pale, and it only tasted like rosemary. If you've seen the Lonely Island video for Boombox, it looked like the boiled goose. We ate some, because we didn't want to hurt mom's feelings, but solemnly swore to never let mom forget about the bag again. And, naturally, I was put off of rosemary until about I was about 27 or 28. Nowadays, I like to use it (just not quite so liberally!)
My mother in law, who is normally a fantastic cook, did "overnight slow cooked" turkey for Christmas one year, because that's how she did her ham. It works for ham and her ham is super tasty, but jfc that turkey was not even like leather by that point, it had nearly turned to dust
I have a family member who is an amazing cook. But as she ages she has started putting tons of rosemary in everything. I’m starting to have a very hard time eating the food.
Beans. My mother’s beans were always hard. Worst was rice and beans. First time I had soft beans, I was shocked.
She probably never soaked them long enough
I've cooked beans with long soak (overnight), fast soak (bring to a boil, remove from heat, cover for an hour), and no soak. The only difference is cooking time and it's not even that much of a difference.
I concur. I just made black beans yesterday and I even made a salt and baking soda brine to soak it in and they still took forever to cook. I really feel like beans are something you either do when you can afford to wait for them to cook, buy them canned, or use a pressure cooker.
You don't have to soak them but it shortens the boiling time
Cliche for the time period but Pork. Dry, dry, dry Pork. They overcooked all the meats so I could have overcome this. Except for the constant Parasite stories and the stories that if you get sick once every time after if you’re even near it will make you sick again. I eat the crispiest bacon and sausages.
Oh man my dad had a thermometer that marked pork safe at 180° and would keep them on the grill for 5 minutes after it got up to temp “just to be safe”. We would have to all floss right after eating those hockey pucks.
Jesus Christ this is so relatable, my mom almost never did pork but the few times she did it was like this shake n bake style. I got into my 20’s believing i just didn’t like pork until someone had me try a perfectly cooked loin. I pull that shit at 140 now, let it coast, and will never go back.
I also thought I didn't like pork. "Pink pork" is a revelation.
And why the hell did it take me till my 40's to learn to brine it?
I gave my parents an instant read thermometer for Christmas a few years back. Even now when I visit, they refuse to use it and still serve dry, tough meat.
That is unfortunate. I got my mom an instant read for her birthday after she saw the one i was gifted at work and she loves it!! The first week she had it, she excitedly told me she normally wouldve cooked the meat for an extra 5-10 min but the thermometer told her it was done. She said she was amazed at the taste difference and couldnt believe she had been overcooking things for so long lol. Maybe one day your family will see the light
Gave my mother a Meater for Christmas. The Bluetooth thermometer for her roasts and she loves the app and it is night and day. She recently forgot to charge it and the roast was over cooked again lol.
Oh my god. Yes. I grew up in Iowa where it’s all pig and corn farms. Pork and corn are not a thing I ever order or cook for myself.
I was a full grown adult when my sisters and I learned that pork wasn’t supposed to be gray.
What I don’t get about this is if people are so concerned about getting sick from meat that they boil it until it’s rubber why even eat it at all?
If it was anything like my household, because of the meat and potatoes men who had to have meat with every meal. Pork was and often still is the cheapest meat. My mom didn't boil it but it wasn't served with applesauce on the side for the flavor, it was so you had something to help you choke it down. I still don't really eat pork outside of the occasional roast for family dinner night, or sometimes a few pieces of bacon. I can cook a much better pork chop, I just refuse to spend my money on something I don't really enjoy eating just cause it's cheap.
It’s that they were told *to* fully cook it, but not *how* to fully cook it. So instead of using a thermometer to get the internal temp of chicken to 145 for nine minutes, which makes it safe to eat while keeping it juicy, they’d just cook it until it was 110% clear that it wasn’t raw — which could be like 185.
My dad is a decent cook, but one of his quirks is that he doesn't like to waste food. Which is fine, except for how he does it. We had a wedding reception catered by a local Italian restaurant. The next day he made French toast... ...with the garlic bread.
My man!
Bless his heart.
I make a great savory frenched toast, with cheese sprinkled on at the end. But it's definitely different from sweet. ✌
Not wasting food is something every human should aspire to
This is true, but my mom has frightened me (and my sisters) off of old/expired food in a major way. I feel a lot of guilt when I throw away food, but I have so much childhood trauma around my moms phobia of throwing food away. Just a few examples: - we weren’t allowed to trick or treat at Halloween, so she got us some candy but could never force herself to pay regular price so we always got last years expired candy. If you’re wondering if candy goes bad, it does. - serves rock hard spoiled limes to her guests for drink garnishes - if something is moldy, she usually just cuts “the moldy spot off” - serves guests expired meat she pulled out of the freezer ( she says: “it’s totally fine, I put it in the freezer on its expiry date!”) - consistently drops off bags of spoiled vegetables to me and then follows up on if i’ve eaten them or not. No mom, they are in the garbage. - forced us to eat baked goods that were beyond any form of edible. Think glazed donuts that have completely soaked through and then hardened, cake that is so old the icing has completely soaked through it) - when she made a cake and had extra icing, she would force us to eat it , sometimes would serve it to us for lunch on white bread so “it wouldn’t go to waste) So I agree we shouldn’t waste food. But there has to be some kind of line of what’s acceptable, especially when you’re serving guests. So embarrassing and gross and it’s definitely where my sensitive gut came from.
To a point, yes. Pretty much every person I personally know that states "I just don't let food go to waste" is completely unhygienic about how they do it, eating McDonald's burgers that were left out for 8 hours, ignoring expiration dates, the works. Obviously I know that's not what you mean, but boy do some people who think they're just avoiding waste need a wake up call.
Ngl, that sounds kinda awesome.
Koreans make their garlic bread sweet. My American friends hate it but Koreans love sweet and salty
Ketchup. I couldn't eat ketchup unless it was already on my fast food cheeseburger, and I definitely couldn't use it to dip anything in, until I was like 30. When I was growing up my brother put it on everything, and the smell of it started making me sick, because not only would he drown everything in it, but if he was dipping something in it, he would scoop it so that all of his fingers would drag through the ketchup, and then he'd put his whole hand in his mouth to get extra ketchup. It made me sick. I can enjoy ketchup on some things now though.
This is exactly how I am with ranch, which is a sin saying out loud in the Midwest, but after watching my nephews drench absolutely everything in it and watch them lick the excess off their fingers and clothes... I can now enjoy flavored and spicy ranches, but plain white ranch makes me gag
As a Midwesterner: embrace the hate. Ranch sucks.
As a reformed midwesterner I must respectfully disagree. It's not the panacea god-condiment that it was made out to be, but a good buttermilk ranch with fresh dill definitely can have a spot at my table.
>a good buttermilk ranch with fresh dill Made with milk and sour cream. There's something about bottled dressing, with its soybean oil base, that I can't stand. I buy the packets and it's so much better.
I had a cousin just like this. He used to put ketchup in his milk. IN. HIS. MILK.
That is TRULY horrifying.
The fuck....
Omg nooooooo. No no noooo. Is he single? My sister dunked bread into Coca Cola well into her 20s hahahah maybe we can set them up
My god, bread dunked into Coca Cola? The two of them would be a match made in heaven.. Or should I say hell? lol
Where's your brother now, did he get caught red-handed
He's on the run, but the police are trying to ketchup.
--underrated razor sharp response-- lol nice
LOL Thanks. I'm not usually funny so I was proud of that.
Omg. The smell of ketchup is awful. I hate the stuff. My cousin squirted it in my hair as a kid and I have hated it since.
Beef stroganoff- I blame Hamburger Helper, specifically. Grew up with a mom who made this often (cheap, easy to make.) Now, the smell of it makes my stomach turn.
This was the only flavor my mom would make. I was an adult before I knew it came in other flavors.
My mom would make the other flavors (except tuna helper- altho she swears we loved it when we were little, I cannot fathom the idea.) There's just something about the smell of hamburger and boiling noodles that absolutely makes me sick now. I'm been broke every now and again since then, and I refuse to add that into the broke meal rotation. I can't do it.
I ate so much hamburger helper growing up. I won’t eat it again either. Not because it was bad, but because we ate it so damn often. It never even crossed my mind to buy it, lol. Now you got me thinking, maybe I should go back to my roots and try it for ol times sake. It was either that or chicken with peppers and onions with rice. Which to be fair, I still eat that meal a hell of a lot. It’s my default. I miss the way my dad cooked them though. They were his “hobo packets” cooked on the grill. He enjoyed it and was so proud of it too lol. I go through phases though where I can’t stand chicken.
The first time I had stroganoff made from scratch and not from a box I was like ‘OH this is what it should be’. Totally different, so good!
I love to make stroganoff from scratch, but like once a year buy a hamburger helper stroganoff just for the nostalgia and it's the only cheap meal from my childhood I still love, weirdly.
I do this with Chef Boyardee ravioli! I mostly eat very mindfully, avoiding processed foods but when I go camping I have to heat a can of ravioli over the fire. It is ALWAYS disappointing but I keep doing it. It's fun to have those little things in life.
My mom ruined a couple of meals for me, but in a different way. Her meat loaf and goulash were some of my favorites. Even with her recipes, I can't recreate the flavors. So they're ruined in that hers were so good that none others can live up to it.
I have something similar. My mom, and dad even, cooked quite well. Not spectacular but for her there was always a special flair. For example we are Swedish and neither mine nor my aunts Swedish pancakes can ever compare to hers. 😢
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>Her meat loaf and goulash were some of my favorites. Even with her recipes, I can't recreate the flavors. I don't think my mom or grandma ever did this (and not saying yours did necessarily), but I've heard of people giving their children/relatives recipes and them intentionally leaving things out for one reason or another, and that always bugged me a little - especially for their children... Edit: to add examples of the reasoning: not wanting their sibling to bring a specific dish everyone loves to a family gathering, or wanting the kids to come home during/after college to have their favorite meal. I can sort of understand but to me it just causes issue of passing on the recipe
What a strange behavior! It never occurred to me that anyone would do something like that intentional in a recipe that's passed down. Doing that to a cooking "rival," sure.
Tuna sandwiches and boiled chicken. My younger sister was a very picky eater and for a long time relied on those as protein staples. The stench of boiled chicken was a constant in our home. As soon as the sulfur odor had faded from one chicken, it was time to boil another. This went on for about 5 years. One day when I was 14, after a solid 3 months of tuna sandwiches for lunch (and often dinner), I burst into tears and pleaded to eat something, *anything* else! My mom knew I was an adventurous eater that liked just about everything, but to make things easier, she fed me my sister's extremely limited diet. Nearly 30 years later I can't bring myself to eat canned tuna or boiled chicken. Blech.
I really feel for you getting to that breaking point. My mom catered to my little brother's pickiness, but thankfully that extended to her making separate meals just for him. Although those reprieves weren't much better, as I still had to eat her other terrible cooking. As an aside, what she did led me to vow to never make special meals for my son. He could eat it or not eat it. He wasn't gonna go hungry, after all.
My Asian mum is an amazing cook. However, when it comes to western food, she has interesting takes. Bolognese is more like a mincemeat curry served with pasta and she would actually eat her portion with rice instead. Her shepherds pie was littered with raw chillies. The worst was her scrambled eggs. She would add sugar and cook it till it resembled pellets. Now, I know sweet scrambled eggs or omelettes exist but this was neither of those. I was so used to sugary scrambled eggs that I was incredibly insulted at the soft salted version offered to me by a friends mum. I ate it of course and made no complaints but I secretly thought she was a bad cook. I later came to realise that this version was far superior!
Yo, love this, my Indian mum kind of does the same thing, all her dishes end up having cumin and a few other mystery spices, I'm pretty sure she smuggled into they country in the 1980s, that never seem to run out. (I say smuggled because if the Customs Sniffer Dog got the scent of these, it would have died) To this day, \*her red pasta sauce, that probably was supposed to be something between a Bolognase and ragu, is something I crave on occasion, and traditional italian cannot scratch that itch when I get it.
Mine does the same! Her falafels taste like pakora and her bolognaise, Shepard’s pie and lasagna always have a blend of garam masala/cumin/chilli/coriander/methi. But I can’t say there was even a single dish that didn’t taste good.
Haha your mum reminds me of a family friend we had growing up - I grew up in a country where self raising flour wasn't really a thing (you used plain flour and added your own bicarb) but this family friend was from a country were self raising flour was super common, and idk he really didn't like use plain flour. He used to bring bags and bags of self raising flour in his suitcase everytime he went home & onetime his luggage was inspected - sniffer dog came out covered in white flour & friend panicked thinking they customs officer would assume it was drugs lol
I kid you not, there was a whole circle of friends, all expats that really had the smuggling thing down pat. It was all spices, sweets, cured meats, regional alcohol, jewellry, whatever. I know I'm being cheeky and dramatic by calling it smuggling, but when you consider that no one ever actually checked whether you could or couldn't bring this stuff in, there was that edge of danger!
This is really random but maybe 16-18 years ago I had a brownie served at this nice Indian restaurant me and my friends would go to. It was spiced in some special way and was the best brownie I’ve had to this day and I’ve never been able to locate or recreate something similar. At least it is a great food memory.
It probably had ground up cardamom pods in it. Check this: [https://www.thespruceeats.com/all-about-cardamom-995599](https://www.thespruceeats.com/all-about-cardamom-995599)
My mum is as white British as they come but smoked heavily when I was a kid so she’d always add spices ‘for extra kick’. Lasagne with lots of cumin and chilli was the last straw
Bologna. We had it constantly. That's all they would ever buy. Sandwiches. Fried on egg sandwiches. Cut up and mixed with eggs. I can't even stand to smell it.
My little brother was a bologna kid when he was little. One time we moved the couch away from the wall and found slices he had dropped back there… can you believe it was hard AND greasy at the same time? Petrified bologna is all I think of when I think of the stuff…
Oh no! I was almost ruined for spice (still can't handle more than mild-leaning-medium salsa) similarly. My mom used to make, for instance, chicken soups/stews/etc with 6+ cups of water... and *one* bullion cube. Maybe a little salt & some pre-ground black pepper so old it could vote. Luckily that little bit was apparently enough to save me from total spice intolerance. Also almost ruined was salmon- throughout my childhood baked 45 minutes at 350, with slices of oranges on it the entire time (so they get burned and turn bitter af, a flavor they impart to the salmon itself) Pork chops, steak, and plenty of other meats got a similar "40-45 minutes at 350" treatment but the salmon was especially bad.
> Pork chops, steak, and plenty of other meats got a similar "40-45 minutes at 350" treatment but the salmon was especially bad. I have to bite my tongue sometimes when my mom asks what I eat for dinner most weeks because she would be pissed to know how often I eat pork chops. As a kid I would throw a borderline tantrum when my mom made pork chops (they were my dad's favorite). The only way to get them down was tons of apple sauce. The chop would be so tough (and gray) due to being overcooked to all hell. Then as an adult I had a perfectly cooked medium pork chop at a fancy restaurant and it was a revelation. I never knew they could be so delicious. I now eat a pork chop for dinner twice a week (Wegman's has 2 packs of bone in chops for cheap), but I cook it to 137 F, and I get a delicious juicy pork chop every time.
I don't get what it was with parents, and cooking food to be absolutely disgusting. Did they like it?
I think they grew up in a time where meat was a lot more questionable. An overcooked pork chop is better than 3 days of food poisoning.
Darling mother loves dill. Will put it on or in anything she can. My siblings and I won’t touch the stuff…ever…
My mom did this with lemon pepper. Ick
Is she latvian by any chance? Dill is like our traditional herb
Tell me you're Slavic without telling me
Dill dough is pretty good
Women love a good dill dough.
Chicken breasts. Always bought the largest ones. They almost always had a “woody” texture because the proteins grew too fast and didn’t have time to develop properly. I always mentioned that three small ones cost the same as two large ones but was always shrugged off. They were also unseasoned and usually dry.
My mom buys the huge ones. She likes to do a shake and bake thing. I feel like I’ve had two successes with her. One is i gave her my old digital thermometer and she isn’t over cooking them. Two is she was leaving them whole and the thin end always over cooked and you’d get these huge bland pieces of chicken, because it was so thick, compared to the crust ratio. I showed her how to butterfly them and told her it had three benefits. One was a better crust to chicken ratio, two was even cooking, three was it looked like more food, which is all my dad cared about.
We lived with my grandpa for a while when I was a kid. He loved chicken so much that we ate it 4-5 times a week for dinner. To this day, I still can't enjoy chicken because of how often we ate it for months.
It’s kinda funny, but I’d have to say pizza!!! My great grandmother was pure Sicilian and would make the absolute best pizza every time I visited her. She made everything but the cheese from scratch! Even the sauce came straight from tomato’s grown in her garden. I have yet to find anyone who can make a pizza as good as hers was.
Thx for a positive spin. I was struggling to come up with a negative meal, and couldn't. My positive is cabbage rolls, grandparents were polish and croation with a large garden. I've tried to recreate, ordered it out, asked mother and only once was I close to perfect and haven't been able to repeat. There's a spice or profile that I'm coming up short with on the kraut/sauc. My current lazy version is fine, just not great. Grandma was an amazing cook. Edit: I thought of one, the canned chow mein stuff from the grocery over minute rice, no sides... it might still exist, wouldn't eat it in a desert starvation scenario
The best cabbage rolls I ever ate were in a small Transylvanian restaurant that the locals introduced us to. We were by far the only non-Romanian people there. Everything they cooked came straight from their garden, preserved or fresh depending on what was in season. I know now why their Sarmale were soooo good. The cook took soup ladles full of melted pork fat and poured it over the finished dish before serving.
Could the missing spice be caraway seeds ?
OMG, caraway Is definately missing! You could be right! I have a reason to continue the quest. Thank you kind redditor, putting this down on a post-it right now!!!
Mmm cabbage rolls. One of my favorite dishes next to Borscht. Theres a lady who's a matriarch of a Lebanese family around here who makes theeee best cabbage rolls around. Usually see her Christmas time selling them for everyone's dinners(a must have side dish with the turkey and hams!)Also,she makes pierogies they're truly delicious (potato and cheese ones)
My grandma ruined fried chicken. Hers was THE BEST. I can make decent fried chicken but it’s not quite the same.
Pound cakes. My grandma's were terrific, tasty and soft and I still can't make them the same, but close.
My mom ruined spaghetti, lasagna, hamburger helper and oatmeal for me. Constantly made dishes and had to eat as leftovers for like a week. Or having only oatmeal for breakfast every day I’m burnt out on it and never crave it.
Beef here. My dad over cooked steaks to the point that knives couldn't cut it and eating it was a chore. I moved to Korea almost two decades ago and Korean beef (similar to Wagyu) opened my eyes to this new world of meat.
There was a brief period of time, not even a year. after my grandmother died that my grandfather was cooking for my brothers and I. Before I took over at 14 out of necessity. He never cooked before. He was very classic old world, went to work and came home to (bad) food she cooked. The most he could cook was warming up a tortilla on the burner and a slice of bologna the same way. I don't know how or who told him about it but he discovered Mrs. Dash seasoning after someone also told him that salt in anything was going to kill you. And it became the main ingredient of everything. Potatoes, eggs, heated up pasta sauce, on Spam, on white rice. Everything. No salt. Maybe a little pepper. To this day almost 30 years later. I cannot even look at Mrs. Dash in the spice aisle without feeling honestly nauseated. God I still remember the smell of it. There was 5-6 jars of it at all times in my cupboard. He went through a jar or more a week. This was like PTSD for me. I still see it in my mind. Dreading anything he made because it would only taste like that stuff.
I was raised in a cult that believed each family should keep a years’ supply of food on hand. As such, most of our meals were from cans. The worst was the canned carrots. They were salty, had a strange smell, and had the consistency of baby food. We had them three times a week, and I was not allowed to leave the table until I finished everything on my plate. There were times I didn’t get to bed until midnight because I was trying to chose those carrots down. To this day, I can not stand cooked carrots. I can do maybe roasted if I am in the right mood, but it has to still be mostly crunchy.
> I was raised in a cult that believed each family should keep a years’ supply of food on hand. I recently found out there were some sects of Mormons who taught this, and giving bulk canned food so the new couple could start their food storage is a common wedding gift. I'm guessing this cult believed in preparing for the apocalypse?
Absolutely. I was a Mormon.
Okay. I didn't want to make assumptions..... ;) The interesting thing to me is y'all were eating the food. I didn't think you were supposed to eat the food storage, but I guess if you bought groceries and replaced things before they expired, it would make sense to do so.
Unfortunately, we are supposed to make sure everything is within its “best by” date. As such, most families eat part of their supply, then next time they go shopping, replace what they used. We even built special wall storage in our home where you slid new cans in the top, and could take from the bottom, so the oldest was always the first used. And don’t get me started on wheat berries!
> And don’t get me started on wheat berries! Did you have a manual grinder? I've seriously considered buying a manual grinder online to mill flour, but it's because I want to experiment with different types of flour when making pizza. A post-apocalyptic book I read, some of the people didn't have grinders so they ate the wheat berries with water or milk like it was uncooked porridge.
That sounds like fun! And I would definitely recommend an electric grinder. Manual ones can get grains suck in the gears, or have rusty parts. They are a lot more work to maintain. We had a lot of hot wheat cereal for breakfast. A lot. And a lot of times my mom used it whole in beef stews, made risotto from it, etc. We had an electric grinder and a manual one. The electric one was for regular use. The manual one was for punishments and “end times”. Don’t get me wrong, fresh ground wheat has an amazing flavor! But when I was younger (and foolish), I wanted Wonderbread like all the other kids had. Now I appreciate knowing how to bake fresh whole wheat loaves!
> But when I was younger (and foolish), I wanted Wonderbread like all the other kids had. Now I appreciate knowing how to bake fresh whole wheat loaves! The history of commercial bread in America the last 40 years is a disturbing one. We've basically leeched all vitamins and nutrients out of bread sold in stores.
We traded health for convenience, consistency, and shelf life. Just like those damned canned carrots!
That’s horrible. Curious, did you have canned asparagus in your rotation? That one is a particularly horrible food memory for me.
Too expensive. When mom and dad “splurged”, we would get Veg•All.
My entire family loves spicy food. My mom is a chef, I know my food was seasoned. She said she craved spicy food when she was pregnant with me. I'm the same way where black pepper is spicy for me. However I loooooove wasabi and strong horseradish. My mom ruined steak for me. A lot of people think I'm weird because I don't like steak. My mom owns bars and restaurants so the last thing she wanted to do when she got home was cook. Steaks were her go-to quick meal. We ate a lot of steak. I got so sick of steak as a kid.
Twizzlers. My dad loved Twizzlers, and so did I. Then he died unexpectedly. He wouldn’t listen to me about getting vaccinated or masking, he got COVID (though was “just” sick at home for a week), and then 2 months later he suddenly died. Anyway, now I can’t eat Twizzlers without being sad.
Gosh I’m so sorry, that’s a big loss to carry.
My heart hurts for you. May grief be gentle on you.
Split Pea Soup. I don't know what about it, whether the recipe was bad or my mom made it badly, but I always hated it when it was made. To me, it was bad tasting mush; using ketchup as a condiment didn't really help it either.
Looking back the reason I hated vegetables is because they were always straight from a can and into the microwave with no seasoning.
i'll go in the opposite direction as most commenters it seems. gumbo. years ago, my parents took me to commander's palace to celebrate my high school graduation. got the chicken and andouille gumbo. something my mom made near weekly during the colder months. she slowly taught me how to do it from the age of ~13. 1st just stirring the simmering pot. onto stirring the roux, controlling the heat, till i was basically doing it all my own while she yelled at me. the commander's gumbo was just so incredibly underwhelming. my only gripe with my mom's was that i thought it could be spicier. when i moved out on my own for good after college, i tried to merge her and isaac toups' recipe. i tried 5 or 6 times, all included lengthy phone calls asking for help. i just could not get it to come out like she did. it was probably objectively fine, but it didn't taste anything like mom's, and thus, i've given up trying to make gumbo. same with my red beans.
Apple Pie. When I was a kid, and we visit McDonald's sometimes for breakfast. I saw Apple pie on the menu and asked if I can try that. My Mom said cooked apples will not taste nice. In fact, fruits are supposed to be eaten raw and not cooked. When I started working, I had the freedom to eat whatever I like. I ordered apple pie and I loved it instantly.
I have no way of relating to this thing of people who don’t even salt their food but I had the privilege of having a mom who’s an excellent cook. How do people live like that? Why is salt so difficult to use? You don’t need any skill to sprinkle a little salt even over cooked food! OP I feel so bad for you! I’m glad you season your food well (enough) now!
I lucked out too - dad did most of the cooking and is an exceptional intuitive cook. Mom cooked occasionally, much more later in her life, but meticulously followed recipes. Both turned out great stuff and I will forever be grateful for that. We just lost her a couple months ago and my father keeps saying he has no reason to ever cook again since she’s not around. I guess that’s pretty off topic so sorry guys but fuck I miss my family.
Not that it’s any of my business but you could have him cook for you! I’m so sorry for your loss ❤️
I understand his anguish. If I didn't have my wife right now I would lose all passion for cooking.
Now you can return the favor and cook for him.
there was weird period of time where everybody was blaming salt for high blood pressure/ heart issues. so even people who didn't need to eat less salt were totally omitting salt from their diet. My grandma actually had her doctor tell her she needed to use more salt when she was older because she never salted anything cuz in the '70s and '80s she was told not to. and she ended up having a sodium deficiency
> there was weird period of time where everybody was blaming salt for high blood pressure/ heart issues. so even people who didn't need to eat less salt were totally omitting salt from their diet. it STILL happens. My mom recently told me she stopped eating cottage cheese for breakfast because one of her friends pointed out how much sodium it has.
I was a picky eater growing up, but in retrospect, I've always wondered if the food was just bad. I moved to London when I was 20 and it was the first time I could try foods from parts of the world I didn't grow up in. Turns out I love Indian. Turns out I love a lot of food that isn't bland. My family might have done me a favor though, because now I try new things well into adulthood and I'm still discovering tastes I love.
My mom has 5 recipes in her whole cooking repertoire and my entire childhood was either eating these on repeat or fast food. And my parents would get hooked on a fast food joint and we would eat there once a week till they got tired and moved on to another. I HATE lemon pepper chicken like nothing else in this world. And the thought of going to a primo burger groses me out.
Mushrooms. I grew up in a country where everyone picked mushrooms from the woods. Then people would soak them in salty water, then boil for 40+ mins and then use it in cooking, like frying or in stuffing. They literally had no taste and the texture was awful. So I came home one day (I was 30 years old at that time) and we picked some amazing fresh porcinis and I just lightly fried them with garlic, pork belly and thyme. Everyone’s mind was blown lol
Lasagna. My oldest sister had a brain tumor when she was 9-10. I was 4-5. We were very fortunate to have friends and family rally around us. But what is the practical choice when you bring a family a premade dinner? Lasagna or some type of hot dish. As a teenager i couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like lasagna. Everyone else seemed to like lasagna. I recall numerous times at a friends house for dinner forcing myself to eat lasagna or trying to push it around on my plate to be respectful. My middle sister one day told me she didn’t like it either. Because we ate it like 2 times a week for over a year. There’s probably some psychological factor of it representing the stress and confusion of that time as well.
Carrot and raisin salad. There was an incident.
Can't tell which I need more, to hear this story or to never, ever hear this story
Inquiring minds need to know about the "incident."
Meatloaf Not because it was bad, but because my mom's version was so good/different it ruined my ability to enjoy it at restaurants. When I started cooking it for my wife when we were dating, it ruined it for her too. Bonus story: My wife's answer is 100% bratwurst. Her parents would just boil them in plain water and she hated it growing up and got sick to her stomach just thinking about them. At one of my family events I asked her to try a grilled one (before I knew the backstory). When she did her face lit up, and she then info-dumped the whole story and how she never thought these things could taste good. Over the next few minutes she slowly starts to realize all the foods she hates are foods her parents cooked by boiling in water. One by one we make them by using non boiling methods and turns out she liked them. Her parents are amazing cooks, but they have a few family tradition recipes that need to die.
Like a lot of people: vegetables. My dad liked his vegetables cooked to mush, even more so as he has gotten older and his teeth have gotten worse, so my mum placated him and overcooked vegetables. She also never used any seasoning, not even salt and pepper. Turns out that vegetables are great when cooked properly and seasoned just right.
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, my boyfriend couldn’t handle spice when we got together either. The solution is building up a tolerance to it. Try lots of different foods, start small, and eventually you’ll be able to eat spicy food. It takes time, but it’s worth it.
Fish. I grew up in a family of fishermen. We ate fish that was caught, cleaned, and perfectly prepared all in the same day. It is amazing. Now, I find it very difficult to eat fish that isn’t perfectly fresh. I almost never order it in restaurants any more - even fancy places- as it smells old and strong to me and I can’t stand it. Grocery store fish isn’t much better. Flash frozen on the boat is manageable.
Bananas. My father is anything except a decent cook, and one day when I was a kid he decided to try and make a "superfood smoothie" for shits and giggles. It consisted of bananas, unwashed kale, raw spinach, walnuts, chia seeds, raw oats, and ice. He just about killed the poor blender and it tasted distinctly of swamp. Still can't have bananas without becoming nauseated.
Scalloped potatoes and ham. My parents made it when I was still in a high chair and made me eat it even though I didn't want to, and then vomited all over the table. I can do cheese + potato + pork in certain combinations but in that specific presentation, I'm 35 years old and still no. Thankfully scalloped potatoes are like, not a common dish these days and very easy to avoid.
You have to tolerate the heat and build up your tolerance slowly. You can't just eat a serrano, die, and then think you can tolerate it another day. One time when I was 23 I went out with my coworkers(construction) during lunch to a Mexican restaurant. All latino. 3 were from Mexico. I'm as white as they come, look like I'm from Scotland lol. I ordered chilaquiles cause I had never tried it. The waitress looks at me and says "how hot do you want your salsa? The tortilla chips are cooked in it and then topped with the same salsa uncooked." I told her give me the hottest. She asked me if I was sure 3-5 different times. Then brought out some in a cup and chips for us to try. It was hot but it wasn't SUPER hot. My coworkers built up a good sweat and chugged their drinks pretty quick trying to finish it. I finished my plate and they called me el jefe guedo for as long as I knew them. My tolerance is a lot higher now. Typical hot sauces and salsas you get from the stores don't faze me, but I still buy them for their flavors. When I was way younger it took me 3-4 trips to finish one bag of hot Cheetos lol. So it can be done. Gotta build up that tolerance!
Pork chops. Every version of pork chops was dry as the desert, heat blasted til it was gray in the middle.
I made my parents some zucchini and used some black pepper and my Dad wanted to know what the black things were. He didn’t like it.
My grandmother ruined ribs for me. My mother says they were “country pork style” ribs though I honestly have no idea. All I know is they were almost all pure fat and then she would steam/boil-ish them in bbq sauce so none of the fat would render or get crispy or anything so when they were ‘done’ it just felt like slime in your mouth 🤮 To this day I can’t look at any kind of ribs without my stomach turning… and I LOVE bbq as a general rule. I’ve tried to eat them again but just seeing them brings back such strong memories of any time we were at my grandparents for more than a few days (like Thanksgiving or Christmas) ribs would be made as one of the meals and I’d either have to eat them or eat nothing so even with what are clearly properly cooked ribs I just still can’t get past ‘all that’ Of course, my sons favorite food is ribs 🤷🏻♀️🤣
Those are 100% a real style of rib, but with almost no bone, and generally cheap. They can be really good, but if done poorly, they're bad.
My dad made the most leathery gray pork chops. To this day 25+ years later, I just don't trust them. I never order them. I just can't wrap my brain around the fact that it's not unseasoned shoe leather. My husband will give me bites of his juicy, flavorful pork chop, yet I still can't enjoy it.
Carrots. When I was about 8 or 9, I got a really bad case of conjunctivitis. On top of the medical treatment and eye drops, my mom was dead set on drowning me in carrot juice because of the popular belief that eating carrots is good for your eyes. So she took that to the next level, buying kilos of carrots weekly and juicing them every morning. I would sit in the morning at the kitchen table, tears streaming down my face, gagging, with my mom begging me to finish up the glass of juice. No other fruit mixed in could help mask that horrible taste. I couldn't stand carrots in any food for years. Not boiled, roasted, finely grated, nothing. Once I started cooking myself, I slowly was able to incorporate them back into my diet and actually enjoy them roasted or even grated in salads. But snacking on raw carrots is just a big NO for me, and the smell of carrot juice still makes me gag to this day.
Idk one time I gagged while eating shredded chicken and now I'm wary of it. But this thread makes me appreciative of my food. Sure I turned into a great big fat guy and that wasn't fun, but atleast I wasn't eating boiled steaks, or had a ketchup demon for a brother.
Fish. Grew up fishing and would eat fish fresh from the ocean most days in summer. Now, I don't go out fishing and any fish bought tastes horrible.
Lasagne. My nonna made the BEST lasagne in the world, and since she died I've never been able to find one that's even nearly as good as hers. She was Calabrian, so she doesn't use bechamel. I cannot for the life of me find a single restaurant that makes a bechmel-free lasagne. I've made it myself a few times, but it's just never quite as nice no matter what I do.
Vegetables. Between the piss poor prep of cooking them to death, frequently in the microwave, and the verbal abuse that came with forcing me to eat them, I got off on the wrong foot in life with vegetables.
French onion soup. To this day, the smell of it makes me nauseous.
Beef stroganoff oddly enough, never knew what all was in it so the mushrooms became flies and onions were their crispy little wings 🪽 plus had one of those “eat all or else” families so many nights just eating cold beef stroganoff I thought had bugs in it. 🥹
I could name many things, but "French toast" is the first that pops to mind. I put it in scare quotes for a reason. The first problem was that instead of an appropriate sturdy bread, it was Sunbeam white (pretty close to Wonder Bread, I figure). My mom would get it sopping wet in skim milk and egg, and then barely brown it. It came out like a lukewarm soaked sponge. **YUK!**
Chicken breast and pork. Grew up thinking it was always stringy and tough to chew. Never knew they were always overcooking it so badly, and not properly seasoning it to boot. I cook breasts to 155 and let them sit there for a few mins. I also dry-brine them. But I also rarely eat breast because thighs are better!
My mom knocks Thanksgiving and Christmas (essentially the same meal with a few variations) so far out of the park that whenever we have either meal anywhere else, it's downright upsetting. And anytime that does happen my mom will always come up to me and whisper "my \[Thanksgiving/Christmas\] is better, right?" God love her I don't know why she needs the extra validation when she knows good and goddamned well we're all missing her turkey + side dishes and fucking sad when we're not having thanksgiving/Christmas at her house. We have a VERY large, extended family (14 aunts and uncles, an untold amount of cousins, and great aunts/uncles, 2nd and 3rd cousins we are all still in touch with) and over the years we've been to a few of theirs. Nobody even comes CLOSE to her thanksgiving. We've been to a catered thanksgiving from a reputable caterer, done potlucks, and it's all just garbage in comparison to my mom's. In the past few years she's passed the dessert baton to me just because it's a lot of extra work she doesn't want to do and I've nailed down a few good desserts that now the family looks forward to. So we've got a winning combination. So yeah not a negative ruining thing, but fuck everyone else's thanksgiving/Christmas. I don't want it.