Food nightmares.....What are your wor... - Lung Conditions C...

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Food nightmares.....What are your worst memories .....

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12 years ago•26 Replies

For me ... difficult pick ....

1. My Gran's cabbage (love her) .... she would boil it for 40+ mins, drain it and then beat it with a fork until it lost what little life was left to it and turned into a cabbagy green slime ... she lived in the world of you don't get down from the table 'til your plate is cleared .... some v long sunday lunchtimes! Lovely lady, shocking cook.

2. I did a years voluntary work in a children's home (VSO), in Ghana West Africa, 25 years ago, I ate what the locals did .... in this case a dish of froo froo (a yam cassava paste) with 'meat'. No cutlery. Was with friends in badly lit bar. meat on the bone and eating with my hands. After chewing away for a while decided to check out the next bit with meat left on the bone .... gave it a good look, to see two very large teeth looking back at me. Some sort of large rodent head!! OMG!! However, I did finish the meal ... not sure if I could now.

Beth

26 Replies

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12 years ago

Yes!

Me too! Parsnips were sometimes cooked with the roast potatoes and then landed in your plate....and if you weren't very observant re vegetable shapes ...... not a welcome surprise! Ugh!

knitter12 years ago

I remember my gran's cabbage too, and the noise of the knife on the enamel colander as she chopped it up after it had boiled. She would then drink the water as it was "good for the complexion"

Liver, tapioca, mussels, mince, sausages, black pudding....I could go on all night....yuck!

I love parsnips.

• in reply toknitter12 years ago

Hi knitter

What was it with cabbage in those days, mind, my Gran generally cooked the life out of everything vegetable .. to a mush, and all meat, especially liver, resembled shoe leather ... loved her to bits tho' just tried to avoid cooked meals ... she did a grand sandwich!

Actually I like parsnips too,,, but don't like to be surprised by them .... I think they should wave a flag, or be bright blue, then I'd know they weren't potaoes

Beth x

12 years ago

Sago pudding (or frogspawn as we called it) in school dinners! Still makes we want to throw up thinking about it even now 50 years later!

peege• in reply to12 years ago

oh yes, frogs spawn, that awful slime yuk

• in reply to12 years ago

Hi Mapal

Sago pudding!! I'd forgotten the name of it. Disgusting stuff.

Also 'gristle pie', thin, cardboard like layer of pastry with beige coloured 'gravy', a few pieces of soft carrot and 'meat' ..... from what part of what animal I cannot imagine ..... give me minced horse any day!

The good old days eh?

Beth

peege• in reply to12 years ago

Fray Bentos pie from a tin?

• in reply topeege12 years ago

OMG!! My parents divorced back in 1964 ... we kids used to go to dads every other weekend when all we got were Fray Bentos pies .... I'd completely forgotten about them .... but can still taste them (euchhh) .... do they still exist?

Beth

• in reply topeege12 years ago

Not a tall tin, as in dog food, it was like a pie shaped tin with a metal lid. I have no idea how it was cooked as I was little, possibly just opened and put in the oven. Puffed pastry top, and dark gravy and shockingly chewy meat

12 years ago

Mashed potato at school - one lump or two. Still can't eat mash

Bev x

• in reply to12 years ago

And why were the lumps always grey!

Toci• in reply to12 years ago

Ugh! Thanks (!) for reminding me. I had forgotten about them being grey.

12 years ago

I was a child during the 2nd world war. My worse nightmare was not getting any.

katieoxo6012 years ago

Can recall my mum always chopping the cabbage after cooking,never understood why, nowadays she always says my cabbage tastes different, it's the way I cook it, definitely not for forty minutes. Not keen on parsnips but I do put them in stews and mash them with carrots,so there not a total no,no.Oh and how I remember frogspawn for school dinners and that terrible watery custard often with lumps. I don't much like custard now must be the lasting memories. School dinners are not the same these days.

• in reply tokatieoxo6012 years ago

Yeah...yukky school dinners This was unusual but one dinner time at home I was made to stay at the table with my father watching over me who insisted I eat a great heap of mashed potato. The more he drummed it in to me - 'waste not, want not' the harder it got to swallow. In the end I was sick all over the carpet...I was allowed to leave the table then .

katieoxo60• in reply to12 years ago

in this day and age that would be seen as cruelty, and we would not be encouraged to eat lots because of child obesity, what changes have occurred since we were children.

peege12 years ago

my mums brussels sprouts, cooked to death, strained and then a saucer placed on top of them in the colander & squashed down to getall the water out so we were then served a lump of yellowy green blop.

Plus, after his retirement my grandpa had a job as a night watchman at the Quaker Oats factory or wharehouse. He was always bringing home 'samples' of new fangled cereals.

Once he brought this white powder, he called it 'instant porridge' just add hot milk which we did. It was the most disgusting gluey gloop & he sat there watching while we pretended to enjoy it for so long we were late for school.

A wonder we didn't vomit. He told us the next day that he'd made a mistake & the white powder was flour!

• in reply topeege12 years ago

bringing back memories of Christmases at my 'Nans' .... the eggy smell of over-cooked sprouts, the mushy texture, Gran did not do sprouts, that was Nans territory, but no better for all that

Porridge was, thankfully, not something I was often expected to eat

Bethx

katieoxo6012 years ago

My biggest nightmare these days is peas served with everything, as I can't get them to my mouth unless I use a spoon or they are mushy ones, how embarrassing, poor me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• in reply tokatieoxo6012 years ago

Peas can be a pain, pinging off the fork whatever way you hold it, unless squished into mash.

And yes! they are served with everything, hadn't though about it, but true! Wonder why? Frozen and easy maybe.

Leave them on the plate, be the fussy customer!

All the best Katie

Beth x

katieoxo60• in reply to12 years ago

you got it in one,they are frozen so no preparation and they can be cooked quickly on stove or microwave straight from frozen.

peege• in reply tokatieoxo6012 years ago

oh, I have a passion for frozen peas. yum yum (cooked of course)

Toci12 years ago

Lumpy mash with grey bits, over-cooked veg, lumpy custard, "meat" pies, frog-spawn and wallpaper paste (semolina), dry and gristly liver, and yet ........... I think we were fitter then and there was certainly less obesity. Maybe just because the food was sometimes so awful that we ate less!

• in reply toToci12 years ago

I think you have a very good point there Toci.

Food was much less appealing .... so we only ate if we were hungry

Unlike today when a frozen pizza is cheap, easy to cook, and SO much tastier than the food I had as a teenager.. so of course .. eat more ... and therefore fatter

What is the solution?

Nothing springs to mind

Beth x

KingoftheCocktails12 years ago

A long time ago on a lovely hot summers day .I was walking past the butchers and there was this lovely pigs trotter on display . I bought it ,took it back to my flat and cooked it ready to have cold the following day. I got home from work the next day ,delved straight into the pan and took a big bite of pigs trotter FULL of maggots. Just imagine!!!!

KOTC

Chatz12 years ago

Oh the one thing I remember from childhood was going into a restaurant with my mother who ordered tripe for the two of us - I retched my way through it and was made to eat the lot. Also the big lumps of fat on chops etc - I was never allowed to say I didn't like something but made to eat all that was put in front of me regardless.