What was the worst stuff your parents made you eat?

[RED]

I don't understand why people are so repulsed by food others find to be delicacies. My mother used to spank me if I didn't eat everything on my plate. One food that always gets rapped as awful slimy sheet, is okra. One reason for that is how it is prepared. I grew up in Arkansas and until I went into the military, I had only seen okra fixed one way... breaded and fried. I couldn't imagine why anybody would want to ruin perfectly good okra by boiling it. Then I found gumbo!!! A difficult dish to cook, and the seafood version is VERY expensive and very difficult to make. A roux takes over an hour and has to be stirred constantly but without okra, it ain't gumbo.

Then there is lizards, sometimes called "rooster fries." Chicken livers and gizzards (and hearts), cooked correctly, are great! But cooked wrong they are chewy and unpleasant.

Greens are another gift from God. My favorite is Poke Salat. It is a plant that grows naturally in the wild in the Southeast USA. Eaten raw, the plant is poisonous to humans. But boiled three times in fresh water the harmful chemicals are removed and the cooked greens are then fried with bacon and served with boiled egg slices and Bruce's Pepper Sauce.

Then there are chitterlings. I could write a book on those but some people think they are disgusting, while others love em.

My sister won't touch a tomato but loves lasagna or spaghetti that has a lot of tomatoes in it.

Go figure.

[leftyo]

I don't understand why people are so repulsed by food others find to be delicacies. My mother used to spank me if I didn't eat everything on my plate. One food that always gets rapped as awful slimy sheet, is okra. One reason for that is how it is prepared. I grew up in Arkansas and until I went into the military, I had only seen okra fixed one way... breaded and fried. I couldn't imagine why anybody would want to ruin perfectly good okra by boiling it. Then I found gumbo!!! A difficult dish to cook, and the seafood version is VERY expensive and very difficult to make. A roux takes over an hour and has to be stirred constantly but without okra, it ain't gumbo.

Then there is lizards, sometimes called "rooster fries." Chicken livers and gizzards (and hearts), cooked correctly, are great! But cooked wrong they are chewy and unpleasant.

Greens are another gift from God. My favorite is Poke Salat. It is a plant that grows naturally in the wild in the Southeast USA. Eaten raw, the plant is poisonous to humans. But boiled three times in fresh water the harmful chemicals are removed and the cooked greens are then fried with bacon and served with boiled egg slices and Bruce's Pepper Sauce.

Then there are chitterlings. I could write a book on those but some people think they are disgusting, while others love em.

My sister won't touch a tomato but loves lasagna or spaghetti that has a lot of tomatoes in it.

Go figure.

much like my mother, ketchup is fine, but wont touch a tomato.

[JB White]

I hate being lied to about what's on my plate. Was once served a "new beef stew recipe". Delicious but something is wrong with the meat. "It's just beef...eat up!" Nope. Something is wrong with the meat and I eventually pushed it away in a final act of defiance. Had they told me up front it was buffalo heart I probably would have devoured it.

10-4 on the okra. Fried it's fabulous. Boiled down...gumbo boogers.

[Darreld Walton]

One of my acquired likes is butter milk from my youth, I like the tang of it. When our daughter was 4 I was drinking a glass of it and she came in hot and thirsty. She grabbed my glass [we always share] and took a big drink. She made an awful face and hollered that "Dad is drinking that spoiled milk again!' She likes it in pancakes or biscuits, otherwise no. She and her mother, along with Wolf, will eat yogurt...nasty stuff! I enjoy cottage cheese and relish it with breakfast.
Sam

Back in the early 60's, we went on a camping trip, my family, and my maternal grandparents. We stopped on Trail Creek Pass road, just north of the Mackay, Id. reservoir, for a break. Granddad had a canvas water bag that he hung on the mirror of his car, and while most everyone else took a tug off that, Granddad offered me a glass of ice cold buttermilk, and handed me a shaker of salt, I've been addicted ever since. Have three quarts in the Fridge as I write this. Have yet to try it with cornbread, I'm told it's a treat that way... In the 70's, as an Airman with wife and two kids, I could afford potato chips, but not dip, so one day, I pushed a chip into cottage cheese, liked the taste, then flavored a small bowl of it with celery salt, and haven't bought or made chip dip since. Grandkids took to it right away.

[pcox]

"...do not eat innards..." Ever eat any kind of sausage? Ever eat a hot dog(you really don't want to know what's in a hot dog)? Ever eat any kind of 'cold cut'?
For me it was fish. Had fresh(literally caught hours before) lake trout forced down my gullet when I was about 5 or so. It came back up a few hours later. Haven't eaten fish or anything else out of water since.
Anyway, the whole thing is mostly about how our ma's learned to cook. Usually from their ma or worse a Home Economics teacher(had a female Cadet tell me her's said if you don't score a cucumber's rind with a fork it's poisonous.). Who learned from their ma. Most of whom had to deal with inadequate refrigeration and trichinosis in pork.
And it's rutabaga. Needs to be cooked with an onion, then mashed with butter, brown sugar and a bit of nutmeg.
Brussels sprouts are fixed with lots of cheese, but they have to be boiled properly too.

Make my own sausage, don't put any internal organs in it, if your sausage has them it ain't right. Hot dogs, no. Only brats, again, make my own.

[Allen]

Granddad offered me a glass of ice cold buttermilk, and handed me a shaker of salt, I've been addicted ever since. Have three quarts in the Fridge as I write this. Have yet to try it with cornbread, I'm told it's a treat that way...

The little kid in me still loves ice cream. Personally buttermilk is about the most repulsive thing I have ever tasted. I think I would prefer rotten/sour milk and don't see much difference. To each his own though. I've know a lot of people who would take a tall glass, fill it with chopped up cornbread and pour the buttermilk over it and eat it like cereal. Cottage cheese to me has no taste what-so-ever and is like eating soggy Styrofoam. But again, to each his own. That's why the grocery stores stock so many different items.

[dryheat]

I feel the same about buttermilk(same as sour milk) and cottage cheese(although if it's in Lasagna I fine with it). I've don't see the point of Mozzarella cheese. May as well eat yesterdays used bubble gum. It's filler for pizza but tasteless as far as I'm concerned and I like lots of weird cheese.

[leftyo]

Make my own sausage, don't put any internal organs in it, if your sausage has them it ain't right. Hot dogs, no. Only brats, again, make my own.

just have to ask, with casings made from intestines or fake stuff?

[tmark]

Warmed white milk. I hated the smell and taste of it. But I could tolerate cold white milk in cereal.

[leftyo]

Warmed white milk. I hated the smell and taste of it. But I could tolerate cold white milk in cereal.

not a fan either. had it right out of the tank on the farm as a kid. still toasty right from the cow. still not a big fan of milk after that.