NASTY FOOD YOUR PARENTS OR GRANDPARENTS ATE

[notazombie]

My wife was raised by her depression era grandparents. Her food habits are...interesting. Lots of cottage cheese. Brewer's yeast on popcorn. Waaay overcooked lentils are always a hit. Brown sugar on rice and ketchup on oatmeal. And for some reason, and it drives me nuts, she frequently has to chop/mix everything on her plate or in her bowl. The exact opposite of a little kid who's peas can't be allowed to touch their rice. She's also incapable of throwing away food. All leftovers go in the fridge, where they won't be eaten, before going in the trash 2 weeks later once it's sprouted.

My dad learned to put heavy whipping cream on everything when he would visit his grandparents in Nebraska in the '50s. Still does it when not properly supervised.


This is an interesting thread because i was recently a my parents' house and they were reminiscing with several of their friends about food from their childhood. Someone even suggested a restaurant with a menu of boomer childhood favorites -- not the gross stuff. Kind of like alternative comfort food.

 

[Boboclown]

I'm not sure this is something I could answer.

Seems the question would have to be reversed for it to work, cause I've eaten nastier stuff than my parents (hey, maggots are good protein ).

 

[Sgt Nambu]

Gramps liked that too. I never knew what it was until a coworker drove over to our remote office at lunch, smeared some on the ceiling diffuser (during winter) and split back to the main office. It stank us out bad...worst smell ever

Not so bad! Once you get past the smell you've got it licked!

 

[Greenbug]

Never did eat any of it, because the smell of it cooking nauseated me intensely!
Stuffed green peppers (still can't touch food that has been in any close proximity to a green pepper).
Of course Liver and Onions.

 

[Boboclown]

Not so bad! Once you get past the smell you've got it licked!

I like limburger cheese. But the cheese I'd really like to try is casu marzu.

 

[Dungannon]

There was a Finnish guy in High School, Fred Rajala, who would pop car hoods in downtown Spokane and leave chunks of Limburger on the exhaust manifold. As I recall, it came to an end when one of his black powder pipe bombs was used to demolish a railroad crossing light; FBI came for a visit.

 

[Joe13]

I swiped this idea from rick49's Bologna thread. What disgusting thing did your parents or grand's eat that just put your guts into a turmoil?
Me first! Granddad, besides Norwegian stuff, vanilla ice cream smothered in black pepper! Yuck! My dad, a bowl with a piece of toast in it, covered with stewed tomatoes on top, another toast, more stewed tomatoes, two very loose poached eggs w/salt and pepper, nearly covered with milk and a teaspoon of sugar sprinkled over the top! What did your ancestors try to commit seppuku from the inside with?

Spam - that stuff is nasty

 

[nextgenar]

• Beef intestines! You know you have raised your daughter right, when you're 14 year old will wash the nastieness out of the intestines, so you can have it for dinner. Not me, a real good friend, raising 3 teenage girls by himself, after their mother died of cancer.

 

[Michael Js]

We used to eat pickled pigs knuckles and ears! I used to love them in the day...but...not no mores!

Blood pudding! That's the reason I don't eat pudding at all these days - especially chocolate pudding! That's how it was given to us kids - dark chocolate pudding...That is, until the day I went to the butcher's to pick up pigs blood and got to see what it was used for! Argh!! Never again! I was pissed at my mom for weeks for lying...

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

I was raised by depression era parents. Dad was born in 1920, mom in 1925, so you can imagine what it was like for them.....They both grew up very poor.

In our house no food went to waste. We always had beef or pork roast on Sundays. Ham on occasion. All left overs were used so you could expect eating various version of leftovers. Fried mashed potatoes and gravy. Roast beef hash, hand ground with a grinder, probably from the depression, that clamped to the edge of the table. I loved that then and still love it. Mom and Grandma were afraid of under cooking anything, vegetables, chicken, pork, beef. Turnips, asparagus, PARSNIPS! Gawd, parsnips! Just the smell of parsnip gives me a gag reflex. Back then I guess I didn't like most vegetables.

"TV Dinners!!" Mom and Dad both worked so when TV dinners came out we had a freezer full. They were great then. I preferred the fried chicken and Mexican dinners. YUCK, now though. That aspic stuff....Grandma used to make that. Yuck then, would love to have some now but have never attempted to make it. Tried making gazpacho once, didn't turn out too well.

When Dads company moved to Texas and he didn't want to go he went to work for himself flipping houses. He did all the cooking after that. Hot dogs fried in ketchup? Fried gizzard, heart and kidney medley? Meatloaf using apple sauce and bran flakes? And I imagine other questionable things.

Grandma on Dads side lived in the Los Angeles area. She was full on Hungarian, with an attitude. Any of the food she made I remember being good. We only visited twice a year, when I was young, under 12 probably.

I guess there really isn't much food that I was fed that I didn't like, (except most over cooked veggies). When you're raised by parents that knew what it was like to go to bed hungry that you get a different mind set, maybe. Food I disliked as a child, I've grown to enjoy preparing and eating. It's pathetic now days seeing all the pre-prepared/highly processed foods loaded with various preservatives and man made ingredients, stuffing grocery store shelves. I'd say we need to start a thread and talk about "Nasty Food on Grocery Store Shelves and Fast Food Joints Today".

I too grew up in family of Depression era parents. The TV dinner trays were recycled into Thanksgiving leftover frozen dinners. They usually lasted until Christmas. Also Christmas dinners leftovers got made into frozen TV dinners. I also remember fried hot dogs and sliced hot dogs and pork and beans. We also had the clamp on meat grinder you described. On TV dinners I always liked the roast beef one but also liked the Mexican one. Also remember rice and milk with brown sugar for breakfast and fried mashed potatoes.

 

[CoastRange57]

I too grew up in family of Depression era parents. The TV dinner trays were recycled into Thanksgiving leftover frozen dinners. They usually lasted until Christmas. Also Christmas dinners leftovers got made into frozen TV dinners. I also remember fried hot dogs and sliced hot dogs and pork and beans. We also had the clamp on meat grinder you described. On TV dinners I always liked the roast beef one but also liked the Mexican one. Also remember rice and milk with brown sugar for breakfast and fried mashed potatoes.

Damn man saved me the trouble of typing all that myself. I can add a few things, beets..I fing hate beets, they leave stains on the plate. Ground up beef tongue patee. Sometimes deer heart too. Mixed in that meat grinder you speak of. When my parents were older and had Meals on Wheels, they saved every one of the gdamn styrofoam trays. They lived on my property and when they still drove, I would go over when they were gone and throw them away. Liver and onions...not in the last 50 years for me.

My life changed forever when I finally turned 16, I had had jobs for several years and had a lot of money saved up and bought a car. I could then go to town to Tastee Freeze and get a burger when they had some of the above sh*t on the dinner table. It pissed my mom off spending money on burger when they went to town for a burger maybe once a month if that. That is how I got good at elk, pheasant and deer hunting, so I could eat the good cuts and not all the heart, tongue and that crap. If I did the butchering, then all that sh*t never made it to the freezer or wrapping table. The bears ate better too. We actually buried the heart of the big game animals we harvested in the woods. An Indian my Dad knew taught us that.

 

[Mikej]

Mom and Dad worked full time, and grandma lived next door so I came and went from there before and after school. When fast food started to become a thing we ate that a lot. Midvale Utah is world headquarters for Arctic Circle, and we had one just down the road! Then KFC came along. I guess when I think about it, with Mom and Dad working we really ate mostly left overs from Saturday and Sunday, and fast food, during the week. All the bizarre stuff came around after Dad lost his job and started flipping houses as he was home earlier to fix the stuff.

Hamburgers/fries are probably my favorite of all food!