<p>Hated spam and tater tots. Hated fish sticks on Fridays. Believe it or not, we all hated chicken pot pie. My mother was not a cook, so I think they were Swanson’s frozen pies. They tasted awful and seemed to have an disproportionate amount of vegetables. </p>
<p>Another thing I won’t eat: PB & J sandwiches. They were in my lunch bag 3 out of 5 days a week for 8 years. I regularly threw my lunch bag into my book bag where it got squished. Then it would sit in the hot coat room or outside on the hot playground (we had recess before lunch). It was rather unappetizing by the time I got around to eat it. I like peanut butter and I like jelly, but I cannot eat them together in a sandwich,</p>
<p>abasket, You are not alone in growing up without tuna noodle casserole. I grew up without eating any fish. Period. My mother just never ate fish and never made it at home. My dad liked fish sandwiches and shrimp but he had to get that at a local pub if he had a craving for it.My mom was definitely more a meat and potatoes kind of person- things like meatloaf or roast beef on Sunday’s. She was not too adventurous but was a good cook . I like most kinds of foods and am willing to try lots of things but am a little surprised at that given how picky my mom was.</p>
<p>yes, liver and onions here too. We liked it. Did NOT like brussel sprouts (frozen/boiled back then) but now my wife spices them and broils them and we love them.</p>
<p>Your topic title, including “/never cook” reminded me how I used to eat hot dogs right out of the refrigerator without heating them up. Called them “cold dogs”.</p>
<p>Thankfully, vienna sausages have never graced by adult dinner table.</p>
<p>My mother was a working mom back in the day. She could cook if need be, but most of her meals were preprepped and left for me to put in the oven when I got home from school. 400 degrees for an hour, no matter what was in the pan!</p>
<p>I didn’t either (actually, I did but we called it “hot dish” ;)) Oh my gosh, so many I no longer eat! (thank goodness)</p>
<p>Baked Spam covered with tomato sauce and a little brown sugar, served with mashed potatos (the trick with this one is to slice the Spam almost all the way so that the tomato sauce dripped down while baking)</p>
<p>Tater Tot hot dish (tater tots mixed with cream of mushroom soup, ground hamburger and a bag of mixed frozen vegetables)</p>
<p>Potato-Hamburger hot dish (sliced potatos mixed with ground hamburger and tomato soup)</p>
<p>Mexican Spaghetti hot dish (cans of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti mixed with ground hamburger, corn and chili powder)</p>
<p>Chow mein hot dish (chow mein noodles, large can of Dinty Moore stew, can of chicken noodle soup) (my aunt still brings this one to family gatherings)</p>
<p>“Tuna burgers” (tuna fish mixed with Miracle Whip, Dijon mustard, pickle relish, on hamburger buns wrapped in foil and cooked in the oven until hot)</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that I have NEVER served canned peas after having to eat them as a kid. I can barely smell over cooked peas without gagging. I do cook and like sugar snap peas and snow peas, so it was just that pale gray-green mushy stuff with the tin-and-sulphur smell…
My mom did cook a lot of casseroles (including “Chinese beef” that involved a can of vegetable soup, among other things). But when I was old enough I was allowed free range in the kitchen and ended up baking bread and rolls and pies that she never did.<br>
Fast forward to When i was about age 15, she decided to expand her horizons and took CC classes in “foreign foods”. We had Nigerian, Pakistani, Finnish, Indian, Central American, Greek and French each Wednesday night for one quarter …then off to other localles the next quarter. We became very adventurous eaters compared to my friends.</p>
<p>This thread is bringing back lots of memories! I had forgotten about fish sticks. I really liked tuna casserole (the one with crumbled potato chips on top). H1 loved it too, but Catholic H2 refuses to eat any fish or tuna. He blames it on fish Fridays. I blame it on him being a picky eater.</p>
<p>I am getting a bit nostalgic. Our favorite Saturday lunch was sandwiches made with Braunschweiger, canned kippered snacks and sardines, or “ham” salad (made with SPAM that us kids took turns grinding up - I bet that’s the only thing we ever ground up with that meat grinder :))</p>
<p>It is a great memory jogger! My dad still eats vienna sausages, my sister and I have never bought them. In sixth grade, a boy and I got really silly, laughing about “foods your mom makes when your dad is out of town”. The young teacher made us put our noses in a circle on the blackboard which only made us laugh more. My friend had made me laughing so hard by explaining how Treat was the poor man’s Spam and I was rich because I only knew about Spam!</p>
<p>My dad grew up in the depression and as a young boy he sometimes had to pull his wagon to the local fire station for free food handouts. Nastiest thing they ate was blood soup. Nothing went to waste. They were also from Poland and apparently duck blood soup is common in Poland.</p>
<p>My neighbor was of Lebanese descent and made the most delicious baklava. I was fascinated watching her roll out thin layer after thin layer. It seemed to be an enormous amount of work.</p>
<p>I remember loving this horrible concoction of jell-o, cool whip, pineapple and marshmallows. I moved from the Midwest to California in my 20s and even though I am back in the Heartland, I just can’t bring myself to make something like that. I will eat it, however at graduation parties.</p>
<p>I was very fortunate in that my mom was a fabulous scratch cook. She was from the south where that type of cooking was normal and traditional. But she would make these “farm food” meals that I hated! Cornbread, beans, hominy, fried okra…my parents loved it, but I would always try to get an invite from a friend for dinner on those nights.</p>
<p>Liver and onions with a side of white rice with cinnamon on top. I don’t but still could eat it today! Scrapple with pancake syrup. Thick, ripe slices of tomato with sugar on top. True to Lancaster County, PA tradition, almost everything had sugar on it or in it.</p>
There were, however, some very fancy dishes that, sadly, I do not make.</p>