Three words: Apple Cider vinegar. 
Wow, didn’t any of you ask what things were before you put them in your mouth as children?
My story is this:
Kindergarden, we had a cooking day when parents came in and showed us how to make simple things like french toast and what not.
My problem was with the french toast.
I KNEW it was still raw in the middle, the woman cooking it got all nasty at me and made me eat it. Yup raw egg. It came right back up in the trash can.
Mmm I like unsweetened chocolate.
I also like instant coffee, not after you add water. Just a big old spoonful of the crystals.
Hiding spinach in the salad and then lying about it. My mom paid for that for years.
“Is there spinach in this salad?”
“No”
“Really?”
“Really, there is no spinach in that salad”
“Are you sure”
“Yes, I’m sure. I made the salad, I know what’s in it”
“But, once you said there was no spinich and there was … I don’t think I want any salad”
“There is no spinach in the salad!”
“That’s ok, I don’t want any salad”
etc.
I was about 8 years old, happily munching away on a ham n’ processed-cheeze-food sandwich at an older relative’s house. Then I got to a bit that was about the consistancy of snot-covered plastic. Nobody’d ever told me about gristle! Couldn’t eat ham for months.
My poor sister really got a shock when she was about the same age. We grew up Methodist, which means grape juice for communion. When my Lutheran grandfather died and we took communion with his minister, she got quite the shock at the very ungrapejuicelike wine. She’s 17 now, and I think this experience figures into her absolute fear of alcohol. To this day I’ve never seen such a look of disgust on her face.
Oh, except maybe the time she ate the alum crystals I made for a Girl Scout project thinking it was rock candy. She puckered just like in the cartoons. Priceless!
CRorex-- when you are swiping foodstuffs under false pretenses or without permission you don’t ask for identification. . .
Oh, forgot one. I grew up in a household that was poor enough so that kids did not get soda (not a bad idea, of course, but this wasn’t due to health concerns, but money). Of course sugar-laden soda is what children crave more than anything else in the world, so the tradition was that when an adult put down their Pepsi or whatever and left it and you came upon it you grabbed it and took a sip as fast as you could.
Oh, did I forget to mention that my parents were also chain-smokers?
Well, now, Pepsi-can used as ashed-cigarette recepticle is pretty bad. It’s up there with those BASTARDS in college who would deposit their chewing tobacco spit in new and surprising places.
And to this day CILANTRO reminds me of that Pepsi-cigarette taste.
my sister read “little house on the prarie” once. and declared some saterday to be frontier day… no electricity… and stuff… (made me miss cartoons… grrr) had hamburgers for lunch anyway… but they tasted weird…
DEER MEAT! blach!!! undercooked… awful… with a peice of… something… bone? in them… will not eat deer meat now… honestly… make someone else try hamburgers first when my dad makes them
There are two incidents I remember…
We grew our own tomatos and a favorite side dish at dinner was tomatos topped with a dollop of Miracle Whip salad dressing. One day my mom decided we should try Hellman’s mayonnaise instead…except she bought the kind with lemon in it. Now mayo is enough of a flavor change from Miracle Whip, but the lemon kind was truly disgusting. And my mother is a firm believer in the “clean plate club” and not wasting food, and “you served yourself, now you have to eat it”. I think I sat at that table trying to choke it down for about two hours…scraping off as much mayo as I could…but she made me eat that too. Took me years to get up the nerve to try mayo again.
Then there was the time I got mixed up about liver and kidneys…I loved the way my mom cooked liver, but when she asked me if I liked kidneys, I got confused and said yes…she put some on my plate and I immediately realized my mistake. I think I sat there only about an hour that time…got off on a technicality because she had actually served it to me, not me helping myself. Still, 33 years later I haven’t forgotten how awful that stuff tasted.
- I was 10 years old. Sitting on the floor in front of the tv in my underwear watching cartoons (now I’m sitting in a chair in front of the computer in my underwear reading the Straight Dope, but I digress).
I had just reached the bottom of my glass of chocolate milk… you know, when you get to the lumps of chocolate powder that haven’t quite dissolved? I loved those little choco-lumps like life itself!
One of them CRUNCHED! “WT?”, I thought (didn’t know the F word yet).
I digitally inspected the contents of my mouth; and pulled out A HOUSEFLY WING!!:eek:
I didn’t vomit… dunno why.
Eating a sandwich made from leftover meatloaf, which had lots of little orange bits which looked like cheese. When they didn’t have any taste I recognized I asked mom what it was.
“Oh, that’s the congealed fat.” :eek:
Of course, if we’re talking about insects, I have plenty of other stories to tell.
Didn’t we have this thread a month or two ago? I could swear I’ve heard Metalhead’s anecdote, but I can’t find it in the archive…
A long time ago, once went to my friend’s house when I was little, and was given a plate of what looked like enormous white mealy-worms in tomato sauce. Turned out my friend’s mum was dead trendy and progressive and she’d given us ghocchi, a dish unknown in those regions. Bleuch.
A long time ago, once went to my friend’s house when I was little, and was given a plate of what looked like enormous white mealy-worms in tomato sauce. Turned out my friend’s mum was dead trendy and progressive and she’d given us ghocchi, a dish unknown in those regions. Bleuch.
For me, the two would have to be reversed. I hate Miracle Whip, but I love Hellman’s. But I’ve never had lemon-flavored Hellman’s. That does sound bad. Do they still make that? I’ve never even seen it in the stores.
I know a poster called Miracle Whip “The Devil’s Semen” once, but I can’t find the thread. 
I actually laughed out loud when I read it. I HATE Miracle Whip.
I know that I’ve posted this here before, but this was too classic not to mention again.
My mother was making mashed potatoes one night, and I have to say that Mom’s mashed potatoes were usually pretty darned good…why wouldn’t they be, with all of the milk, butter and cheese she usually added? Anyway, this particular night, she was out of her standard add-ins and decided that she’d replace the butter/cheese with…wait for it…this is not for the weak of stomach…
Miracle Whip
:eep:
Yes, boys and girls. Miracle Whip, that Devil’s spawn masquerading as a relative of mayonnaise (which, I might add, would have been foul enough on its own if she’d chosen that instead). Urk. We were all properly horrified at the first bite that night at dinner, and Mom has never lived it down since.
I’ve always ben a very picky eater so not much goes into my mouth that i don’t know exactly what’s in it. Only time I’ve ever really been surprised, I was about 6-7 and went over to a friend’s house. There was a teacup filled with what looked like tea on the table and I tooka sip. Turns out it was wine. Not all that tasty. Beer, champagne and that communion wine was delicious to this 6 year old though. I tried to drink the whole cup but the priest took it away from me.
I was about 4, we were visiting people who lived in a big farmhouse with a big vegatable garden attached. They had just finished harvesting some of the vegetables, and had several baskets of produce on the porch. One basket contained some wonderfully yummy looking bright red cherry like things, which I headed straight for.
To her credit, my mother tried to stop me, but I was too fast and too determined, and popped a whole hot cherry pepper into my mouth. Oh. My. God.
I remember the pain to this day.
I guess you’ll die! (But tell us, how was the spider? Did it wriggle and tiggle?)
Ex-Lax is NOT chocolate candy…
…you really don’t want to know more, do you?
For years, I refused to try mushrooms, all because my mother would be sneaky and cook with cream of mushroom soup - all the while denying that’s what she used. We’d see these mysterious brown bits in the sauce or gravy, and she’s swear they weren’t mushrooms, even tho they were.
It wasn’t until many years later - I think I was 20 or 21 - that I decided to try fresh mushrooms, and I was hooked. I use 'em in a lot of my recipes, but I refuse to use cream of mushroom soup in anything. I’ll make my own white cream sauce, thankyouverymuch!
I remember the day I snuck into the kitchen, unscrewed the lid off the vanilla extract and took a swig, confidently expecting something akin to the taste of vanilla ice cream. Eeewwww!
And I also tasted crisco, not because I thought it had been mixed into anything, but it was so white and fluffy that it had to taste good! Again, eeewwww!!