Creamed chipped beef on toast. You know, that “meat” that is sliced super-thin, rolled, and crammed into little glass jars with pop-off lids?
At least, that’s how it used to come. My hysterical blindness where that horror is concerned has kept me from actually seeing any of it for at least thirty years.
Oh – mustn’t forget. I believe the, er, product (can’t really call it food) has two ingredients: 40% sliced beef, 60% salt.
Gagh! Why not just toss a salt lick on the table, Mom???
Bacala, which is I think salted cod fish. It smelled like rotting feet and needed to be soaked in the sink for a long time. If it tasted the way it smelled, I can’t imagine how they ate it, though I understand it’s a favorite of Italians. If anyone has ever had it, let me know what it’s like, since I would only put that vile substance in my mouth if it was immediately preceeded by a gun.
My mom was often given olive sandwiches for lunch: finely chopped olives in cream cheese, on toast. Her brother still eats 'em.
My mom has always been a fan of head cheese, whale blubber, and seared sheep’s head. At least she won’t eat the eyes. She also made these bizarre jell-o molds with unflavored gelatin, asparagus, random bits of meat, boiled eggs, peas, and other somewhat unsavory looking foods. Slices of gelatinous dinner? Blech.
My dad used to like those jars of oysters in “oyster juice.”
I love properly made creamed chipped beef.
The main secret is to soak the beef in water for a couple minutes and rinse it off in a collander to get the excess salt out. Make a good basic white sauce, add the beef and some frozen green peas and heat through. Serve on toast.
Isn’t that the stuff they call “shit on a shingle?”
My father loves hard boiled eggs. They’re so nasty-they smell like ass and they make the entire kitchen smell like ass when he makes them.
My mom used to make something weird that she called “hot dog stew,” I think. It was sliced up hot dogs, green peas, chopped raw onions, and cold white rice in a mayo-based dressing.
Damn, was that stuff repulsive. It took me thirty years to approach liking rice again. Horrible, horrible stuff. And I don’t think they were poor enough to justify it; it was just from the bad-cooking years. As her skills improved, we had that less often.
It did probably factor into my cooking education though. One time too many of, “Well then fix your own dinner,” and I was on it.
edited to add: oh, and hard-boiled eggs too. To this day, I can’t look one of those in the face. Bleargh.
While my mom was a good cook most of the time, one thing that she made (way too often in my opinion) was chicken-a-la-king.
A floury, goopy white soup substance with bits to peas, carrots, and chicken mixed in. Served over toasted white toast. Whatever nutritional value was in it was immediately masked by all of the butter and flour that went into that sauce.
I don’t know how my family was able to eat it. Just the smell alone was horrifying. Out of all the times she made it, I only remember voluntarily eating it once.
Goose fat/grease, spread on rye bread (sometimes toasted). I remember the plastic tub sitting in the refrigerator for weeks, which kept it just cold enough to be semi-solid.
Radishes from our garden, thinly sliced and used to make sandwiches. Not added to sandwiches, but a layer of sliced radishes placed between two slices of buttered bread.
I ate both of the above also. And liked them.
Oh, and I also remember the peas and cheese salad mentioned in the OP. Another popular summer meal was elbow macaroni with tuna and diced tomatoes. No mayo, and I can’t recall if there was anything else added to it. I’ll have to ask my brother, who mentioned a fw months ago that he still makes it occasionally.
There’s a lot of stuff mentioned so far that I actually like. Heh.
Something my mom used to make when I was younger that I absolutely detested was a carrot and potato dish. Can’t remember the name. The potato pieces felt way too dry in my mouth (part of the reason I’m not especially fond of baked potatoes, either).
I think what’s worse now is my mom’s fixation with convenience. Since my parents have been retired, she doesn’t have the patience or inclination to cook like she did in years past, which is fair enough, I guess. But IMO that’s no excuse for going totally bland with every meat or veg dish made from scratch. Or resorting to abominations like scalloped potatoes from a box.
I’m more than happy to do the cooking for family events, especially since my sister is the anti-Iron Chef, but my mom still feels compelled to be active in the kitchen, even when the results aren’t as tasty as they used to be. 
The parents of the '70s ate some weird sh*t, too. One of my mom’s classics was a raw onion sandwich. Just a sliced raw white onion on whole wheat bread. Another nasty creation was the attempt at vegan pumpkin bars with whole wheat flour.
My dad used to eat banana and onion sandwiches. Sometimes with pickles. Sometimes there are not enough laws. Peanut butter was optional too.
Yikes, was he high!?!?!?!?
I eat them, too. Preferably on rye bread, with ham.
The author begins by saying “It wasn’t that the food was inedible; it was merely dull.” But he changes his mind before he gets done writing the introductory essay and concludes: “There’s not a single edible dish in the entire collection.”
My personal barfalicious childhood memory: a gristly atrocity called “city chicken” made of what I assume to have been ground pork of the cheapest cut. Is it any wonder I’m vegetarian today…
Oh, man, add some onions and salt on that, and you have a typical Hungarian bar snack called zsíros kenyér (“fatty bread.”) I luvs me that stuff. About the only thing I remember my parents making that I wasn’t overly fond of is calf kidneys (although I do like British steak & kidney pie.) Otherwise, pig liver, tripe, chicken hearts, head cheese, etc., were all food we’d eat happily together. I’ll have that anyday over something like “hot dog salad.”
That’s the one I came in to share! That’s some vile, nasty stuff!
They also enjoyed biscuits and red eye gravy (some sort of tomato based gravy - looked disgusting to us kids and we usually passed and went for the breakfast cereal instead.
Another one - sardines, mustard and saltine crackers :::blech:::
Oh, I just remembered - sauerkraut - the house would stink to high heaven for days on end.
Green olives or black? If green, with pimentos or without? Any specific kind of olives, or just out of the jar?
I ask because it actually sounds good to me. I picture green olives with the cream cheese. Mmmm.
Absolutely my favorite meal, and has been since I was a kid. Especially with lima beans.
Admittedly, the onions are optional. But most people have never had liver cooked properly; it’s tricky, but if done right, it’s delicious.
I don’t recall any particularly odd dishes when I was a kid. My mother was a pretty good cook.
Just for the heck of it, here is scrapple in all of its horrific glory.