Heh heh. I don’t see any other survivors of the dread Salmon Loaf here. It’s like meat loaf, only it’s made with - yikes - canned salmon.
The only - and I mean ONLY - redeeming quality of this disgusting glop is that canned salmon includes little tiny salmon vertebrae (at least I guess/hope that’s what they are) that are just the perfect size for positioning on your canine teeth so you can crunch them (the bones) to oblivion. Pretty damn fun, but gack. Salmon loaf.
It’s interesting. I’ve eaten a lot of vile stuff in my life, and galareta (as it’s known in Polish) or kocsonya (as it’s known in Hungarian) isn’t anywhere near what I would consider objectionable. Headcheese is grosser, IMHO. Heck, I’d even say liver and onions (which I love when made correctly) has a stronger, more objectionable flavor.
Yet it never fails to elicit a reaction along your lines. Almost everybody seems to think it’s the grossest thing on the planet.
I used to get sandwiches on Pumpernickel in my first semester of college. Mostly because I was high and it sounded funny/different. Can’t say I felt too opinionated about it one way or the other.
Similarly, I love the taste of deviled eggs but the texture makes me want to yak on the first bite. After the first one I tried, it pissed me off for a long time that I couldn’t eat them, because they’re so good except for that awful texture!
Whoa, you had to dredge that up from the dark recesses of my mind. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was vertebrae. My mom made it into patties, and I’m sure it was every bit as bad as the meatloaf.
Yeah, and I agree about the nastiness of liver and onions. Someone once told me that calves liver was better than beef liver (which I think we ate in our impoverished household), but I know they are lying. I still haven’t had a soft-boiled egg since childhood, although I’ve been meaning to try one just to see if I’ve gotten over the nasty sliminess factor. Plus lima beans and banana squash (my mom baked it with margarine and brown sugar) which would make me gag. My dad used to like this weird shit condiment called sandwich spread containing mayonaise and relish. It always freaked me out.
Fetus, the rice that looks like seeds is probably glutinous or sweet rice which is really killer in sticky rice (glutinous and long grain rice, oyster sauce, chinese sausage and shitake mushrooms).
GACK is right…you gnawed on the little spine???
I thankfully dodged that bullet, as my mother never felt the need to torture us w/ that, but I know of others that had to deal w/ it, or patties, or croquettes. Consequently, I had no idea how revolting canned salmon was, and waaay back in my early 20’s, when I received my Cuisinart (still running btw, from 1983!), I decided to try out some “food processor recipes”, and one of them was some kind of “salmon dip”. Well, I knew I liked fresh salmon, and had recently been turned on to smoked, so…why not??? Well, that thought changed as quickly as I opened that can, and SAW that SPINE staring at me!!! Stopped me dead in my tracks!!! I couldn’t imagine touching it!!! I don’t recall what I did w/ it…I think b/f at the time did something w/ it??? :eek:
We ate, and liked, a lot of things that have been mentioned in this thread, but there have also been a couple that I remember just making me wonder, “Why?”
Stewed tomatoes are okay now, but for years I thought I didn’t like them because Mom put bread in them. And sugar, for crying out loud. It’s the way her grandfather ate them and she thought it would make us like them better. And any time Dad was sick he ate milk toast. Just bits of buttered toast in milk with sugar. Always looked disgusting to me. But it was never a mealtime thing so we never had to have it.
I miss some of the things I ate as a child but I can’t have now because my family won’t touch them. Tongue, beef heart, and yes, salmon loaf. I liked it, but the best part was those crunchy little round bones. Just teeny enough to be fun to crunch. We always hoped to get one. And I liked it, but as an adult I think it’s a little strange that we never had cauliflower without cheese on it. Cheez Whiz, actually, I think.
Similarly, I was shocked–shocked, I tell you–when I found out that there were people who ate broccoli without smothering it in melted cheese first.
Reminds me of the time we had ordered some perfectly normal take-out pizza. When we went back for a second slice, we found that Grandma had carefully layered over the rest with American cheese. When we complained, Grandma was indignant. “I’ll have you know that some people pay extra to get more cheese on their pizzas!”
Actually, my father used to eat pumpernickel, and introduced me to the wonders of it. We used to eat it with butter and jelly on it. My dad always used to say “If it gets any more expensive, they’re going to have to call it pumperdime.” 
Salmon loaf was a treat compared to the dumped out contents of the canned put on a plate with cottage cheese, cold and slimy. That’s what we mostly had, and yes we ate the bones.
Many thanks to my older brother who in one fell swoop cured my parents of the “you must clean your plate” mandate. It was Halloween and we were instructed to eat all of our pea soup or there would be no trick-or-treating. Well, big bro managed to work up a nice big puke all over the table, across from my other brother, who found this so hilarious that his pea soup began to shoot out of his nose, at which point my dad just pointed at the door and shouted “OUT!” Off we merrily went to gorge on candy . 
No Salmon Loaf eater here, but I did eat a shitload of Salmon Patties growing up.
My Grandfather had some interesting ideas of what food should be eaten during Deer hunting season:
I’d been pounding trail all morning, and I finally took a break for a rest and a sandwich. My Grandfather had made it the night before. I opened the wrapper, and discovered a Spam-and-Blue-Cheese-Dressing masterpiece lovingly arranged on stale Rye bread. I immediately threw it in the bushes, not wanting to attract a starving bear or other forest dweller.
Not to worry; the bugs wouldn’t even land on it. I think it’s still there, and this was 15 years ago.
Another high light was his Famous Home-Made Pizza:
I found it hilarious too. 
My wife tells me she grew up eating spam and mayo sandwiches.
My stomach revolts at the horror.
My stepmother used to force me to eat corned beef hash… until I purposely projectile-vomited the crap all over the dinner table one night.
I don’t take kindly to having to eat foods I don’t like.
No one has yet mentioned that famous Franco-American specialty called Blood Sausage!
Yes, it’s just what it sounds like. The butcher takes whatever he’s using for sausage casings, fills it with the blood of whatever he’s butchering and lets the blood clot.
Take about gross. Trust me, once you’ve seen this on a plate you’ll never be normal again.
Heh. I actually like salmon patties, but I dress them up a bit with sauteed bits of celery and red pepper and such. They’re especially good with mashed potatoes on the side.
However, once, before I knew my way around the kitchen, a friend and I were staying at her dorm over a holiday and thought we would save some cash and make salmon patties, which were a staple with both our moms. We opened the can, saw the bones and skin and seriously thought that we’d gotten a defective one somehow. Pizza was promptly ordered.
My parents’ food crimes were sins of omission rather than commission. Fresh garlic did not exist, nor anything spicier than a few shakes of black pepper. “Chili” was hamburger, onions, and tomato sauce. Oddly, so was spaghetti sauce. I don’t suppose it bothered me much then, but it took a while and a few years in college to realize that there was a big world out there, foodwise.
Dad used to eat the chicken giblets - cooked of course, but every time we had chicken, my mom would fry 'em up in a little frying pan. Turns out I married a man who does the same thing. Then again, they’ve both been known to eat raw hot dogs. :eek:
If you’re talking grocery store type hot dogs (Oscar Meyer and their ilk), they’re not really raw. They’ve been cooked prior to packaging. Still, hold hot dogs are a bit disgusting. I will eat them when I’m in a real hurry and there’s no other convenient protein lying around.
Oddly enough, while I was Wikipedia’ing to make sure my info was correct, I came across the following:
OK, I find mayo a dog weird, even ketchup, but canned corn and deep-fried potato sticks. I could sort of see the potato sticks, but in what area of the country or world do they put canned corn on their hot dogs? This is a practice I’m completely unaware of.
My dad’s idea of spaghetti sauce was seasoned ketchup. I was sooo glad when he started buying Prego.
I don’t mind strips of American on my pizza once in awhile but the whole thing…ewww.