# grossest thing your parents made you eat? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 11, 2002, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448 "2002-07-11T17:09:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/21 "2002-07-12T08:11:06Z")
Funny, but most of these sound pretty good. Anyway, my childhood trauma came at my grandparent’s house in France. Boudin Noir. Basically, a blood sausage. It didn’t help matters that it looked and smelled like… well… fecal matter. I was also without side options that day as the other dish grandpa had prepared was fried kidneys. I actually found those preferable, but just barely. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/22 "2002-07-12T14:15:16Z")
My mom went through a health food phase for a few years. “Eat this; it’s just like chocolate.” (Note: Carob is NOT just like chocolate.) We had oatmeal a lot. But we couldn’t sweeten it. My sister and I: “Oh no! Not gruel again.” The only cold cereal we could eat was Cheerios, sans sugar. To top it off, we had to add 2 tablespoons of bran flakes. Come to think of it, I think we had to add the bran flakes to every breakfast (including the oatmeal, and pancakes, no syrup). There’s nothing to take the excitement off of pancakes than heaps of dry bran added to the batter. Then, there were the tofu wars. I always considered tofu “pretend food.” Just looking at it on my plate (yes, by itself in a blobby chunk; I don’t think my mom ever thought to try to mix it into a recipe or anything) was enough to make me cry. My mom knew I hated liver, so one day she made these “pigs in a blanket” type things. Tries to hide the liver inside a yummy looking wrap. What, she thought I _wouldn’t notice_ and eat the whole plate? One bite sent me running to the bathroom. The worst food of all for me, however, is raw (or stewed) tomatoes. No way, no how, no where. I like things like spaghetti sauce and salsa as long as they are pureed and spiced up. NO CHUNKS. One time, my dad tried to convince me that my aversion to tomatoes was that I had only tried one from a store and that one of his “fresh garden tomatoes” would be a different story. Reluctantly, I tried a cold fresh chunk. MY DAD LIED. It stayed down all of about 5 seconds. The ironic thing is that now I LIKE oatmeal and unsweetened cereal. I rarely even put syrup on pancakes (I do forego the heaps of bran flakes, however.). My mom, however, has since given into her sweet tooth and eats like a normal person again. Having married a Korean woman, I eat a lot of tofu these days, _and I really like it_. (Please don’t tell my mom, as I still like to have this memory as leverage for when I want to give her a hard time about forcing us to eat her experiments :)) Still adamant about the tomatoes, though. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Go\_alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_alien)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/23 "2002-07-12T15:40:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JuanitaTech \* > \*\*Well, aside from her cooking (she was a horrible cook when we were kids), the grossest thing she made me ingest was [Green Magma](http://www.greenfoods.com/products/green_magma.html). She’d blend a fresh batch every morning using either orange or apple juice. > > The finished product was bright green and tasted like powdered grass. \*\* Uh, it **is** grass 😕 ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/24 "2002-07-12T16:18:35Z")
Well, yeah, I know that _now_. ---
**Author:** ![Wicked\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/2acd7d/32.png) [@Wicked\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wicked_Blue)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/25 "2002-07-13T13:42:15Z")
My Grandma used to make tripe. Long, thin strips of tripe swimming in tomato sauce with peas. The peas would get embedded in the ‘honeycomb’ of the tripe like little green tumors. I remember many nights at the dinner table in tears. ---
**Author:** ![snermy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@snermy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snermy)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/26 "2002-07-13T14:16:57Z")
Eh, I’ll eat most anything, but I still remember having to eat: Liver, ech. (Yeah, Mom tried the old “wrap it in bacon” trick. No really an improvement. I mean, I would have at least liked the bacon if only it wasn’t all liverfied.) The occasional spoonful of cod liver oil. Double ech. Okra in anything. Too slimy. My sister and I once committed okracide and trampled the row of okra in the garden. Somehow, Mom guessed it was us (big gophers, Mom. With teeth!) Mom is a great cook though, so I don’t remember any horrible dishes except those involving liver or okra. Dad, however, liked to make this horrible pimento/velveeta cheese/mayo sandwich spread (shudder). Luckily it _wasn’t_ considered healthy so I didn’t have to eat it. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/27 "2002-07-13T14:51:52Z")
Salmon patties, with some kind of white cream sauce. Besides the nauseating smeall and taste, they always had vertebrae in them. I am so glad my parents were never the kind that made me sit there until I cleaned my plate. I’m also glad that we had a German shepherd that would eat anything. ---
**Author:** ![Jaakko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@Jaakko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaakko)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/28 "2002-07-13T15:19:55Z")
My father did all the cooking and he’s a great cook, so no real complaints for me, apart from the “ewww what’s that” phase. I did, however, have to endure several horror dishes in school. One was in “homekeeping class” (or whatever the real term is in English), where we screwed up something and didn’t have enough time to cook a fish properly, and the teacher made us eat the half-cooked thing. Another time was on a school trip to France, where the local school cafeteria served some disgusting, snot-like spinach goo combined with chicken that had apparently died of starvation and then prepared in an incinerator. I was very hungry so I tried to eat it at first, but the gag reflex was so strong I had no choice but to push the food around on the plate until I could sneak to the bins and toss the plateful of corruption in. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/29 "2002-07-13T16:12:40Z")
One time my mother wasn’t home so Pop did the cooking. While searching in the cupboard for for a canned vegetable, he found a can with no label on it. So, for fun, he made it into a contest. Who ever guessed what it was, he’d give a dollar. None of us guessed that it was **PUMPKIN**!:smack: Not wanting it to go to waste, he insisted we eat it for the dinners vegetable! Blech!(We really do need a “Mr. Yuck” smiley for posts like mine.) ---
**Author:** ![hardygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@hardygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hardygrrl)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/30 "2002-07-13T17:23:15Z")
**Chitlins** For those who haven’t experienced the wonder :rolleyes: , chitlins or as they are also called, chitterlings, are pig intestines. They have the texture of cream cheese with a rind and the smell… They smell like a combination of shit and death. A smell so pungent and strong it wakes you up at night. My father is an advocate of "try it and **then** you can say if you don’t like it. So I did and spent a half hour brushing my teeth. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/31 "2002-07-13T18:34:06Z")
Hee hee. [Chitlins](http://www.chitlinstrut.com/) ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/32 "2002-07-13T20:22:14Z")
When I was in the sixth grade, my father got a deal on an unsliced chicken bologna, probably about 5 lb. Every day I went off to school with a chicken bologna sandwich (on white bread with orange American cheese). At first, I though “great, bologna,” for I was just like any other American boy and I loved bologna. After about the first month, I think it started to go rancid, but I still got a chicken bologna sandwich (on white bread with orange American cheese) every single day in my lunch. I begged and begged for something different, anything different. No dice. It was about then that I started throwing it away at lunchtime, until my teacher caught me, and from the next day forward, she sat there and watched me eat my chicken bologna sandwich (on white bread, with orange American cheese) every single day. I begged and begged and begged to be given something else, anything else. No dice. I tried going to school without any lunch (oops, I guess I must have forgotten it). That got me in trouble with my teacher too. Finally, mercifully, the school year ended, and I didn’t have to eat chicken bologna sandwiches (on white bread with orange American cheese) any more. To this day, I will not touch bologna, chicken or otherwise. And I’m none too fond of orange American cheese or white bread either. My father was forever coming home with these great “bargains.” Someday I’ll have to tell you about the moldy peanut butter and the rancid margarine and his firmly held belief that eggs are incapable of going bad. ---
**Author:** ![plain\_jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@plain\_jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plain_jane)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2002, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/33 "2002-07-13T20:46:48Z")
Mine are not unusual items, just things I hate that my parents used to insist I eat. I never did. I’d go hungry. Peas. I hate peas. Can’t stand them whatsoever. I don’t even like thinking about them. We had peas almost every night. I would sit at the table for hours because of peas. I have never liked them and never will. Creamed corn. Same deal. That canned pork-and-beans stuff. My mother never forced that on me, but my father tried. Once when I was very young I was invited over to lunch at a friend’s house, and that’s what they were having. Her parents made me eat it. It was quite the ordeal. 🙂 I lived with a friend’s family for about six months when I was a teenager and the parents had a rule: you had to take at least one serving of everything on the table. If there was too much left over at the end of the meal, they’d make us take seconds whether we wanted them or not. And we had to eat everything. They thankfully never forced the above mentioned foods on me, but I had to eat two helpings of canned corned every night for six months. That was almost ten years ago and I still can’t eat canned corn. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/34 "2002-07-14T04:04:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hardygrrl \* > \*\ ***Chitlins** [clip] They smell like a combination of shit and death. \*\* I had forgotton those. Apt description. Mother tried serving chitlins once. Dad and I went to a drive-in. (I had an odd upbringing since my father was from Minnesota and my mother was from Alabama. Most of my friends had no idea what “greens”, grits, or okra were. I still hate grits.) ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/35 "2002-07-14T07:51:15Z")
Kidney Beans ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/36 "2002-07-14T07:53:00Z")
Tongue. ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/37 "2002-07-14T08:27:07Z")
My parents had a deal with us: we didn’t have to eat anything we didn’t like, but we had to first taste it to make sure we didn’t like it. The worst thing I remember was smelts, little tiny fish that are fried whole, bones and all. Utterly disgusting! Fortunately, they waived the rule when it came to beef heart and tongue, because I made my father laugh when I firmly declared, “I don’t eat innards!” ---
**Author:** ![BeatenMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@BeatenMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeatenMan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/38 "2002-07-14T15:30:32Z")
Pickled beets out of a can. It made me vomit on the table. ---
**Author:** ![BrattiAtti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@BrattiAtti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrattiAtti)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/39 "2002-07-14T17:56:29Z")
Chicken hearts. Oh, \! ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448/40 "2002-07-15T06:01:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hastur \* > \*\*Tongue. \*\* No mother should ever give her child tongue. _rimshot_ Mine: Cream of Mushroom soup. This vile putrescence was an integral part of far too many concoctions on my mother’s list of what to feed us. Whitish pasty slime with little grey rubbery chunks. Lovely…like child-puke after drinking lots of milk. It was the only ingredient which would guarantee that I was forced to eat the dish which contained it. Not cottage cheese (which was fine by itself or with a sprinkling of sugar, but NOT in JELL-O), not corn (which I loved by itself but not _in_ anything), not tomatoes (which I didn’t like as a child, but thankfully grew to appreciate). Cream of Mushroom soup: if something contained it, I had to eat it. Traumatized me for life, it did. I even decided to mature out of this aversion about a year ago, and grow up and eat some. Found a recipe which sounded good and contained the dreaded soup, made it, tasted it, threw it out. I _canNOT_ abide the stuff, and that’s how it shall ever be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grossest-thing-your-parents-made-you-eat/118448.md?page=3)