Another vote for veggies. We usually had frozen (usually in brick-sized packages), not canned, and cooked until mushy. Either mom or dad, I forget which, thought that if there was any crispness to a veggie, well it just wasn’t cooked enough. It wasn’t until I went away to college and had some decent stir fry or spinach salad that I realized how delicious veggies could be.
This thread is continually reminding me how lucky I was to have a mother who knew how to prepare vegetables (and who gardened, so they were usually fresh!). There are still a handful of specific veggies I don’t like (asparagus, eggplant, strong mushrooms), but as a category, I’ve always loved them, and never understood the meme of vegetables as yucky.
Meat loaf. My mom’s way of preparing it produced a dry clod of baked hamburger. It was only when I moved out that I realized that meat loaf was supposed to contain crumbs, eggs, milk, lots of good seasoning, and maybe minced onions and herbs.
I figured out eventually that she was put off by the idea of “filler” in the meat, because butchers in her day were suspected of putting highly suspect filler in ground meat to stretch it and cheat customers. So she just left it out, as well as all the other ingredients, except salt.
The first time I made a conventional meat loaf according to the recipe of a lady I worked with, it was top-notch. That was fortunate, because my new husband was, and is, a big meat loaf fan. I make one every month.
Count me as another who grew up with over-cooked, grocery store steaks. Was quite a revelation when I discovered Prime beef cooked medium rare by someone who knows what they are doing. Ditto heirloom tomatoes as opposed to grocery store syrofoam.
I tried some- basically it was garlic butter and a chewy bit. I mean, not horrible, but hardly food.
Frogs are not pests, btw.
Yeah sweet potato fries are great.
Did you know that originally, Popeyes power came from sweet potatoes? It’s right there- “I yam what I yam!” 
You must have a very different definition of well done or juicy. Are you also claiming it was tender enough to cut with a fork? For a steak cooked well-done (to 160-156F in the center) on a grill, this is frankly not possible, unless maybe you are talking about a super-thin cut of steak.
I have had steaks that were pretty crispy or blackened on the outside, looking very much like 'well done" but the inside was actually medium. Get them thick and it is possible. But true well done?- nope,
Heh, isn’t there a joke that goes something like “the only people who eat escargo are those who are too lazy to catch anything that moves faster than a snail”.
Yes! Grocery store tomatoes are grown for durability during transport, not flavor, and picked before they are fully ripe to further guarantee they won’t get squished in transport. Unfortunately that also guarantees that they will be utterly flavorless with a styrofoam texture.
The Summer I was 19 I worked at a commercial greenhouse. For lunch we often just got premade sub sandwiches at a local convenience store. One day I unwound the shrink-wrap and looked at my sandwich-- yet another simple ham and cheese on a sub bun, with no lettuce or vegetable of any kind. One packet each of mustard and mayo to squeeze on if I wanted. Another boring sandwich.
Then I saw a tomato plant that was being grown outside of the greenhouse, with one small but perfectly ripe tomato on it. I picked the tomato, carefully sliced it up with a little plastic knife, and put it on the sandwich. Ambrosia! It was the best tomato I had ever eaten to that point, and totally transformed my sub-par sub. That was the day I learned of the glory of a real garden-grown, vine-ripened tomato.
Yep. I used to grow them, but now i just get a heirloom tomato when I want one . Mind you, on a cheeseburger, just a decent slice is fine.
The only possibility I see is something like a pot roast (chuck, say) cut cooked low and slow on a grill. You can get fork-tender and well done after a long enough time and slow enough heat. But a traditional steak cut? Maybe if you treated it with a lot of papain and bromelain, either through a powdered tenderizer or through a papaya and/or pineapple marinade maybe, but you’ll get something more on the mushy side, then, and it won’t really be what I’d call juicy.
I prefer most steaks on the rare side of medium-rare, but something like skirt steak I generally prefer more towards medium, even edging medium-well. (Though I have had some more expensive grades of skirt that do okay at medium-rare.)
Enchiladas. My mom would make enchilada casserole at home. The enchiladas on the end would be dry shoe leather, while the ones in the middle would be cooked to mush. I’d see them on the menu at Mexican restaurants, and couldn’t fathom why anyone would pay money to eat that. When I started dating the lady I eventually married, she would order them. I eventually asked to have a bite. They were simple and amazing. Preparing enchiladas a serving at a time is the only way to go.
I tried that one time-- tenderizing a lesser cut of meat by leaving it overnight in a marinade that had pineapple or something similar (it was natural, not a powdered extract). The resulting meat did have an odd, unappetizing, mushy texture. Never again.
I know it’s possible, because I’ve had it. No pink on the inside, and yes, I cut it with a fork.
The only way I see that possible is if it were slow-cooked chuck (or brisket or similar high collagen cut). Do you remember what cut of steak it was and how it was cooked? You can’t tell me your friend knows something no other chef in the world don’t knows.
I won’t say that he knows something nobody else in the world knows, because I’ve had good well-done steaks other places, too, including steakhouses. His was the best, but then, for anything, there’s going to be someone who’s the best one knows at it.
I think that the biggest reason for the disparity between my experience and others’ is precisely because of the widespread misconception that well-done is tough. There are a lot of pretentious chefs who are so sure of that, that they brag about how they deliberately ruin orders for well-done steaks. And once they’re doing that, of course, it perpetuates the rumors.
No, I don’t remember the cut, nor anything about the cooking beyond that it was on a backyard grill. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t marinated overnight or anything like that, because I didn’t tell the cook how I liked it until we were all out in the yard.
What cut of steak was it? Anything thicker than a quarter inch, it is a physical impossibility for it to be cooked well done on a grill and be fork cut tender. It just cant happen.