What was your "I dont actually hate this food, my parents just sucked at cooking" moment?

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christianjwaite@reddit

Curry! Who knew that curry wasn’t actually overcooked rice, apples, raisins and satsumas…

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Thelichemaster@reddit

I love a good curry, equally I love a good "curry" with sultanas and raisins.

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Experiment328095@reddit

I kinda like adding weird fruit to my curries 😂 No one else does so I get it all to myself😁

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plantsncats128@reddit

WHERE DID THE APPLE AND RAISIN CURRY RECIPIE COME FROM???

I thought i was the only one suffering like this

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sihasihasi@reddit

I really fucking hope they mean sultanas.

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sihasihasi@reddit

In a fucking curry??? My mum did the apple & sultanas thing, even serving banana on the side, but satsumas is just ridiculous!

Can you retrospectively report someone to childline? That one would have Esther Rantzen rolling in her grave.

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Momogocho@reddit

We always had satsuma segments, banana slices covered in lemon juice, as recently as 2005

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sihasihasi@reddit

Banana slices in lemon juice, we had, but that was in the 80's. I suppose satsumas are no weirder.

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christianjwaite@reddit

I think it’s a 70s thing, food was a bit mad back then and I was still being given it in the 80s.

She used to say it was her famous curry and people used to ask for the recipe. I think they were just trying to burn it so it can never be made again.

But this is also the woman who put tomato sauce on a carbonara (ka-boner-roner) because it was too dry.

I could go on, probably write an anti-cookbook from my childhood

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Luxury_Dressingown@reddit

You should definitely write that book

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christianjwaite@reddit

Once got a pizza that was frozen on the base and burnt on the top.

Jelly had chunks of bread in it.

Egg in a cup is a family treat. Crack an egg into a cup, whisk it with a fork and stick it in the microwave.

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sihasihasi@reddit

I was born in 1970. I know about fruit in curry. Satsumas, though, is all kinds of wrong.

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discoveredunknown@reddit

Curry in my house was rice, chicken cut up and a jar of curry sauces. No onions, garlic, spices etc..

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... Isn't the spice the curry sauce/paste? When I make curry sauces from scratch the spiced are what creates the sauce. One of my kids favourite curries is a veggie curry with 1/4 cup of mild curry paste as the main seasoning

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Aced4remakes@reddit

Jar sauces are never as good as what one can make themselves.

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Newveeg@reddit

Yes but they’re often bland as they lack freshnessp

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SamVimesBootTheory@reddit

Yeah that was curry in my house for the longest time too and done in a casserole dish for some reason rather than on the cooker top

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Possiblyreef@reddit

When i was a very poor student I would sometimes get a microwave rice pot, a jar of curry sauce and some kind of breaded frozen chicken and do 2 portions for about £1.50.

I'm actually a very capable cook but I was poor and often just wanted something quick

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Kapika96@reddit

Apples, raisins and satsumas? WTF kind of curry is that!? Never had any of those in a curry before, and I certainly don't want to try it either.

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mishlufc@reddit

Apple isn't a bad inclusion tbf, it can definitely work in the right dish

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PuzzleheadedFold503@reddit

1970s curry recipes.

People couldn't handle spice, so they filled it with sweet stuff instead.

Raisins and sultanas were "exotic" and in recipes for "spiced fruit loaf", and mulled wine...

A way of slowly introducing flavour to a bland "pinch of salt, no pepper, garlic, onion, or spice" post-war palate.

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Decimus-Drake@reddit

A Japanese curry.

Though I suspect satsumas is a typo, a Japanese curry roux can contain dried orange peel.

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RedNightKnight@reddit

This reminds me of school dinner curry. I was always confused why there was fruit in it. My parents were both amazing cooks so school dinners was the only bad food place for me.

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Dougsey1@reddit

Heh, just said the same thing.

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Hunter037@reddit

My in laws put raisins and banana in "curry"

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Chevalitron@reddit

That was a salad

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MysteriousB@reddit

Vegetables (not boiled or steamed), especially tomatoes

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Abs0lute_Zer0_0@reddit

Stir fry with some soy sauce, salt and pepper and you're golden

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HerpaDerpaDumDum@reddit

Boiled veg is disgusting. Steamed, fried, roasted, any other method makes it taste better and is healthier.

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Isgortio@reddit

I'm not sure why but I've never really liked steamed veg? I like it every other way including boiled but something about the steamed veg I've had in the past just doesn't taste right.

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Wiltix@reddit

I’m with you on that one, I remember my mum going through the steamed veg phase in the 90s/00s and the veg never tasted right to me.

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THXORY@reddit

The best ones I find are the Birdseye Steam bags you can get for the microwave, with mixed vegetables in. Very quick and easy to use and they are genuinely very nice

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whatanabsolutefrog@reddit

I prefer it to boiled! Boiled veg often ends up soggy in my experience.

There's a bit of an art to getting the timings just right though. Steaming takes longer than boiling so you can end up with undercooked veg if your not careful

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exhausted-pangolin@reddit

Got bad news for you mate, frying and roasting your veg doesn't make it healthier...

Good lord

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HerpaDerpaDumDum@reddit

They are healthier, because boiling leeches the nutrients of the veg out into the water.

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GrumpyOlBastard@reddit

Carrots and corn can be boiled, but otherwise, I agree, there are much better ways to cook veg

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Ralucahippie@reddit

Carrots boiled in orange juice are pretty amazing. In plain water not so much.

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Critical_Hedgehog451@reddit

Boiled orange juice? That sounds interesting, how much orange juice do you use, and for how long? Kinda intrigued to try this

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Rough_And_Ready@reddit

Forget the orange juice and use marmalade. Slice the carrots into thin strips and cook with a generous nob of butter, for 20 mins. Caramelised, sticky, orangey carrots are amazing, just maybe not very healthy!

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Ralucahippie@reddit

Good idea!

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Ralucahippie@reddit

Just enough to cover them & until reduced to a syrupy consistency, then add a knob of butter..

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Ultra_Leopard@reddit

Not done this but I can see it being nice. I might try it. My favourite soup is carrot and orange with a blob of Greek yoghurt stirred through to serve.

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K1mTy3@reddit

Ah another of my mum's "Try this at Christmas and keep it going forever" ones!

This one does actually taste pretty nice, as long as you don't overcook the carrots.

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CrossCityLine@reddit

Poach them in carrot juice, you get more carrot per carrot that way.

Not even joking, it’ll be the carrotiest carrot you’ve ever eaten.

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Chris-TT@reddit

Anything can be boiled and taste great, it's all about timing.

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woowizzle@reddit

For sure. Peas need a couple of minutes, not a few hours.

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lordrothermere@reddit

Really? What about in soups or stews?

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Jarcooler@reddit

Was there a trend of steaming the life out of veg in the 90s/00s? I also realised veg doesn't have to be flavourless mush

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acceberbex@reddit

Mum grew up on boiled veg. She got a steamer and now everything is steamed. It does taste better (not washed out and mushy) but steamers were quite trendy and the latest kitchen gadget probably early 00s

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THXORY@reddit

You can get some pretty useful steamers for the microwave very cheaply. They often work just as well

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Isgortio@reddit

My mum's method of cooking is:
1. Prep the veg
2. Put the veg in a cold saucepan of water, start boiling the water with the veg in there already
3. Decide what else is going with the veg
4. Prep the meat but don't season it
5. Cook the meat until it's dry and hard
6. Finally take the veg off the heat if the water hasn't fully evaporated first

Veg that is so soft it's almost soup, and meat that's so tough it's difficult to chew.

I boil my veg most of the time but I know it only takes 5 minutes so it goes on last.

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Hamsternoir@reddit

Want to swap?

My mum thought (and still does) that overcooking veg would remove any goodness so was the complete opposite.

The only positive I can say was that the veg was served above room temperature.

Apart from that it was all basically raw.

The only exception was the roast spuds which could have been used in the cannons at Waterloo.

I have yet to meet a worse cook.

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THXORY@reddit

My mother still thinks boiling does remove the goodness, so boils the vegetables until they're watery slop and then uses the water fie making gravy because she thinks the goodness is in that. I've told her 5 billion times that she could save hours and a lot of money all while keeping any goodness in the vegetables by steaming them

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the_Debt@reddit

a ton a veg is incredible raw

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Hamsternoir@reddit

Don't get me wrong some veg is nice raw and a load of fresh peas still in the pod is like crack. But when it's all you know it does wear.

Plus in the early 80s rural areas fancy foreign food like curry was considered to be gravy with sultanas and extra pepper. My mum's spag bol was boiled mince, onions and baked beans with over cooked spaghetti. No herbs, no tomatoes, no sauce, that were it.

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Apotak@reddit

My mum's spag bol was boiled mince, onions and baked beans

boiled mince?

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Hamsternoir@reddit

Yes you did read that correctly.

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Ok_Present_54@reddit

The only veg that cook in five minutes are things like peas. You boil a carrot for five minutes you’ll be eating a warm hard raw carrot.

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decisiontoohard@reddit

That totally depends on how thick your pieces of vegetable are?

I absolutely boil thinly sliced carrot in five minutes and it's fully cooked through and tender, and small florets/thinly sliced stem of broccoli and cauliflower, and small diced sweet potato. How massive are your veg chunks?

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Isgortio@reddit

Well yeah, 5 minutes was an example. Compared to her 45 minutes.

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Geepandjagger@reddit

My mom's rule was 30 minutes for potatoes and carrots, softer things like beans and broccoli 20 minutes on full boil from cold. Basically when you tip out the water it should be the same colour as the thing that went in because you boiled all of the nutrients out. As for meat I always use the BBC roast timer and for our lamb leg at Christmas it always says around 2 hours so we can start around 11am but my mom is up ready and wanting to put it in at 5am. Lol

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spankybianky@reddit

Try just adding a tiny bit of water to cover the bottom of the pan, put a lid on it, and just steam them that way. Absolutely delish

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THXORY@reddit

It was a much older trend that had been around since at very least the 1950s, if not much longer. People just seemed to think that's how you cooked vegetables. Some older people in particular still do. Victoria Wood used to joke that her mother started boiling the sprouts for Christmas in November.

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Educational_Try_6105@reddit

afaik there’s a cookbook a lot of our grandparents used that said stuff like “boil carrots for 2 hours” lol

and that “knowledge” was passed down

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Apotak@reddit

I have a cookbook from 1965 and it tells me to cook baby spinach for "only" 45 minutes, because you don't want to overcook it.

The puddings are great, though.

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kalendral_42@reddit

And the 80s

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decidedlyindecisive@reddit

Yeah the Boomers boiled their vegetables to death. So GenX discovered steaming and were like holy shit, this stuff can have flavour.

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miscfiles@reddit

This is so true. My wife's family boiled everything so hard it became grey and had the constituency of baby food. You could barely tell what veg you were eating. It was like their aim was to boil all the unique veg flavour out and really get the flavour of the water into everything.

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pajamakitten@reddit

Generational trauma. My parents (late boomers) cooked how their parents did, so all vegetables had to be overcooked.

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Rolands_eaten_finger@reddit

A adulthood revelation that broccoli and carrots actually taste great

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miscfiles@reddit

Broccoli is the food with the widest range of "cooked badly, tastes vile" to "cooked well, tastes amazing" imo. Sprouts are up there, too.

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THXORY@reddit

Aubergines and courgettes also often done very, very badly.

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Outrageous-Arm1945@reddit

Yeah, my mother would only microwave veg, broccoli particularly suffered from this mistreatment, and I hated it. It might be my favourite veg, pan fried with bacon, roasted or bbq'd with garlic and olive oil, genuinely can't choose a favourite

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FewAnybody2739@reddit

Broccoli's nice, but I think it's the bacon doing most of the lifting if you like them fried together.

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Outrageous-Arm1945@reddit

I think they are natural partners, they compliment each other. When I was really struggling as a student once, the first thing I bought when I got some money was a head of broccoli and some bacon!

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miscfiles@reddit

Oh microwaving broccoli generates a horrible smell on top of the nasty flavour. Pan frying is the opposite, especially with bacon and/or garlic.

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KoontFace@reddit

Sabe for me, but mostly with cauliflower. I was convinced I hated it until my early 30s.

Every vegetable in my house was boiled to death and the meet cooked until it was leather.

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UmaUmaNeigh@reddit

I've been visiting home the last week and despite my requests to "not boil the veg to mush" my dad seems incapable of cooking them any other way. Which baffles me because otherwise he and my mum are fantastic chefs!

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MysteriousB@reddit

They must just think anything that is slightly chewy =/= raw in terms of veg :(

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eeedeat@reddit

You mean potatoes aren't meant to be unseasoned, chalky white, hard on the inside and soft on the outside?

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Commercial-Bat-4534@reddit

Broccoli

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legendarymel@reddit

I like veg boiled and steamed as well.

I used to hate carrots as a kid though because my mother half cooked them.

I like them raw, boiled/steamed until they’re soft, and roasted but this half raw, half soft monstrosity my mother makes is a sensory hell.

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Impossible_Disk_43@reddit

I can't tell if I'm being especially dumb ( the baby was naughty and woke me up at midnight), and you are referring to boiled or steamed veggies in particular. But I can tell you one thing. Boiling or steaming a tomato is a food crime. Those are to be blended into a sauce, chopped into a salad or eaten raw. There's other ways to go about that, of course, like when you're having a sandwich or something. But you mustn't boil or steam them. That's a very bad idea. I can't see any redemption for this. Actually I just thought of tomato chutney, so maybe? But that might be entering whizz into a sauce territory, so maybe my point still stands up well

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Short-Shopping3197@reddit

Sprouts. There was a running joke that I hated sprouts and had to eat an annual sprout at Christmas, I thought they were bitter and soggy . My sister later married someone and the first Christmas with them they cooked sprouts, pan fried in bacon and garlic and they were delicious. I think my mom was more upset than she let on when I asked for seconds 😂

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jamnut@reddit

I agree. Sometimes I think it's the addition of the onions, bacon lardons, and general seasoning I add that actually makes them bearable, but it's 100000 times better than when my mum boils the ever loving fuck out of them. It's the only food that makes me physically wretch and gag when I eat it. I genuinely think I'd react less to eating dog shit

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miscfiles@reddit

Dog shit is actually delicious these days. It's not like the chalky stuff you used to get in the '70s. You just have to know how to cook it properly.

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MickSturbs@reddit

I love them but my wife calls them the devil’s food. She says that she shouldn’t have to eat anything that you have to cut a cross into.

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Aced4remakes@reddit

More sprouts for you then.

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acceberbex@reddit

I'm a yearly sprouter too. Boiled/steamed are the worst. I still don't like them but onna creamy gratin with bacon etc, they're slightly better.

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kamemoro@reddit

i can't say that made me develop a big love for them, but you're right they are a lot more enjoyable. try adding maple syrup as well with the bacon!

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squigs@reddit

Sprouts have also changed though. https://xkcd.com/2241/

But I agree - stir fried with other ingredients is the best way to do them.

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-You_Cant_Stop_Me-@reddit

Pork, my parents would turn it to boot leather. Broccoli and green beans, my mum insists in nuking them until they lose all flavour and turn to mush.

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THXORY@reddit

It was only when I moved out for uni and started cooking for myself all the time that I realised what a terrible cook my mother was / is. She's the epitome of that school of 20th century cooking that Victoria Wood used to take the piss out of, saying her mother used to start boiling the sprout for Christmas in November.

So, basically any vegetable for me. My mother still cooks them to oblivion.

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WinterAlternative961@reddit

trifle

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Oster-P@reddit

Roast beef and lamb. My mum would cook it to death until it was stringy and crispy. Wasn't until I moved out and started cooking for myself that I realised how nice it can be.

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Sagegreenlama@reddit

I have now learned that not every dish needs to consist of half onions and lots of raw garlic and jalapeños. My dad cooked like Shrek.

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ShopGirl182@reddit

Agh, you made me laugh so take my upvote. I fear my kids may say this about me in the future.

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smalltallpaul@reddit

Lasagne. My parents didn't understand they needed to soak the lasagne sheets to soften. It was like eating glass

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batty_61@reddit

My Mum used to put steak - even really good ones - in a Pyrex dish on a layer of sliced onions, cover them in water with Bisto in it and cook them in the oven until they were overdone and floating in a thick oniony gravy (that bit wasn't so bad).

The first time my boyfriend took me to a steak restaurant and ordered me a medium rare sirloin was a revelation!

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melanie110@reddit

Like braising steak it literally sirloin?

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batty_61@reddit

Sirloin, rump - any steak. We weren't well off a didn't really buy steak, and if we were lucky enough to get some it all suffered the same fate.

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melanie110@reddit

Eeeeekkkkkk.

I vividly remember braising steak but wow. At least it wasn’t liver, poached sausage and bacon 🤢

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batty_61@reddit

🤢 I've been put off liver for life by school dinners when it wasn't trimmed properly and full of tubes - also, poached sausages?!

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melanie110@reddit

Yeah my mother never believed in browning sausages before they went ina a casserole so it was like flaccid poached meat. The cheapest of sausages too

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acceberbex@reddit

My grandad does that for steak (but can do a roast although beef is well done) . I've tried it and it was like overcooked, tasteless fleshiness and gravy. Meat was soft but like fall apart soft but not on a good way

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Ilikescience94@reddit

Carrots. My mum just straight boiled them into lifeless husks. It didn't matter what the food was, it's getting boiled to death. I swore off them for life. After she passed away I tried them, done properly, and ended up eating half the bag by the end of the afternoon.

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Hot-Information5697@reddit

My parent buy the cheapest ingredients in the supermarket, they have a lot of money, but for some reason will never buy even halfway decent food. Everything as a result is not nice, very very poor quality meat (think caged hens etc) means everything just come out tough or just plain horrible. They never season, read a recipe or watch the timings so 99/100 you get a combination of bland mush - either overdone or underdone. My dad always comments on how nice our meals are when he visits and asks our secret and I'm always saying " you know just followed the recipe....."

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92Devika@reddit

Brussel sprouts

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Brickie78@reddit

Herbs.

To my mum (who learned to cook in the 50s), "herbs" was a single substance akin to fine green sawdust that came in a Schwartz jar and got shaken over things before serving.

I'm not sure exactly what about Dried Mixed Herbs I didn't like and still don't - I think it's the sage - but i still remember my mum looking askance at me cooking fish with fresh parsley at a family barbecue because she "thought I didn't like Herbs".

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BeanieMcRoach@reddit

Quiche, my parents didn't cook it, but it was often on offer at kid's parties and I never liked it.

Years later, my mother in law had made a quiche and I had some to be polite - it was amazing! Nothing like the cheap shop-bought soggy egg and raw onion concoctions of my childhood.

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Wooden-Bowl2953@reddit

Salads. I found out it doesn't have to be dry ingredients on a plate with ham, egg and chips.

You can actually add flavor to it!

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Experiment328095@reddit

Mince, my mum makes this grey tasteless slop so I Always thought mince was rank until I was in my 20s and taught myself to cook when I moved out. Kinda grateful now she never taught me how to cook 😂

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Scoobilatchi@reddit

Ooooh get you…! Steak as a child!

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awkwardandroid@reddit

Pork. Dry and tasteless. Then a friend made katsudon for me and oh now I understand

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Charlieuk@reddit

Meat. Between the ages of 7 and 15 I rarely ate meat. After that I ate a little but I was selective. I always thought meat was hard and dry and took 10 minutes to chew one bite. So if we went out for a meal I'd choose a veggie option or if at home I'd ask for 'no meat please'.

In my early 20s a friend convinced me to try steak, said she'd swap meals if I didn't like it, she ordered it medium rare with garlic butter.

It turns out that meat (of many varieties) can actually be delicious. Having something cooked to death so it's like a piece of jerky, is the problem.

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Different_Fall1391@reddit

All meat cooked until its consistency is like leather. Vegetables were steamed to within an inch of their lives.

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Morph_The_Merciless@reddit

The way my mum cooked Sprouts is probably the main reason I grew up loathing the very concept of Xmas dinner.

Steam them for a few minutes so they keep that slightly sweet, nutty flavour? Lovely!

Boil the shit out of them in unsalted water for an hour so they turn to bitter slop?? Fucking horrific!

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95jo@reddit

STEAK!

I could never understand why so many people said it was their favourite food. What, that chewy, fatty piece of meat? Nah, not for me… How wrong was I.

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SpectralDinosaur@reddit

I think your parents might have also been buying cheap cuts of steak.

As someone that generally likes their steak well done and cooks their own, it couldn't be further from "like eating leather". Done right it basically melts in your mouth.

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Thelichemaster@reddit

I was spoiled with my mothers side of the family from a Mediterranean background. They may have been poor but never skimped on quality.

Superbly cooked all-round. That made me very spoilt when I went to friends houses for tea and most of their parents cooked offerings were horrors. Was usually received when the ordered take away instead!

Has made me appreciate good food all my life which is probably why I spend so much on it.

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Cheap-Vegetable-4317@reddit

I remember going to my friends houses when I started primary school and sometimes being physically unable to eat their food because it was so unpleasant.

My family are English, my mum just knew how to cook. When I hear people going on about how bad English food is I feel indignant, because it really isn't, but then I remember the food I ate at other people's houses and think, oh no, they are probably right.

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qqqqtip@reddit

chilli con carne

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snittersnee@reddit

See, my mam were by and large decent at most things. But I always dreaded when she'd do macaroni cheese, because she'd insist on baking it which absolutely fucked the texture and taste. From wonderful sharp cheddary velvety smooth to a flavourless sweaty mess, all for the sake of an overdone crispy top.

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Cheap-Vegetable-4317@reddit

Macaroni cheese is definitely baked in the oven. It's essentially a Pasta al Forno with just the cheese sauce and without the beef ragu.

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John316-LIFE@reddit

There is actually a way to do this that turns out nicely. My husband makes a spectacular macaroni cheese and his gets a quick bake in the oven.

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alstroemeriaXopuntia@reddit

I'm wondering in my mid 30s if swa food is actually good but my parents just made gooey white fish pie with white sauce and it's turned me off all sea food for life. Should I try fish?!

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catjellycat@reddit

Scrambled egg.

I don’t eat meat anymore but pork chops. Jesus, you could have soled your shoes with them.

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ZekkPacus@reddit

Pork chops was a big one for me.

Turns out they need 2-3 minutes a side in a pan then 8-10 minutes in the oven to finish, not 45 minutes in the oven slowly curling.

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starbugone@reddit

The worst was the little oyster on the other side of the bone that has more fat content would be slightly tolerable, then the rest just sucked the saliva out of your mouth and left you with a chewed clump of meat to try to swallow. The first time I barbecued pork chops they were like prime steak in comparison. Then I had smoked pork chops, wholly man. I also got overdone liver that, for extra torture, was served with a slice of bacon.

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catjellycat@reddit

Served with plain boiled potatoes?

I’ve got loads wrong as a parent but I’ve never served my kids slightly grey plain boiled potatoes for dinner

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artfulmonica@reddit

My mum boiled them, I really hated pork chop day.

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UnidentifiableObject@reddit

Scrambled egg for me as a kid was an egg or two cracked into a measuring jug and put in the microwave. No seasoning. It’d come out sort of scrambled eggy but also really watery too? Just thinking of that egg water makes me want to vom.

Now it’s just egg, salt, pepper, maybe some cheese if I’m feeling fancy, but in a pan on the stove. Soooo much better! No egg water!!

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catjellycat@reddit

Yes! Microwave eggs! But until you could have pebble dashed a semi with them

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Rudahn@reddit

Microwave eggs can be ok if you don’t cook them to the point of being rubber.

Short blasts and lots of stirring until they’re silky is the way.

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ImScaredofCats@reddit

Can't be worse than hot dog water surely?

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Isgortio@reddit

Ooh my mum did the microwave eggs! She'd even add milk to bulk it out. Tbh it wasn't bad but I've made better eggs myself. I add butter and sometimes cheese, yum.

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Weak-Newt-5853@reddit

Did your parents scrambled eggs look like snotty vomit too?

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Delicious_Shop9037@reddit

Gammon steak, baked until there wasn’t a drop of moisture remaining and required vigorous table shaking knife action and endless chewing. Served with those enormous disgusting processed peas that disintegrated into a paste in the mouth. Finished off with chips baked at too high a temperature, so that the insides were white raw and the ends were black burned. Mmmm delicious!

All vegetables were boiled violently to remove unwanted texture and flavour.

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Bacon4Lyf@reddit

All meats. My mum can bake like no other, I'll always be first round if shes been baking. I just thought chicken was supposed to be dry and stick to the roof of your mouth and didn't understand why everyone loved it

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Aced4remakes@reddit

I was so used to dry chicken that the first time I had properly cooked chicken I thought it was undercooked because it was soft and juicy.

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cherrycoke3000@reddit

Mine was good at baking and cooking, just not meat. Except always for just enough time for it not to be raw. Was obsessed with saving energy/money, bit only this. Which was fine for chicken, terrible for mince and any long slow cook. Then I get told off for fussing over my chewy meat. Gravy was giblets boiled in water. I like gravy now.

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repair-it@reddit

I remember my first really RARE steak, what a revelation, so soft.

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Ok-Web-2657@reddit

Turns out fruit tastes good when it's not sat in the kitchen with 2 adults each smoking 20 cigarettes a day.

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Winter_Parsley8706@reddit

Mashed Potato - was always super dry and lumpy. Butter - they only had (and still do) margarine spread. Indian Cuisine - My dad didn't want any of that "foreign muck" in the house. I had my first British Indian at 19 and haven't looked back since.

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Depress-Mode@reddit

Beetroot. My exes mum cooked it and I was hesitant but it was delicious. I’d hated it all my childhood life

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PatserGrey@reddit

Broccoli and cabbage. To my shock, neither were supposed to be in liquid form

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pintofendlesssummer@reddit

You had steak growing up? I didn't have steak until I left home.

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Outrageous-Arm1945@reddit

My mum had a repertoire of crap. Paella made with overcooked long grain rice and sliced hotdogs and probably a tube of tomato puree was a particular 'favourite'.

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Ox3321@reddit

Same. Steak! Bless my mother she can cook other things but the steak was like chewing leather. I was known for chewing the meat then spitting it out. Little did i know its just that she was chargrilling it!

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shallwesloth@reddit

Stir fry. I thought all stir fries were a collection of ingredients cooked to a homogeneous mush! Learning they're supposed to be flash fried for a few minutes was a revelation.

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moosebeast@reddit

Mashed potato. As an adult I found that I quite liked it when done right. When I make it, I'll add butter, a splash of milk, and some seasoning. A bit of nutmeg is good sometimes too.

My mum would literally just mash some boiled potato. It was like eating sand. I have to hide the fact that I actually like mashed potato from her in case she makes it when I come over.

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Salt_Specific_740@reddit

Lasagne. My mum's lasagne was so so bad(sorry Mum). Watery flavourless mince, bland white sauce, chewy pasta.

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Equivalent-Good-7693@reddit

Any and all food,my parents can’t cook for shit

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conradslater@reddit

This reminds me of the circumstances of how I fell in love with my wife.

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imck1911@reddit

My mother cooked every vegetable the same way: boil for twenty minutes to half an hour and serve plain and unseasoned. Toxic mush.

There wasn't a specific moment, it was more of a gradual learning process.. but vegetables blanched, then sautéed in butter and carefully seasoned.. there's just no comparison

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Disastrous_Yak_1990@reddit

I don’t get why THEY ever liked it like that though.

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Specialist_Phrase511@reddit

Awe I loved the mushy mess (as long as it wasn't watery. It's lucky I eat a lot of salad, coz anything cooked, I like cooked to death. Yummmmm

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Eddie_F_17@reddit

If you reproduce, please offer your children the pleasure of sautéed, blanched, and roasted vegetables.

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Specialist_Phrase511@reddit

Haha funny you should say that...I have a 21 yr old daughter and an almost 11 yr old daughter, other than my eldest enjoying cooked to death cabbage like me, and stew...she looooves stew, they both have very different food preferences to me. My youngest only likes most veg (the few vegetables I can get her to eat) raw, excluding all the veg I hide in pasta sauces etc. she has to have her carrots raw, and her favourite veg that she has with most meals is cucumber and carrots (she eats about 8 portions of fruits and berries per day too) she hates roasted veg...I LOVE everything roasted (to death might I add) my eldest loves spinach (which I hate) she only likes potatoes roasted 😲 she DOES NOT like sprouts, I think there must be something wrong with her haha. My youngest daughter's dad is a chef (I still prefer my cooking haha) everything he cooked was al dented as he preferred it that way.....until he went to turkey and they botched up his implants. Now he has no teeth, just had surgery in the UK to remove a rogue implant screw from up by his eye 😬. He doesn't complain about my mushy veg when he comes over for dinner now mwhahahahahaha nah I love veg cooked in all different ways, but I think on a roast dinner I have my roasted potatoes, carrots, parsnip and sweet potatoes, but the boiled veg I just love it the way my nan and mum used to cook it, bicarb in the cabbage and boiled until it no longer resembles cabbage, sprouts crossed at the bottom cooked until they look like the were never individual balls......there's something warming and nostalgic about it.

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ToddleWaddle@reddit

There is a generation above mine who were all convinced that dentures were much better than natural teeth. I wouldn't be surprised if the lengthy cooking times of vegetables is related to this.

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Luxury_Dressingown@reddit

Definitely something in this with my mum's cooking. Her mum had all her teeth out in her early 20s when she had one dodgy one, and was told it was better to have them all out as they'll only give you trouble. My mum's cooking got much better but my gran would only eat peas if they'd been boiled for half an hour.

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whatanabsolutefrog@reddit

My Grandma seemed to eat veg mostly out of a sense of obligation.

You eat it because it's good for you, not because it's actually nice, and once you've suffered through your sprouts you've "earned" the meat and potatoes 😂

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lurch9090@reddit

This 100% she used to boil button mushroom whole and serve them to me.

I looked her dinner the other week, she asked for her salmon “Well done”

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WGSMA@reddit

Learning to stir fry was a game changer for me and veg

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Lessarocks@reddit

Same school of cookery as my mother by the sound of it. She used to boil cabbage for twenty minutes till it was a mushy mess.

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Repulsive-Note-112@reddit

Boiled to death veg/pasta and overdone meat was my youth at home and school. My mother became a much better cook in the 90s and my partner taught me a lot of cooking techniques so thankfully that is consigned to my distant past.

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highrouleur@reddit

Most things to be honest, but yeah also steak. My mum used to cook in the oven for about 90 mins with a slice of tomato on it "for flavour"

I mean it wasn't tough at least, but yeah the poor cow did die for nothing

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zamoflo@reddit

Cooked veg! I always loved salad veg and raw carrots but until I started cooking for myself it was always overdone microwave steam bag veg that was dumped straight on the plate (complete with all the watery stuff from the bag).

And I always thought that I hated chicken (most meat actually! I ended up veggie/vegan on and off since being about 7 because of this) because my mum and nana always cooked it with zero seasoning until it had the texture of a an old welly boot!

This is probably why I took over making the family roast dinners at like 19 (I fell in love with cooking when I went away for uni and was always cooking for my flatmates and friends - they’d chip in for the ingredients and I’d be the chef) and I always have a seasoning cupboard that’s full to the brim 😂

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Antisocial-Metalhead@reddit

It was steak for me as well. It only came well done with my parents. They would always moan if anything (that can be safely) was cooked so that it was still pink in the middle.

As I got older and had the option to try it rare, I found I preferred it that way.

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Rickietee10@reddit

Fish: it was always slimy when my mum made it.
Vegetables: always boiled.
Mashed potatoes: always lumpy and dry. Never used butter or creams.

I love cooking. My wife loves when I cook, and we’ve been together long enough now for me to tell her she’s a shit cook. But when first got together and she wanted to make dinner, she’d always suggest like salmon and pasta or something and I’d have to eat this slimy fish with overcooked pasta. And then tell her I didn’t like salmon hahaha.

I’ve already told her she’s not giving our kids a food complex. Dad’s cooking for life now.

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cardamom-me@reddit

So I have discovered as an adult that a lot of people think mash is literally just mashed up boiled potatoes. No butter, cream, milk or seasoning. No wonder those people claim not to like mashed potatoes.

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PsychologicalDish430@reddit

Pretty much everything, my parents were awful cooks.

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BigSkyFace@reddit

My Mum used to often burn food when it was cooked in the oven. Once I started to sometimes make food for myself as a teenager I came to understand why. I realised she'd not follow instructions, put the oven on max temperature, and then stick pizzas, nuggets, chips etc. inside and hope for the best.

This was especially bad for thicker pizzas because they kept burning on the top whilst being undercooked on the bottom. Once I pointed this out to her she stopped and actually began reading the packaging, but I never understood why she didn't do this beforehand.

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FunkyYoghurt@reddit

Spag Bol.

I love my mum but good heavens. My entire childhood was just beef mince, tomato sauce and pasta. I'm being literal. I've not left out any seasoning etc even a pinch of salt. And a shit load of it. Always bollocked for not finishing it.

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OutrageousRepair5751@reddit

Oh my word I had the same experience as a child. I get now that we were tight on money, but I might have been more willing to eat it if it didn't come seasoned with anger

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pinkcorduroy@reddit

"seasoned with anger" lol i'm stealing this one

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Larrypants1@reddit

This was my mum's specialty too. I didn't mind it too much because at least I could put a bunch of cheese on it.

But her lasagna was just that with what I can only imagine was a dash of milk for bechamel, baked for an hour to make the stodgiest thing known to man. She loved it but I truly thought I hated lasagna until I was about 19 and saw a friend having it in a restaurant and it was all saucy and smelled amazing

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OutrageousRepair5751@reddit

Once again, same experience here. I remember accidentally staying for tea at a friend's house (felt terrible, they had guests, I was supposed to have gone home but circumstances dictated that I couldn't) and when they put the lasagne in front of me I started internally screaming because my mums lasagne was exactly what you just described.

But when I tried this other family's lasagne... I felt cheated.

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Icy_Gap_9067@reddit

My mum would watch tv chefs and criticise the amount of salt they added, say she didn't like pepper and garlic, she'd pull a face if the chef dressed a salad 'I wouldn't want an oily salad'. We had almost no flavour added to our food. Mum can cook I just think she has no idea that the food we eat when we eat out, that she says is lovely, has all the things in it that she thinks she doesn't like.

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Plugged_in_Baby@reddit

So Whats your evidence that she “can” cook? 😂

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Icy_Gap_9067@reddit

I'll give her props for roast potatoes which are always good and erm, ok, point taken! Food was never dangerous?! Is that good enough?

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TheBananaMan_@reddit

Lasagna - I never really liked it as the way my parents cooked this meal was very un-Italian. For this reason I’ve always avoided it until a sweet Italian grandmother who spoke only few words of english. Despite the communication barrier, we had a conversation about food and at one point I’d mentioned I never liked lasagna.

She went “Mama Mia” rant and decided to cook me one with her son. 2 hours later… I was apprehensive with the first bite (cos I don’t know if I’d like it), and it was like heaven in my mouth.

Three rounds in and I still wanted more.

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AdOdd521@reddit

I dont recall anything to that affect personally, but about my early 30s my mother finally started to accept that she liked a number of foods I made that she'd always hated because she made them badly 🤣

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tootiredforthisshit1@reddit

Rice

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CodingRaver@reddit

Sprouts

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Unique-Recipe-4499@reddit

Butter - whenever my mum made a sandwich there would be a thick blob of unspread butter in the middle of the bread which was disgusting to eat through and in the end I just refused. I think it wasn't until high school when I had butter on a baked potato that I realised butter itself wasn't the problem.

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K1mTy3@reddit

It was new potatoes for me - they are actually quite nice when they're not overboiled, with mint in the water, to the point where it's like eating toothpaste!

Mum used to get inspiration from different Christmas cooking shows, then start making one or two ideas all year round. So I had to endure these lumps for several years!

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discoveredunknown@reddit

Salmon, new potatoes and green beans. All 3 completely unseasoned and over cooked

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RedNightKnight@reddit

Ah. The anti-fat, anti-salt, everything steamed phase…

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Dadda_Green@reddit

That phase has yet to end in my parents’ house

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discoveredunknown@reddit

Around 2007ish, around the height of Channel 4 diet programmes and Gillis McKeith?

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BeagleMadness@reddit

I'd forgotten til I read your comment that I used to despise new potatoes as a small child, 40+ years ago. I swear they used to have a much stronger taste, or perhaps I just have fewer taste buds now I'm older?

To my mind, they were potatoes that just tasted very "wrong" or "off" somehow. I would cry every time any potatoes were served, and ask "They're not new potatoes, are they?". And my dad would joke that no, the big sack of potatoes had been kept in the garage for ages, so they were definitely not "new".

I actually like them now. But that's probably because I don't boil them for an hour, with half a jar of ancient dried mint leaves, then serve with a load of margarine on top (my parents thought that cheap margarine was much healthier than butter, ugh)!

They were the only thing I wouldn't/couldn't eat as a child, other than baked beans (I freaked out at a "white bit" in some once, probably just some bean skin, then couldn't eat them for 20 years afterwards).

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bekcy@reddit

Minty potatoes sound like a nightmare tbh.

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Dadda_Green@reddit

Erm, all of it? A general realisation that my mum wasn’t a great cook but the particular ingredients I remember is liver. It’s not meant to be dry fried until it’s cooked thoroughly through and gone gritty and served without gravy. It’s not actually quite nice cooked well.

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Baby-Catcher@reddit

Lots of things, too many to name.

Number 1 is definitely gammon though. I always hated gammon, too salty no other real flavour. Also she served it with plain pasta?! I was probably about 30 before I realised I really liked it when cooked in any other format than a plain joint.

In hindsight I understand mum was super busy with 5 of us and the million clubs we did, she just cooked the same meals on a rotation. Maybe about 10 total meals. And everything came with steamed broccoli, tinned corn or baked beans.

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love_in_october@reddit

Food in general. My parents aren't awful at cooking but the food they make is just very plain. I thought I just didn't like eating that much until I met my husband and he introduced me to the concept of different flavours.

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RedNightKnight@reddit

My MIL says she has no interest in food but I think it’s because her cooking is awful.

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Isgortio@reddit

Sausages. Turns out, they're not supposed to be grilled until they're completely black and the skin starts splitting apart.

Same with anything cooked on a barbecue, to them it wasn't cooked unless it was black. Mmm, dry charcoal with a hint of whatever was once there before. Burgers also became hockey pucks.

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RedNightKnight@reddit

Take a certain level of cooking to have a child hate sausages!

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WildWinterberry@reddit

They say it’s to avoid food poisoning but the charcoal sandwiches always gave me the shits so what’s the difference?

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BrangdonJ@reddit

With steak, it's not enough for it to be medium rare. It has to be seasoned well too. For a long time I wasn't fussed about it. I wouldn't order it in restaurants because it was boring; it rarely came with decent veg. Eventually I had a good one, and it was a life-changing experience. I understood that cooked well, steak needs no accompaniment.

I don't blame my parents for this. My own cooking only gets it right sometimes. And even in restaurants that have provided good steaks, they aren't always good.

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Radiant_Fondant_4097@reddit

Well simply put growing up we never went to actual restaurants beyond the odd pub or carvery, and if you wanted steak it came well-done so I didn’t really know any better.

It wasn’t until I struck out on my own to move out for uni did I discover the wide world of fine cuisine.

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No-Squirrel-4238@reddit

My husband doesn’t like spaghetti bolognaise and cites step mum’s cooking as the reason. However, likes the spaghetti with a tomato and mince sauce that I make 🤣

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BillyJoeDubuluw@reddit

I don’t really have this feeling with any particular dish because we always had tasty and well made meals.

With that said though, I actually think this is one of the biggest problems with British cuisine as a whole.

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b-roc@reddit

Pasta. Overcooked and the same water used as sauce with the addition of a tin of tomatoes and other things.

Amazingly, pasta is probably my favourite and most routinely eaten food in spite of my introduction to it.

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knabe4k@reddit

vegetables in general. we were not actually poor but my parents made me think we were and all of our side dishes were canned at dinner. apple sauce and canned green beans. canned corn and canned peas. it was truly fowl. i didn't have a fresh vegetable until college.

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23Doves@reddit

Cooked carrots. I always insisted on having mine raw, as "they taste better that way". It was only years later when I was given cooked carrots in a restaurant that I realised the problem was the way my Mum overcooked them, turning them into slimy orange slop.

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butterflyrattle@reddit

Chicken, specifically breast/white meat.

Mum would always cook the chicken too long so any white meat was so dry and nearly crumbly sometimes, the only parts with any moisture was the dark meat

Especially as all chicken breasts were cooked under the grill until they were all browned! I didn’t realise how good just chicken breast could be until my bf cooked them for me, complete revelation for so many things!!

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Necessary_Doubt_9762@reddit

Fish. I’m in my 30s and have only recently discovered that it’s not actually gross.

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Geepandjagger@reddit

Yeah my parents cooked all fish the same way in a bowl with milk and lemon in the oven completely ignoring the different fish flavours and qualities. I also hated fish until I was an adult.

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John316-LIFE@reddit

Yes!!! I hated fish as a kid. Turns out, my parents suck at cooking it (although I genuinely detest fish fingers 🤢). My husband makes AMAZING fish. And I’ve learned how to make a good salmon fillet.

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Firthy2002@reddit

Fish can be easily ruined by overcooking.

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HarryBayles@reddit

Exactly the same as OP, eating a non-grilled to death steak for the first was eye-opening.

Similarly with Lamb. Absolutely hated it as a kid but after discovering that you don't have cook it until grey I love it now. My missus still hates lamb, so the first thing I do every time she goes away is get some lamb leg steaks and a nice bottle of red.

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WildWinterberry@reddit

I moved out at 19 and discovered that vegetables do not, in fact, come in a tin and they don’t have to be boiled for half an hour in tin juice. I also found out that rice doesn’t need to be boiled into a mushy block and takeaways are using rice cookers, not wizardry

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OutrageousRepair5751@reddit

I think generally it sounds like most of our parents grew up with a post-war 60s/70s attitude where there were a lot of holdovers from rationing and scarcity.

I love my mum but good grief did that spag bol damage my perceptions as a kid. I think also perceived portion size can be a factor. I've never eaten a lot and prefer smaller meals, but when you're given a lot of something it's hard to even contemplate starting because you feel overfull just looking at it.

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RepairsYourKeeps@reddit

Bacon. I always had it served to me as pink and still wobbly (bleugh). It wasn't until I left home and a flatmate browned the bacon and rendered the fat properly that my eyes were truly opened.

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Solid_Contact6529@reddit

My parents didn’t suck at cooking but when I was a kid the quality of ingredients they could afford to buy was …not good. So everything definitely tastes better these days!

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Iranicboy15@reddit

My parents were great cooks, grew up eating Iranian and Pakistani food.

But there was one dish I hated growing up that my mum made. Okra now everyone else loved my mums Okra, family and friends , but for me it was the texture.

But the way my mum made it, was how my dad liked it, one day she made it how she liked and I realised , okra can be crispy and it’s delicious.

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ShitBritGit@reddit

My dad liked veg just boiled - not overcooked, but nothing else. Mum liked crispy food. Beef was cooked until grey all the way through.

And I've no idea what dad did with mashed potato - for years I was convinced I hated mashed potato as it would make me gag every time. It's actually quite nice when made by almost anyone else.

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PsychologicalEbb3891@reddit

This for me too. I also include roast beef. My mum always overcooked meat. It didn't matter how much gravy I added, there were times when I just couldn't swallow it. Normally there was hell to pay, as money was in very short supply, but it was just awful. I have never admitted this to my mum but like you a medium rare steak is quite divine.

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NumScritch@reddit

Asparagus- it should never ever be boiled. 🤢

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jesuseatsbees@reddit

Roast dinners. Everything was cooked for hours. The meat always came out so hard it couldn’t be sliced, you’d just get little, rock-hard chunks that tasted of nothing. I couldn’t tell the difference between lamb and beef for years. The vegetables could’ve been mistaken for purée. The roasties were never crispy but to be fair they did taste good. The only saving grace was the gravy which was homemade in the bottom of the roasting dish, it was amazing. Once my mum switched to Bisto it was game over.

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kamemoro@reddit

cauliflower lol, turns out you don't have to just boil it with no seasoning.

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atimelyending@reddit

I think the first time I actually ate cauliflower was as a student when I first started experimenting with cooking. Only ever had boiled, unseasoned cauliflower, and also other veg like broccoli as a kid

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soundguyjon@reddit

Pasta. Was always served a mountain of it that had no flavour or seasoning, the most boring and bland thing on earth. Stupidly just assumed it was all like that because my mum had spent time living in Italy so that’s how it must be. How wrong I was.

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trippykitsy@reddit

Jokes on you, my parents never cooked for me. On a good day I ate frozen chicken and chips from Iceland. On a bad day it was Asda Smart Price chicken nuggets. On a mediocre day my mum would just get me two Mayo Chickens from mcodnalds. On a broke day Id eat whatever cereal we had, completely dry from a plastic cup because there was never any milk or utensils.

Yeah i did not develop a single good eating habit in my youth.

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Eddie_F_17@reddit

Did you have health issues?

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trippykitsy@reddit

Well my body has some weird quirks. 1. I used to pass out alllllllll the time. I couldn't stand up straight for more than half an hour before I passed out. If I got up out of a chair too quickly I might fall over. That's no longer the case now I control my own diet. 2. I put fat onto my arms and legs extremely easily. Fat arms isn't uncommon in women/afab people but my calves are shaped like tree trunks. Im wondering if this was caused by my high fat high carb diet as a kid? Even when I was fit and healthy at 17 running all the time my legs were still like this. 3. Oh yeah i rapidly put loads of weight on as soon as I had control of my own food (and HAD to buy my own food, i wasnt allowed home food anymore at 17 yrs old). I mostly bought pasties and stuff. Basically I had no cooking skills whatsoever and no appreciation for healthy eating or vitamins.

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Eddie_F_17@reddit

Oh no, I’m so sorry. That was very neglectful, but I hope you’re doing better now. I assume you’ve started having a well rounded diet?

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trippykitsy@reddit

Hahha! Sort of. I lost sooo much weight in covid and then put it all back on after 2025 kicked my ass mentally. So it's much better than back then but im still working on the well rounded part.

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CongealedBeanKingdom@reddit

My dad used to 'cook' us white bread fried in larder when I went to his house. Exceptional.

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trippykitsy@reddit

Good god, at least the chicago town pizzas had essential vitamins and protein

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Trick-Station8742@reddit

Christ

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TheThingwithTheFeath@reddit

Salad. My parents were actually both pretty good chefs but for whatever reason they would always just toss some lettuce and tomatoes into a bowl with a bit of olive oil and call it a day. Vinegar on the side in case someone ‘doesn’t like it’ in the ‘salad’.

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ximina3@reddit

When I first met my now husband he lived above a butchers and brought home some nice steaks. We were still early in our relationship and I was too polite to tell him I didn't like beef, so I ate the steak he cooked. And it was really good! He's not even a great cook but he'd followed a YouTube tutorial on how to do it lol.

Turns out my mum only ever bought horrible cheap cuts of steak or burgers and just obliterates them.

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lordrothermere@reddit

My parents were pretty good cooks. But for some reason they did liver in a pressure cooker, and it was soooo bad.

When I was in my early 30s I had lunch at the brasserie under the IoD and thought I'd give liver another chance. I simply couldn't believe the difference. Cut into strips and grilled rather than massive grey lumps with tubes (arteries?) in.

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Programmer-Severe@reddit

Fish. I grew up hating it because my parents cooked those boil in the bag cod and parsley sauce fillets.

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Walkerno5@reddit

Parsley sauce. Turns out it’s fucking delicious when you actually make it instead of using a packet one.

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Eden_Sparkles@reddit

This was one of mine too and my parents liked it so much it was pretty much a weekly meal (they'd serve it over fish and mash, I liked both of those but wasn't allowed the sauce on the side). I didn't think I could bring myself to eat the sauce again but maybe I should give it a go!

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Walkerno5@reddit

I would recommend it if you can knock up the recipe- it’s simple and quick and makes you wonder why the packets ever existed!

If you can make any white sauce you can probably make it without really thinking about it, but if you need a recipe the bbc good food one here is basically what I do- I don’t bother with the lemon or mustard they mention in this and I don’t make as big a lot as this but the ratios are good!

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/parsley-sauce

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rabbithole-xyz@reddit

My Gran used custard powder instead of cornflour to thicken parsley sauce once, by mistake. Uncle David didn't like it one bit (surprise!), but she made such a fuss he ate it anyway, lol. He was sooo sweet, while she was a bit of a bitch. And mad.

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Impossible_Disk_43@reddit

Parsley tastes like soap though. How do you get around that?

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Walkerno5@reddit

If you don’t like fresh parsley you’re going to struggle to be fair- the getting around it can only come from the butter and flour and milk but it will still taste of actual parsley I’m afraid!

Are you one of those people who can’t enjoy coriander too?

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Impossible_Disk_43@reddit

I am! It's a shame because most fresh herbs taste incredible but I can't get over the soap taste of parsley and coriander too. I'd love to know their true taste, I bet it's really nice.

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Isgortio@reddit

Wait, parsley and coriander don't taste the same? I'm a soapy coriander victim :(

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Walkerno5@reddit

My condolences. They don’t taste the same for me and many others. I hope one day there is a cure! Tastebuds are weird.

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NeitherBag4722@reddit

Not hated but I thought roast beef, which we had every Sunday, had to be dry and chewy. My mother never seasoned it, never coloured it, just threw it in a roasting bag for hours.

Also gravy, which was simply two oxo cubes in water.

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RedNightKnight@reddit

Thickened oxo water though, yes?

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NeitherBag4722@reddit

No, water as it came out of the tap.

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Embarrassed_Ad7378@reddit

Ughh the steak mentioned has just given me a flashback to my mum cooking steaks in the grill, and asking me to turn it over ‘for another 10 minutes’

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Ok-Set-5829@reddit

Boiled eggs. They don't have to have that sulphury smell and gross chalky texture. (Mum's a solid cook in general though)

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ValuableActuator9109@reddit

Everything.

Seriously, my parents were such bad cooks I just refused to eat to the point of being fed through a tube in the hospital. From the age of ten or eleven I lived on ham sandwiches and sausage rolls. I got to uni and started eating roast dinners, shepherd's pie, lasagne, pasta, spag bol, sausage and mash.

My dad made great butter though.

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FinnemoreFan@reddit

Not really cooking as such, but - as a child in Scotland in the 1970s, my only experience of pizza was the nastiest slab of tasteless cheese-covered cardboard that Willie Lows could provide for my mum to heat up, or (and I’m not joking) a deep-fried slice of horror from the chippie. I thought pizza was horrible.

Then I went to university down south, and encountered the real thing. Revelatory.

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lxorr@reddit

Fish fingers, as a child going to my grandparents after school, my nanna used to burn the top side by accident in the grill, so would cut the burnt top layer off, as the rest was fine. However, it meant the fish would essentially disintegrate when dipped in ketchup and made them impossible to eat. Only years later did I realise that wasn’t meant to happen and they’re actually quite nice!

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RichieRichard12@reddit

Cottage pie! Whenever I had it at home it was so incredibly bland. Like literally all I could taste was the blandness of the potatoes and the meat had not even seen a speck of seasoning.

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Petcai@reddit

Rice. I was in my mid-teens when my dad ordered Chinese and I found out that it isn't supposed to be crunchy.

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RedStarintheWest@reddit

Same! Still not a huge fan mostly due to childhood memories of hard crunchy rice.

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Fanjo_mcclanjo@reddit

Steak for me too. I still don't eat it to this very day

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Yaseuk@reddit

Broccoli. It’s now my favourite veggie.

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Djonmotors@reddit

Got served Birds banana custard as a child and assumed all custard had the same rank flavour. Wasn't until I qas in my 30s I realised.

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Bobidas777@reddit

Drinking hot chocolate

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Plugged_in_Baby@reddit

Carrots. For some reason my mother always boiled them into a near mush. Why anyone beyond the age of 8 months would want to put this into their mouth is beyond me. Cumin roasted or maple glazed however….

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hawthorn2424@reddit

I went to France last year and had that with every meal.

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TheDevilsButtNuggets@reddit

Roast dinners.

Between the soggy veg, hard potatoes, and watery gravy it was all a nightmare. And this was every Sunday bar the 3 hottest weekends in summer. I still can't eat roast pork because it smells like feet when its cooking.

Now its par boiled roasties, honey roast carrots and greens that still have colour in them, meat juices in the gravy and done properly on the hob.

I can't slice a meat joint like my dad can, and we use frozen puddings, but I actually enjoy a roast now

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spidertattootim@reddit

Visiting family in the Midlands and being taken out to an Indian restaurant, was the first time I found out that a curry wasn't meant to be fried mince and onions in gravy with curry powder mixed in, and was in fact fucking delicious.

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Rhubarb-Eater@reddit

Not me, but a flatmate in my university halls - they had grown up very poor and the meal I remember him making was boiled white rice with boiled red pepper. We asked something along the lines of don’t you want any flavour on that and he was confused by the concept. So we cooked for him several times over the next few weeks and watched his mind blow as he realised, for the first time, that eating could be /an enjoyable experience/ rather than just a grim necessity to maintain life.

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Relative_Sea3386@reddit

Nothing! I was fortunate my dad, mum and nan could all cook and each had their own preferred foods and style.

In return I grew up to have entirely different food taste to all of them and my sibling.

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Geepandjagger@reddit

I always despised lamb with a passion. Like felt really ill if my mom said we were having it for dinner. Basically it meant that I would have to take a mouthful of meat with a mouthful of water and then sit there chewing each mouthful for minutes until it was soft enough to swallow. Then a trip to the bathroom to pick all of the tough pieces out of my teeth. I always wondered why all the pubs etc served something so disgusting. Then when travelling I stayed at a house and ate some really delicious meat. I asked what it was and they pointed at the lamb and I was like wow this is delicious and Christ my mom makes bad lamb. Now it is my favourite meat and I eat at any opportunity although I make it.

My mom is good at baking lots of things and some dishes but meat she always cooks way too long. I guess beef and chicken are tolerable in that situation but lamb is not.

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Dougsey1@reddit

After first eating at an Indian restaurant. A distinct lack of currants/raisins, and some proper flavour/spice. My old dear was a good cook for the most part, but curry she couldn't get right at all!

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JoeFriday37@reddit

Quite a lot to be honest, which is why I taught myself to cook when I was young. But in particular, of all things ... Baked potatoes. I still don't really understand why my Mother's baked potatoes were so bad, so dry and even with toppings, so flavourless. It must be a personal thing with my Mom's taste, as she hates gravy and complained when I made a roast dinner for my family a few years ago, because the chicken was supposedly too "wet" and undercooked. Literally everyone else loved it. I know damn well when meat is undercooked, I think she's just so used to dry ass overcooked meat that it was a shock to her.

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Morris_Alanisette@reddit

Everything. Unless it came from a can and just had to be heated up.

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woowizzle@reddit

Reading through a lot of these comments, im sure the Internet is to thank for the general improvement of culinary standards.

It used to be that you cooked whatever your parents cooked because thats what you knew, maybe if you were bougie you would have a recipient book, but there was nobody telling us about flavour profiles and seasoning balance.

Now you can get pretty good at cooking just by watching a few YouTube videos.

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ecapapollag@reddit

My mum was amazing as a cook, really good, but she wasn't British so there were a few dishes she didn't have growing up, that she could not seem to grasp. I was oblivious and just thought "I don't like X or Y" until my 30s, when I really got into cooking and realised how things were supposed to taste. Weirdly enough, it wasn't British food she failed at, mainly Italian and vegetarian dishes.

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talligan@reddit

I do all the cooking in my house and I'm good at it. But I've had to move towards simpler faster meals just because I'm wrecked every day now between work and parenting. And yeah that means more frozen veggies which aren't my favourite but it's reduced food wastage and vastly simplified my life.

One trick is to roast them. Frozen beans+corn tossed with evoo, black pepper and paprika. Roast in a pan for 20-25min at 200 fan

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doegrey@reddit

Mushrooms. Who knew white mushrooms didn’t always have to be sweaty and brown when they were cooked?

Eat them fresh and they’re amazing!

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Remote-Jellyfish-551@reddit

My mothers specialty we’re the following: 1. Boiled Brussels sprouts 2. Boiled broccoli or cauliflower 3. Boiled potatoes All of these things were cooked way too long and had no seasoning on it. I never ate any of the veg above until I met my partner in my 30s who showed me how to cook them properly.

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vipros42@reddit

My mother was and still is a great cook, but I remember one specific meal of salmon fillets that put me and my now wife off them for years.
I also remember being stunned having scrambled eggs for the first time at a friend's house and learning that they weren't always rubbery as fuck. I raised this with mum recently about 30 years later and she denies ever making terrible microwave scrambled eggs

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CatFoodBeerAndGlue@reddit

Fried eggs - Turns out you don't have to drown them in litres of oil

Bacon - Turns out if you cook it longer the stringy gelatinous white fat actually becomes crispy and delicious

Vegetables - Turns out you don't have to boil them until they become flavourless mush

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LuminidMishy@reddit

Beef stew and dumplings. I was forced to eat it as a kid, now as an adult it's one of my favourite dinners.

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MunkeyFish@reddit

Stew, it was punishment food when I was growing up.

If my siblings and I came home and smelt that shit bubbling away on the stove someone fucked up and is getting an ass whooping for it.

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VolatileFudge@reddit

Mushrooms!

Turns out they're delicious the way my husband does them, fried with some butter/marg and garlic

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QuarrieMcQuarrie@reddit

Roast beef. The stuff I had at home and school was grey and disgusting- you'd chew on it so long it would make you gag and you still couldn't swallow it.

I would not eat it as an adult until I went to Australia and was persuaded to eat roast beef that was still pink and it blew my mind lol. Steak also.

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deckdeck555@reddit

Broccoli is actually nice if you don’t boil it to oblivion

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Ultra_Leopard@reddit

Asparagus! Always boiled to death, disgusting. But fried up with some butter and seasoning? My favourite veg.

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McFigroll@reddit

I can't decide if their rice or bacon was worse. Rice was always soggy mush and the bacon undercooked and greasy.

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Ok_Impact9745@reddit

Pasta. I'm still not too keen on it and it is my least favourite carb but I absolutely hated it growing up. I'll at least eat it now but I used to refuse to eat it.

My mum was one of those people that would boil pasta. Dish it up on your plate and then put the sauce on. Then act like mixing it together on your plate is acceptable (it's not)

For all you heathens out there. The sauce doesn't properly coat the pasta of you mix it on the plate while it's cooling down. It needs to be mixed on the hob. No matter how hard you try to mix it on the plate, it will never properly adhere to the pasta.

To this day my mum is still adamant that her way is correct (it's objectively not).

I just don't understand why you want random mouthfuls of plain pasta. The pasta is a vehicle for the sauce so just cook it in the sauce.

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AdministrativeShip2@reddit

Pasta used to be exotic, and going out for food was much rarer.

so we'd get it served plain, but swimming in slightly salty water, with a spoonfull of canned chopped tomatoes drizzled over it and the mince on the side.

I remember once my parents went to the Italian restaurant in town for an anniversary. After that they started making "proper" Bolognese.

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JayR_97@reddit (OP)

Yeah, my parents are also bad with pasta. They'll boil it for like 20 minutes and refuse to add any salt. No wonder I always thought it was bland.

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Lovecraftian666@reddit

Eggs. My mother was a big fan of boiled eggs. Used to get boiled eggs all the time. At 6 years old I had a tantrum that I didn’t like them anymore I was sick of them.

Didn’t eat any eggs for 20 years. Then discovered I love scrambled eggs, don’t mind fried, poached is nice, eggs Benedict are good. Still can’t eat boiled eggs tho.

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SimianFrood@reddit

Pasta and rice.

Gammon.

Liver.

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AdministrativeShip2@reddit

Definitely liver.

My mum boils it to death in onion gravy, and it always tasted like a horrible sponge.

Turns out waved near a hot pan, with a mustard sauce, mash and bacon is delicious.

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random_character-@reddit

Tasted my wife's risotto and realised it can have flavour... That began a long journey of eating many foods which were cooked well and seasoned, as opposed to overcooked, bland, flavourless mush.

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cbren88@reddit

Pork chops. Always little grey insoles with a dollop of dry mash and tinned peas when we were kids.

My butcher does pork chops for £4 a pop as big as your head, I cook them with soy & garlic - an absolute delight.

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Eyupmeduck1989@reddit

Roasts.

I was brought up on dry, almost crumbly meat, with vegetables boiled to within an inch of their life, and frozen roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings.

Having Sunday dinner at a boyfriend’s family in my early twenties was a revelation.

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binaryhextechdude@reddit

My mum use to boil veggies to death. To this day I refuse to touch broadbeans, they have been ruined for me, the other vegetable I hated as a kid was Brussle Sprouts. I have tried them as an adult though and I really like them, now that I have control over how they're cooked.

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Kizzieuk@reddit

Liver. My mum's was awful. My MIL made me some as Dr said I needed iron and it was delicious. Now I make liver and bacon or liver and onion all the time.

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NewtSoupsReddit@reddit

Lamb. Lamb was always covered in a thick layer of congealed grease that would coat the inside of my mouth. I thought I hated lamb. My father absolutely could not cook but was convinced he was the best at roasting meat.

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Plenty_Suspect_3446@reddit

When I was a kid my mum would follow silly fads. Healthy eating fads, much of which has since been discredited for being nonsense. I was still quite young when one day she decided to make a corn soup and it was awful. Really bad. I've always liked corn but the whole family agreed it was inedible, including her.

My dad didn't cook much and if he did it was either simple food or a specific handful of specialty dishes he must have learned from his mother who was quite competent in the kitchen so it wasn't until some time in my early 20s when I had begun to develop my own palate and cooking then went to stay at his house for a few days that I realised. In that incident he served sausages and lamb chops, that he had cooked all in same pan. All of it was ruined. The lamb chops badly overcooked (he only eats meat well done but I didn't know that until then because we didn't eat red meat when I was a kid due to the Mad Cow disease hysteria). The sausages were undercooked. The flavours ruined each other. Genuinely awful.

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shrimpydude4life@reddit

Hamburgers. They were either soaking wet or drowned in grease. Thanks great grandma

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Altruistic_Dig_2873@reddit

It's probably region specific but for years I thought custard was revolting because the only time I had it was in my dad's mother's house. My mum and her mum never served it or if they did it was after I'd had it in my other granny's house and then refused to try it.

Granny was very frugal and used to water down everything so take a recipe for custard and add 50% water to it. Then serve. Orange juice the same, juice an orange and then dilute it 100%. Orange juice I knew what it should taste like cause we had it at home but I didn't have a reference for custard so I thought I hated it until I was persuaded to try actual custard in my 20's

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tronella@reddit

Rice; my mum always cooks it in a pyrex dish in the microwave. I now own a rice cooker and eat rice very often.

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Appropriate_Tell6746@reddit

Is that a common method? Ive never heard of that before

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Honey-Badger@reddit

With instant rice its the go to method

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mamoncloud@reddit

It works, but it's a mess.

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tronella@reddit

It's not the most common method, but I do know a few others who do it.

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mamoncloud@reddit

Asian house hold here 🤚 rice in the microwave is alright, the main issue is the starch gunk on the microwave plate because the steam can't escape.

In a Pyrex dish, put your rice, wash it, measure the height of the rice, then add water and make sure its the same height. Trial and error so your appliance might call for a little less or a little more than true to right. 20mins.

This is the same technique in a rice cooker and it's the same technique in a sauce pan (10mins on medium heat then 10mins off heat to steam)

It's great if you want to save space and still want to make rice hands free.

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intangible-tangerine@reddit

NB for anyone following this advice; pyrex is not always microwave safe and even if it is it may not cope with sudden temperature changes from fridge to microwave. If you're not sure what kind of pyrex you have use something else.

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tiny-but-spicy@reddit

Soup. Wow, it doesn’t actually have to be green flavourless slop with suspicious floating chunks of unidentified material, who knew?

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BananaHomunculus@reddit

Things like pork chops, steaks, etc were never seasoned and nearly always overcooked.

My mum tried very hard to cook for us but she was not passionate about it.

My dad loved it and occasionally did some amazing stuff when he had the time.

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skratakh@reddit

Chilli con carne, I thought I hated it. Turned out what I hated was my mum and sisters preference for using baked beans instead of kidney beans and the tiniest amount of spice. It was a sweet and gloopy mess

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jackloveslatinas@reddit

Hate to say a Sunday dinner, first time I had one in a pub it was like a different dish

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Eden_Sparkles@reddit

Chilli con carne - for some bizarre reason my parents made it with baked beans (also minimal spice/flavour and served on a mountain of soggy rice). One of my faves now.

Bacon - turns out you don't have mouthfuls of rubbery, sweaty fat if you render it down to crispy deliciousness!

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CanWeNapPlease@reddit

None! My dad loved to cook but he did sometimes experiment with things for the first time so it didn't always turn out great. We're a multi cultural family, and lived in two different countries, so he'd always attempt at some traditional food from wherever we lived or from one of our backgrounds. He wasn't the best at roasting chicken or turkey every time, for example, so it'd be very dry sometimes, even with gravy.

My mum never really liked to cook but she'd try her best if my dad was traveling for work. She had a few good recipes under her belt. We never really ate most veg that you might "traditionally" boil either (broccoli, peas, carrots). They always stuck with spinach, kale, snowpeas, aubergines, mushrooms, and salads (with things you might find in them like tomatoes, cucumbers lettuce, cabbage, onions, etc).

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Critical_Hedgehog451@reddit

Same here it was al meat, I was vegetarian until I moved out lol 😆

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Skidchen@reddit

Mashed potato…. With no butter or milk. Literally just dry, plain, unsalted, mashed potato.

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anabsentfriend@reddit

Garlic

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gjb1@reddit

Lamb. Growing up it was always the driest, greyest, saddest meat. I learned to tolerate it well enough with mint sauce to cover up the awful.

Years later, my MIL serves the juiciest, tenderest leg of lamb cooked with whole garlic cloves inside the meat, and I discovered just what I’d been deprived of my whole life

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Dabbles-In-Irony@reddit

Omelettes. My mum didn’t suck at cooking but she didn’t like runny egg so she cooked it so much it was like an egg pancake. I always thought omelettes were chewy and hated it. Then I watched my boyfriend make himself one and was amazed.

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cowbutt6@reddit

Pork chops.

Grilled until dead vs. pan-seared and oven roasted with some sage and butter is night and day.

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Melodicmat@reddit

Not me as I still find it pretty horrible, but my brother would definitely answer ''liver'' to this question, lol

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ImScaredofCats@reddit

The iron smell when it cooks still knocks me sick

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Jezbod@reddit

Getting a proper meat thermometer and actually eating moist chicken for the first time...

Only cooking Brussel sprouts for 10 mins max, so they still have some crunch.

How to sauté carrots so they melt in the mouth.

Cabbage is still a toxic waste spill in my opinion, unless it is red and pickled.

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bad_pseudonym@reddit

Salad! My mum still can’t wrap her head around a salad that’s anything more than lettuce, tomato, and cucumber, with a bit of mayo if she’s feeling fancy.

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LuminalDjinn11@reddit

Fish! FISH IS DELISH!

Dry cod with no sauce is not! That was the ONLY fish I thought could be cooked. Amazing.

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Junkoftheheartss@reddit

Pretty much most meals 😂

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urban_shoe_myth@reddit

Anything beef related. It has only been the last 10 years or so (I'm 46) that I've realised beef isn’t always leathery and inedible. We never had steak when I was a kid so it was brisket or stewing steak, but it was always like trying to chew a handbag when I was young. It's not now.

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Fatbollocks1994@reddit

Most definitely mushrooms. Squidgy balls of shite when cooked by my mum. Delicious instruments of flavour when I cook them.

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the_Athereon@reddit

Not sure I've ever encountered this. My mother is a trained chef.

I can say I've encountered the reverse. Since, whilst my mother taught me to cook, I'm still nowhere near as good at it as her, I often make various meals I grew up with and they never taste the same.

Wouldn't say they're bad by any means. Just nowhere near the taste or texture I remember.

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Cheap-Vegetable-4317@reddit

My mum and her mum and my dad's mum were all professional cooks, two ran restaurants and one was the cook at a stately home, and going to my friends houses for tea was a traumatic experience for me as a child.

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Rachcj86@reddit

My mum would put juicy pork chops under the grill, close the door and wander off for unspecified amounts of time. I thought tough, dry, and tasteless was just how it went when you cooked it...

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questionerfmnz@reddit

Pork and specifically chops is the one for me and my husband. Turns out neither of families knew how to cook it!

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ThisIsAnAccount2306@reddit

Not exactly what you are looking for, but my mum warned me off black pudding and said it was disgusting when I was a kid. So I didn't try it until well into adulthood. Love the stuff.

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OrangeBeast01@reddit

most vegetables just need a kettle of hot water poured over them and leaving in a pan until the rest of your food is ready, they're crunchy and delicious this way.

Or they're great roasted or pan fried. They do not need boiling for 10-20 minutes!

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Boring_Swing_4750@reddit

Sunday roast ..i didnt know vegs wernt mush and meat that looks like it been it hell for a week ..i went to a mates house and her mums was fire aged 19 or so lol

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Impossible_Disk_43@reddit

I think I might know the reason for the vegetables that get boiled to a liquid state. It's easy. You boil water, toss in the carrots or cabbage and leave it while you deal with the fiddlier part of the meal. Or just throw the rest in the oven and do some folding or ironing while it all cooks. Because why else wouldn't you find a better way unless the better way took up time you needed for something else? Or it could be simple laziness/tiredness. A low effort thing and you can sit and chill while dinner cooks itself.

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Substantial-Zone-989@reddit

Stews. My parents would just throw everything into the pot and let it boil until tender with herbs and spices then serve it. It wasn't until I got into cooking that I learned about searing just to get the extra flavour and keep the meat nice and moist. It's kind of ironic as my parents are both pretty good cooks, with my dad having worked in a takeaway/restaurant when he was studying.

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BrieflyVerbose@reddit

Curry.

My Mam's boyfriend was a terrible cook, and loved to make this. Hated it for years. Attended a birthday meal at an Indian and wasn't looking forward to it. Was fucking clueless, chose a Lamb Bhuna because I recalled Peter Kay ordering one on a John Smith's advert back in the day.

My mate said my eyes widened when I first tasted it. That's when I realised I didn't actually hate it and he was terrible in the kitchen, then all the memories of soggy veg and flat lasagne's when I was a kid came flooding back!

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OkCaterpillar8941@reddit

Anything to do with fish. My Dad did cook but it was basic so most of the time it was my mum's food. She cannot cook fish. It took me twenty years to realise I like fish because of the trauma from my mum's cooking of fish. She'd poach it in milk and serve it with lumpy mashed potatoes and grey cauliflower. No seasoning. Or she'd overcook it. Or cook it whole but badly. My son went fishing when we visited them and he was so horrified at my mum's cooking of the fish he'd caught that he wouldn't eat it. She'd even mangle fish fingers.

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blondeheartedgoddess@reddit

Roasted Brussels sprouts. As a kid, we only had them frozen and boiled. My dad loved them, but yuck!

I'd see the chefs on Food Network roast fresh sprouts and then gave them a try myself. Heaven!

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Michael_of_Derry@reddit

My dad has zero idea of food prep or presentation. Steak is like shoe leather. Roasts are burnt black and drier than beef jerky. Vegetables have all flavour and texture boiled out of them.

He also buys the cheapest produce as if the lowest price wins a prize. Always quantity over quality.

To be fair I can see why his generation was so frugal and why they criticise younger generations for not saving. But he's worth a fortune now and still buys the cheapest food.

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XStaticImmaculate@reddit

Steak. Mines cooked it so well done and I just couldn’t understand why people spoke about it so fondly.

When I was 18 I tried some of my friends, cooked medium rare. It’s been my favourite ever since.

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zonked282@reddit

Literally every vegetable.

Turns out carrots, cabbage, sprout ect are absolutely delicious when they have not been streamed for an hour and half

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RummazKnowsBest@reddit

Steak too, my dad liked all his meat well done. His BBQs were charcoal.

I couldn’t understand why steak was always referred to as this top tier meal. Then I tried it medium in a restaurant. Then rare. Now I get it.

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shiny_director@reddit

Green beans. They were a mushy, unpleasant mess as a kid. Only years later, as a married adult did I discover roasted green beans, prepared with olive oil, garlic, and salt were amazing.

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Evening-Web-3038@reddit

Spag bol for me.

My parents, even to this day, make the simplest of spag bols:

- beef mince (usually full fat as well)

- Dolmio sauce jar

- Mushrooms

- Maybe the odd other veg ingredient (onions usually) but that was extremely rare

- Pasta and garlic bread

Don't get me wrong, it's ok but it's just plain. I've since experimented with loads of types of mince (low fat beef, turkey, chicken etc) and put in a generous selection of veg. Different jars and even just using canned tomatoes. Different spices. I manage to make a much healthier, less sugary and tasty meal. But they are stuck with their Dolmio jar (probably because it is big so easy to cook for us kids).

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WheresWalldough@reddit

I'm not sure why you highlighted the full-fat mince issue. it's cheaper and tastier.

Dolmio & no onions though, ugh.

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Disastrous_Yak_1990@reddit

Because half your tea is fat?

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lacb1@reddit

I think you made some comments. I think those comments were... ill advised. I think you should reconsider them. I don't think you'd want anything to happen to your karma would you? And accidents do happen to people who make poor decisions.

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Appropriate_Tell6746@reddit

I do seasoned lamb mince with onions and a lamb stock cube, let the water evaporate and do the dolmio jar. Makes a big difference.

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Tyruto@reddit

Full fat beef mince is better the fat mixes into the sauce making it much tastier.

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greengirl93@reddit

Main one for me was steak. My mum always grilled it and she only eats meat well done, so I grew up thinking that steak was chewy and rather tasteless. Add to that really any form of stew; my mum seems to have an aversion to seasoning so I always thought steak pie, cottage pie and really anything brown was horrible. The one large exception being spaghetti bolognese. I’ve still never tried any better than hers.

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MPforNarnia@reddit

I'm convinced my parent cooked poorly just to get me and my brothers cooking.

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simeysgirl@reddit

Didn’t know roast parsnips tasted anything other than burnt charcoal. First time I had them at my in laws was a revelation

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Katharinemaddison@reddit

Pan fried vegetables rather than boiled.

Don’t get me wrong, brassicas are bitter. But a pleasant bitter fried in butter. Vile boiled.

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DookuDonuts@reddit

Spaghetti Bolognaise

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Active-Strawberry-37@reddit

Yes, steak for me too.

Mum would take a frying steak and cook it until it had the same texture as the sole of your shoe.

Also nothing would be seasoned because dad didn’t like it.

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ColonelRainbow@reddit

Roast potatoes - my mum's were always kind of... Almost rubbery? Never used to get why people raved about toasties, they were my least favourite part of a roast. I had no idea they could be crispy and fluffy and delightful until moving out and having pub roasts.

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darkerthanmysoul@reddit

Any meat. Everything was cooked and cooked again.

Beef joint was always bone dry, steaks the same. Chicken was either cooked but rubbery or massively over cooked and plain - it was salt only.

My dad’s a fussy eater and I took him out for food one time - which he had never done before. I ordered his steak medium and he wasn’t happy at the look of it but decided to try and it was life changing. He now cooks and orders steak/beef well done. We’re still working on not having dry bland chicken.

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Pesto, from the can

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steveysaidthis@reddit

dont talk about my mum like that :(

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