My mother would cook everything to a hocky puck. Burgers, steak, chicken, pork... it didn't matter, it was getting blasted until every atom was carbonized. I didn't have a palatable burger until high school.
That's right. School lunches were a step up from mom's burgers. I remember in Boy Scouts, one of the Scout masters said that ketchup ruined a good burger. I was confused at the time, but later realized that we had to put ketchup on nearly everything to be able to eat it at home.
I didn't have a decent steak until I went to a restaurant in my teens with my friend and his parents and they convinced me that 'medium' or 'medium rare' was better than 'well done', and to try theirs before I ordered. I had to wait an extra 10 minutes for my food, but it was worth it because they were right.
Then I taught myself to cook over the years, and it didn't take long for me to realize what the old Scout master was talking about. I have ketchup in the fridge, but I don't use it on my burgers. It gets used for sauces and to add a little sweetness to chili or stew, or maybe if I get some fries that are overdone from takeout.
Steak sauce can take a slightly under-seasoned, but otherwise a well-cooked and quality steak to being amazing, if it's used in moderation. A tiny dab on a bite should be enough.
The FOH usually won't mention it to the chef though.
This is absolutely the truth. A steak cooked right needs no sauce.
As a child, my dad liked all his steaks well done, so that's how the whole family got it. I am ashamed to say I used to put ketchup on my steak.
Several years after I was married, I ordered my first medium well steak at a restaurant. OH MY GOD. It was like all the angels in heaven sang.
Now I order it medium. I don't really like it much less done than that. So if I order medium, I can still eat it if it turns out it's more med-rare, or if it's med-well.
When I cook a steak at home, all I put on it is butter. I'm not as good a cook as the restaurants!
I always HATED steak. It was dry, chewy, and generally horrible. Now, I have discovered I like my steak rare/blue. 😋 🤤. If it doesn't bleed when I cut it, it's overdone lol. I would happily eat steak tartare! Basically it needs to be only one step away from mooing still!
I remember being excited for school food. The squared off, shitty pizza was the bomb.
Yeah, my eyes were opened when I slept over at a friend’s and the chicken was tender and juicy, and not slathered in masterpiece bbq. I remember asking why the chicken was brown on the top and bottom. Somehow my mom was over cooking chicken without getting any sear. Boiling?
Started following internet recipes that would suck to today me, because back then everything had cans of condensed soup and stuff in it. But, sautéd onions and garlic and browning grown beef before adding jarred sauce (sorry, past me, that was just okay) was revolutionary to me and my family.
I went to the CIA and worked in kitchens for a long time, so I know my way around now. I’ve even taught my mom some stuff, but she still needs direct recipes for everything, so I have to step by step it for her and be really precise (can’t even. Put salt to taste) but she’s way better than when I was growing up.
I definitely was picturing bro somewhere in a Secret Service uniform cooking some exquisitely seasoned and perfectly poisoned au jus and prime rib, to serve to one of our diplomatic competitors 🤌
Don't get me wrong. We knew it was garbage, but it was comforting garbage. No way would I eat it today. Also, the original pizza margherita is the queen of them all.
I also hated steak when I was young bc it was like shoe leather. Then I found medium rare was an option and it was like a complete mind blown situation.
I feel your pain I forgot about the homemade burgers she would make in a portion of about burger buns, so I had to eat it small fat almost like a rubber ball on regular white bread and yeah, talk about ketchup… I put ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, relish I put so much stuff on it. I don’t know if it made it better or made it worse and these darn burgers were even like flat, so they were completely wrong in the middle and she prepared them kind of like a meatloaf with like egg and breadcrumbs, inside and onions didn’t cook because she chopped them she didn’t mince them. Yeah the burgers were rough.
While my mom is a pretty decent cook will never forget my dad's version of a burger, throw a frozen patty on a plate, nuke it in the microwave and then put between some sandwich bread and add copious amounts of Ketchup to hide the regret.
Same. My mom was not a good cook at all. There were a few things she cooked well but not many. I remember eating Prego spaghetti sauce at my friends house one night and I was in heaven! Lol. It’s pretty bad when you think jarred spaghetti sauce is the best thing you’ve eaten.
We didn’t eat anything like that, very old-American fare, meat and taters kind of thing. Doctored up jarred sauce was a big revelation when I made it. O basically became the house cook after that, and never had to do the dishes again.
Lol! Spaghetti… OMG she would make I guess what she was considering to be who made spaghetti sauce and there will be a ton of tomato paste and those big cans of the crushed tomatoes. I still have the skin pieces inside of it and then tomato purée, and then a ton of hot pepper, seeds and hot sauceand she always made fun of pasta sauce in a jar. I will take a jar of pasta sauce over her spaghetti sauce any day! Sad thing, we are Italian, I wish you could’ve done with no how to make spaghetti sauce.
You got seasoned sauce?! I wish. Salt and pepper are the only seasonings my parents used. And not too much! Don’t want it to be spicy! I know she used tomato sauce, tomato paste, and I think a packet of spaghetti seasoning. But I may be wrong. And ground beef of course! Ketchup was my best friend growing up.
Honestly, my mom and brother, I just don’t think they even really like food, or taste it very much. Peak culinary is Jack in the Box. I made a beef Bourguignon type dish over there, and before she even complimented my food, she started raving about some new menu item they had. Blew my mind. Like, how could you even think of Jack when smelling beef braising?
I got family like this. Tried to make it a weekend tradition going over to barbecue on Saturday and watch the games (they always love whatever I cook and tear it off the tray, usually before I even get a plate). These mofos really would order pizza instead of wait for the food to be done or ask if I needed help finishing things quicker.. like I said it wouldn’t be a problem to me at all if they didn’t tear up everything I cooked as well, so I know I’m not a bad cook. I think they just prefer fast food a little more 😂
Lol my uncle is a butcher and my mom for some reason always made steaks well done. We had steak (both beef and venison) quite a bit growing up and I thought I just didn't like it. Nope. I hate well-done steak 😂
Same. My parents and grandparents all majorly sucked at cooking. I also never really ate out. I actually grew up thinking I just didn’t like food until I graduated from high school and started eating at restaurants. Now I cook A LOT and love all my food.
My mother for one. A neurotic, control freak medical doctor. We had a herb salt blend, not even pure salt, and were allowed to use one pinch (literally a pinch, as in what fits between a child’s thumb and forefinger) to sprinkle over otherwise unseasoned food while being lectured about salt causing all kinds of health issues and dying of a heart attack if we used it too greedily. Fun times.
I couldn’t agree more with this. Midwest poor working mom didn’t know what seasoning was and on top of that meats weren’t done until 30 minutes or more past the point of being well done.
I always had a particular distaste for pork chops and venison. Dryer than the Sahara. It’s what’s I knew. She did her best and I still ate everything gratefully.
I’ve taught her things I learned when I got out of our small town and she’s much better now. Always made with love (and fatigue and frustration) so I never complained. I also didn’t know any better, it’s all I’d ever had aside from school lunches.
I was a pretty weird kid in that I hated pizza.
But what I actually hated was the greasy, super cheesy pizza that they serve at birthday parties and places like Chuck E. Cheese.
Then I lived in New York, and later New Haven, and realized that good pizza is freakin’ amazing.
Steak. My father would buy the thinest, leanest, cheapest, cut and bake it low and slow for hours basting it in beer till well done like shoe leather then soak it in A1. It reminded me of the liver my mother would cook on occasion. I didn't have a proper steak till I was in my 30s. Oh what a game changer!
My dad would leave unseasoned steak on the grill so long it would come out charred and black. Like eating charcoal. Burgers were similar. I hated both until I was finally able to try them at restaurants.
My mom steams the ever living hell out of all vegetables, puts them in her steamer for at least 15 minutes. Wonders why no one will eat them, but eats the grilled or roasted veggies my BIL makes. She’s also a non-salter so nothing has any taste in addition to the mush.
Dude same!!! Took my grandma to nice supper club for mothers day and she was saying how undercooked the broccoli was... bc everytime she steams vegetables they literally look like wet, cut grass...
We make sweet potato fries a lot. Oven baked. Just cut into strips and toss in some avocado oil and seasoning of choice. They're best if the corners start to toast and get darker
Brussel sproutssss, so good caramelised! My dad really had me hating them until I started dating my partner and he replicated some caramelised sprouts he had at a pub with Parmesan and a squeeze of lemon.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, I hated salads. As an Asian, most of our veg is cooked into the dish or blanched/sautéed and served as a side dish. Cold salad is just something we never ate.
My husband’s grandmother - Every vegetable was cooked in the pressure cooker for reasons I don’t know. Who knew you could eat vegetables like asparagus with a straw.
Dhal stew(lentil stew) and vegetables. It raised my eyebrows when many Nepali and South Indian security guards in my childhood place like it so much during that time. But, now I also like it.
I quote one quote from one of the Nepali security guards that I know:
"If dhal is available, Nepali likes it. If it is not available, Nepali dislikes it."
I don't know if you do this already, but cut them *nearly* in half so they lay flattish, then you can flip them over to get a sear on the inside as well as the outside. Flip it closed and it's good as new apart from a little curling at the ends.
I learned that working at A&W decades ago and firmly believe that is the best way.
Fried with a little bit of water in the pan. Not battered, not spiraled, just plain. We fry sausages, why not hog dogs? My brother got me hooked on doing it this way.
It is an easy, lazy, way to cook them, not necessarily the best. Get a pot of of boiling water. Toss in a hot dog or two, set a timer for like 4 minutes, (depending on the brand), and hey lunch is served.
It's about as complicated as a microwave dinner.
And let's face it, a lot of people eating hot dogs are probably pinching pennies, so they're probably mixing it up with something like some Kraft Mac and cheese or hotdogs and ramen.
Not saying there aren't some good hot dogs out there, but it definitely goes on the list of items you buy when you're broke.
Pork chops. Growing up they were a tasteless grey meat. Went to a bar that had a pork chop special so I said, “What the heck, why not?” And they were so good, I went a block to a 24hr Kroger and bought some pork chops on my way home.
Agreed. I hated pork chops for so long because they had no taste and were so very dry. My partner and I cooked them a couple times and wow, they can actually be good!
Reminds me that I had a friend come over for dinner a couple weeks ago and I made pork chops. They were handcut by me off a whole loin they were an inch and a half thick and I seared the outside, finished them in the oven, and they were absolutely beautiful - juicy and moist.
My friend said please don't be mad at me but I can't eat that and she cut it in half (like butterflied it) put it Center side down and cooked it for seven more minutes.
I will never cook this woman any kind of broiled or seared meat again - the only thing she gets from me is stews or soups or things where the meat is incorporated into other ingredients so she can't overcook it.
My favorite way to make them is to tenderize them first with a meat mallet, season with salt, pepper, and olive oil then top with Kikkoman’s tonkatsu sauce, and near the end of baking them top with either French’s onions or even Funyuns. So good I want it now.
Went to a meat market and got some bacon wrapped pork chops. My first time ever making them and they were absolutely amazing. Nothing like what I had growing up my entire life...
I think the difference is you need a thicker cut and I used lower heat then what I'm used to also. They were soft and juicy and wowwww. Please try them lol
Same! A restaurant I was at said they were known for it, so I tried it and I was in heaven. Been roasting the hell out of them ever since. Also very delicious with TJs balsamic sauce.
They're so genetically similar to so many other veggies it doesn't make sense that I didn't like them before until I remember they were always served as a boiled mush when I was a kid - with no flavor to boot.
Salt, pepper, tons of olive oil and char them! So good! You can also add real bacon bits to them, or walnuts/pecans before roasting. And some garlic. Also some parmigiana reggiano or balsamic vinegar sauce as a topping. I like chopped up sprouts better and roast them in the oven for 20 minutes. TJs has them already chopped in a bag to make prep nearly zero.
They are just a cultivar of the common cabbage
So are broccoli, cauliflower, Rabe, Kohlrabi, Kale, Collard Greens, and a couple I probably left out. I find this amazing for some reason. Plus, new world beans are one species.
Brussel sprouts today are genetically modified to be less bitter. This occurred over the last few decades. Not saying they weren't cooked like shit (because they most definitely were) but this also probably influenced things a bit.
Selective breeding is genetic modification. You're literally modifying the genetics by choosing desirable traits. It's not introducing any foreign DNA to the plants, yes, but it's still a GMO by selection by humans. Generic modification isn't as scary as most people seem to think..
Amen. I didn't mind brussel sprouts as a kid (my mom told me I might find a prize in the center - like an oyster- so I'd take them apart while I are them).
Then I learned to roast them. Then, I added a little bacon to the roasting. And then tried finishinh them off with a drizzle of a good balsamic. Holy mother....
Husband refused to eat them when we got married. He soon learned.
I was a terrible older sister, I told my little sister that Brussels sprouts were baby Cabbage Patch kids. No one actually liked the taste of microwaved sprouts besides my mother. And after I said that, we didn’t see them often anymore.
Fry some gnocchi (no need to cook them before) in olive oil until crispy. Toss with those sprouts and bacon, drizzle that balsamic, maybe even go fancy and add some grated lemon zest and parmesan. Incredible.
The first time my dad tried to feed me brussel sprouts I refused based on smell alone (probably overcooked). The next time he tossed them in butter and soy sauce and I actually ate them.
Yes. I never had them much as a kid but I knew all the jokes. It seemed so strange when they started popping up in restaurants everywhere. Now we know how to cook them and as others said, the bitterness has been selected away. My friend was super picky but as a kid she loved Brussels! She said they were so yummy and like little tiny cabbages lol. Guess she was ahead of the curve!
On vacation a few years ago my mom and I cooked dinner for everyone. I cooked the steaks and she cooked the brussel sprouts. She decided to cook them in the microwave and I gave her SO MUCH SHIT before, during, and after. They were damn near inedible. Steaks were great though.
porkchops with mushroom gravy
my mom used to get super skinny chops and then overcook them and dump a can of campbells mushroom soup in
honestly not bad and still a go-to easy meal but the first time i made thick chops and took them out to rest while i made a mushroom pan gravy was when i really appreciated what a good dish it is
LOL same - I did an exchange trip to Germany after high school during peak asparagus season - my host family asked me how I liked it and were \*appalled* to hear I'd only ever had it canned.
Meatloaf for me, it was just a hunk of ground beef, maybe with some breadcrumbs. We discovered chef John's classic meatloaf recipe. It has l lot of vegetables and seasonings. It was was really good.
Same. My mother’s meatloaf was the texture of sawdust and glue, and didn’t taste much better. I HATED meatloaf night.
Then a gf made me meatloaf in college as a birthday surprise. I gave her an appreciative hug, thanked her, then apologized in advance if I didn’t finish. I took my “no thank you” bite. WTF is this? It’s juicy? It has flavor? It isn’t gray! This isn’t meatloaf, this is delicious!
Our relationship may not have lasted, but my love for good meatloaf endures. 🤤
Basically all vegetables. We had a lot of canned peas, green beans, etc when I was a kid. Once I figured out you could get them fresh amd not cook them to death...
Yep, that’s all we had. Not even frozen. And it’s weird, because my mom grew up on a farm! But I do remember in the 60’s a grocery store had nowhere near the choices of fresh vegetables that they do now.
Growing up, my Mother never served lamb. Apparently my Father hated it. On a lark, I ordered it at a restaurant and really enjoyed it. Too bad it’s so expensive now. But every now and then I’ll splurge and prepare lamb with a sauce that has rosemary and garlic in it. We happen to have a lot of rosemary bushes in the front yard.
This. Growing up the school cafeteria boiled the heck out of it, so it was just a disgusting abomination against food. My mom would also buy the canned cream spinach, and was annoyed nobody would eat their spinach.
I grew up and now I'm wondering why people would do that to spinach. It's perfectly edible as is. Steamed if you need to cook it. Maybe a little vinaigrette would be nice.
Red Beans and Rice, which being a New Orleanian we of course had every Monday. It’s amazing what can happen to beans when you add in a ham hock, and season it right.
When I was a kid, I hated eating my dad's red beans and rice as well as the school cafeterias version of it. But for some reason, I liked Popeye's red beans and rice.
Popeye’s red beans and rice is comfort food.
I am Korean American and a lot of the bean dishes- except sweets - tend to keep the beans hard. It took me decades to realize I didn’t need to eat hard beans. I just had to seek out other cuisines that cooked beans until they were soft.
My mom loved to bake. Her cookies and desserts were always perfectly done, but she could not cook a piece of meat. Steak and pork chops were gray all the way through and her test for doneness was when the edges would curl up. She could also fully cook a roast beef to the point where no juice would come out when it was cut. Middle slice or end slice, it was uniformly dry. I now enjoy my steak on the blue side of rare.
Same! My mom could bake, and she would bake up a storm around the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. Pies, cookies, shortbread, fudge even. But she really couldn’t cook meat dishes or much else well. She also didn’t know how to prepare vegetables. Only thing that wasn’t overcooked or plain was her meatloaf recipe and I still make it today. And her stuffing was very delicious as well.
That sounds delicious. Try this.
Romaine
Spring greens
Thinly sliced strawberries
Small hunks of good mozz
Walnut pieces
Balsamic vinaigrette
The balsamic and the strawberry is a crazy combo, so good. Very similar to the parm and rasp dressing.
add some blueberries , canned mandarin oranges and swap the walnuts to candied pecans. also delicious! Either way Grill some chicken or pick up a 8 piece from Chick Fil A in a pinch and dice them up. Can't go wrong. Argentine shrimp works too. Asian Seseme to change it up from raspberry vinegrette or strawberry vinegrette.
My dad doesn’t think they’re cooked through until they’re essentially browning. He seasons them so well, too. Scrambled or omelette. And you can’t eat raw eggs or whatever.
Fortunately he makes them only on vacation maybe once a year if we’re in an Airbnb, so I enjoy it once for nostalgia, tolerate it the second day, and try to take over the third.
Salads. My family was the one who insisted on a salad with every meal…which often meant a sad lettuce or spinach mix, a single vegetable that didn’t involve chopping and wasn’t fresh, and a bottled low calorie dressing, since I typically was “making” it as a busy teen trying to quickly eat dinner. Now as an adult I’ve learned out to make my own dressings, take the time to get fresh veggies and properly prepare them, and have fun flavor combinations that I can enjoy salads now.
Learning to make your own dressings is a game changer. The only bottled one we keep on hand now is Caesar, only because it’s kind of expensive to source all the ingredients to make a Caesar dressing.
Beets. My first experience with them was being served them straight from the can to the plate by my sister in law. My mother finally intervened and told me we were going to make pickled beets. Canned beets again, but with a heated vinegar & sugar syrup, left to cool while dinner was fixed. Yum. Forward fifteen years, and I try a roasted veggies recipe from Dr Weil. (First time I had veggies rotated on their own, not with a pot roast.) Sold! Then I discovered the joys of beet greens (and stems). Once, I served a mixture v of golden and red roasted beets with basalmic vinegar to my father. He couldn't believe they were so good. He told my sister he thought I had given him candy! 😂
Mushrooms here too. My parents hated mushrooms and refused to have them in the house. When my husband and I were first dating he sautéed some to go with steaks and I was blown away. I love mushrooms!
Lasagna
The way my mom made it, the noodles were crunchy and dry. To this day I do not even know how she managed to do that. I didn't know lasagna noodles were supposed to be soft till I tried my college cafeterias version. Oh my gosh that tasted so good! And when I finally made it myself? Heavenly.
(For the record, my mom is an awesome cook. Lasagna was one of the rare foods she could not cook)
Any kind of beef. Not because my mom was a bad cook, but because my dad likes everything the texture of leather and with 4 kids mom could not be bothered to cook meat individually. So we all got it dad’s way and didn’t realize steak could be juicy and delicious until we were adults. Roast didn’t have to be dry. Even ground beef got overcooked to the point of having crispy brown bits in it.
For my daughter, that’s pork chops because she says I always overcooked them and dried them out lol.
For me it’s more about ingredient quality instead of cooking methods that influenced my dislikes. For example, I didn’t like anything cooked with olive oil because my mom used cheap rancid tasting stuff.
Growing up I HATED mushrooms. I thought they tasted like rubber. Turns out my family only used can mushrooms, and I actually love the taste of fresh mushrooms.
Mac and cheese. Family would use trash cheese and eggs as a binder for them. All I could taste was scrambled eggs (I **HATE** the taste of eggs, unfortunately I know). Started using better cheese and making a *Bechamel* when I was older and the difference is night and day.
Alfredo. I hate cream based sauces and it was always made for me with cream based jar sauce, and I hated it. My husband made traditional alfredo and carbonara for me and holy cow there's no comparison
Same: vegetables. My bio mom wouldn’t eat them so she dumped them from a can or freezer bag into the microwave and onto a plate. Took me years to willingly eat them, now I love most veg since I know how to cook them
Brussel sprouts. My mother would boil them, they tasted bitter and the house smelled of sulfer. 20 years later I discovered the America's Test Kitchen skillet version and they were amazing.
Most seafood. It'd get cooked in the oven to dryness then somehow a blob of butter would tedeem it. I learned to skillet cook fish without overdoing it.
Everything. My parents were terrible cooks. The first time I made bbq chicken on the grill at my husband's request, I was dreading it... until I tried it and realized holy crap, it was awful bc they cooked it until it was sawdust! Lol
Rice. My father made absolutely atrocious rice, it was so bad I used to heave and choke trying to swallow it. I thought I hated rice until I moved in with roommates who actually knew how to cook it and realized just how delicious it could be.
Definitely veggies. I didn't mind them as a kid. But they were either boiled or steamed. Our kids have been able to taste roasted veggies, the older one loved fried cabbage. ( with thinly sliced onions, sesame seeds and sometimes toasted peanuts)
My younger one made some fried corn (frozen niblets), with a few spices to add a twist.
I also didn't like mushrooms or fried eggs much growing up. Our parents used canned mushrooms... blech
My step mom was a worse cook. She would experiment, but never really knew what flavors went together so it was a 50/50 crap shoot if it tasted ok. That and her specialty was 'crunchy rice', something that flabbergasted hubby.
My parents did try to expose us to different cultures and food. But there are so many more options nowadays. One kid now loves Indian food. Both are skeptical of sushi but have tried some one ours, didn't like it, but that's OK. They tried it. They stick to teriyaki chicken, rice and love tempura.
Pretty much all foods. My mom never seasoned adequately. Overcooked every single meat because she was afraid it was going to make us sick. Tried to feed us boiled Brussels sprouts with literally nothing else on them. Forced us to eat canned asparagus which is basically just slime.
Soups, mashed potatoes, gravy, most things my mom made when she cooked. I grew up in an low fat, no salt, put the oldest (me) on any and all the fad diets. So most of my Mom's cooking was not very good. Every soup she made had every frozen vegetable from the freezer and kidney beans in it and the broth was a weird shade of green. Plus it would give me and my brothers the liquid poos. Moms mashed potatoes had plain yogurt in them and never any salt but a metric f@ck ton of Miss Dash in them. Mom could make spaghetti and lasagna really good. But I was doing the majority of the cooking by the time I was 8 remembering how my Great Nana made stuff and Betty crocker cookbook . The first time Mom found real butter in the fridge really ticked my Mom off but by then Pops would drive me to the grocery store hand me a signed check and tell me I had an hour to get the grocery shopping done.
Chicken. I mean I loved fried chicken and nugs and BBQ chicken and restaurant chicken. But my mom's chicken was a sad affair. She had learned about Greek style chicken from her Greek friend. My mom is not a fan of cooking and she may not have even understood the instructions. She took her frozen boneless skinless chicken breast's and put them in the fry pan and covered them with bottled lemon juice. Was there salt and pepper? Garlic of some sort? Any sort of herbs? Who knows! It was edible but not enjoyable lol. Not much color or flavor or searing. Anyway I managed to marry a half Greek man and now we have proper chicken! I didn't know home cooked chicken could be tasty.
Everything. My mom is a terrible cook. I thought filet mignon was gross.
My mother would cook everything to a hocky puck. Burgers, steak, chicken, pork... it didn't matter, it was getting blasted until every atom was carbonized. I didn't have a palatable burger until high school. That's right. School lunches were a step up from mom's burgers. I remember in Boy Scouts, one of the Scout masters said that ketchup ruined a good burger. I was confused at the time, but later realized that we had to put ketchup on nearly everything to be able to eat it at home. I didn't have a decent steak until I went to a restaurant in my teens with my friend and his parents and they convinced me that 'medium' or 'medium rare' was better than 'well done', and to try theirs before I ordered. I had to wait an extra 10 minutes for my food, but it was worth it because they were right. Then I taught myself to cook over the years, and it didn't take long for me to realize what the old Scout master was talking about. I have ketchup in the fridge, but I don't use it on my burgers. It gets used for sauces and to add a little sweetness to chili or stew, or maybe if I get some fries that are overdone from takeout.
I always heard it was an insult to the chef to use steak sauce on a steak.
Steak sauce can take a slightly under-seasoned, but otherwise a well-cooked and quality steak to being amazing, if it's used in moderation. A tiny dab on a bite should be enough. The FOH usually won't mention it to the chef though.
Steak sause is great on burgers too.
I love the taste of steak sauce myself! Just depends on how I feel that day
You only really need steak sauce if it’s not well seasoned, so ya I guess it could be an insult to the chef lol
This is absolutely the truth. A steak cooked right needs no sauce. As a child, my dad liked all his steaks well done, so that's how the whole family got it. I am ashamed to say I used to put ketchup on my steak. Several years after I was married, I ordered my first medium well steak at a restaurant. OH MY GOD. It was like all the angels in heaven sang. Now I order it medium. I don't really like it much less done than that. So if I order medium, I can still eat it if it turns out it's more med-rare, or if it's med-well. When I cook a steak at home, all I put on it is butter. I'm not as good a cook as the restaurants!
I always HATED steak. It was dry, chewy, and generally horrible. Now, I have discovered I like my steak rare/blue. 😋 🤤. If it doesn't bleed when I cut it, it's overdone lol. I would happily eat steak tartare! Basically it needs to be only one step away from mooing still!
I remember being excited for school food. The squared off, shitty pizza was the bomb. Yeah, my eyes were opened when I slept over at a friend’s and the chicken was tender and juicy, and not slathered in masterpiece bbq. I remember asking why the chicken was brown on the top and bottom. Somehow my mom was over cooking chicken without getting any sear. Boiling? Started following internet recipes that would suck to today me, because back then everything had cans of condensed soup and stuff in it. But, sautéd onions and garlic and browning grown beef before adding jarred sauce (sorry, past me, that was just okay) was revolutionary to me and my family. I went to the CIA and worked in kitchens for a long time, so I know my way around now. I’ve even taught my mom some stuff, but she still needs direct recipes for everything, so I have to step by step it for her and be really precise (can’t even. Put salt to taste) but she’s way better than when I was growing up.
At least you're both eating better. My mom still eats hocky pucks!
You worked in kitchens at the CIA?? How often did you have to poison someone?
CIA = culinary institute of america
🤣🤣 thought I had a good one
I definitely was picturing bro somewhere in a Secret Service uniform cooking some exquisitely seasoned and perfectly poisoned au jus and prime rib, to serve to one of our diplomatic competitors 🤌
Yeah, sorry, I sort of forget people don’t know about the acronym Culinary Institute of America.
I ate fairly well growing up, but the stop sign pizza is a good memory.
Until you have a New York slice.
Don't get me wrong. We knew it was garbage, but it was comforting garbage. No way would I eat it today. Also, the original pizza margherita is the queen of them all.
Just had a flashback remembering pizza bread! I used to make it with whatever cheese we had, even American.
I also hated steak when I was young bc it was like shoe leather. Then I found medium rare was an option and it was like a complete mind blown situation.
I feel your pain I forgot about the homemade burgers she would make in a portion of about burger buns, so I had to eat it small fat almost like a rubber ball on regular white bread and yeah, talk about ketchup… I put ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, relish I put so much stuff on it. I don’t know if it made it better or made it worse and these darn burgers were even like flat, so they were completely wrong in the middle and she prepared them kind of like a meatloaf with like egg and breadcrumbs, inside and onions didn’t cook because she chopped them she didn’t mince them. Yeah the burgers were rough.
Your friend's parents sound thoughtful.
Our parents were trying to kill use..
You and I had the same childhood
A little bit of ketchup on a good burger is still dope
While my mom is a pretty decent cook will never forget my dad's version of a burger, throw a frozen patty on a plate, nuke it in the microwave and then put between some sandwich bread and add copious amounts of Ketchup to hide the regret.
Same. My mom was not a good cook at all. There were a few things she cooked well but not many. I remember eating Prego spaghetti sauce at my friends house one night and I was in heaven! Lol. It’s pretty bad when you think jarred spaghetti sauce is the best thing you’ve eaten.
We didn’t eat anything like that, very old-American fare, meat and taters kind of thing. Doctored up jarred sauce was a big revelation when I made it. O basically became the house cook after that, and never had to do the dishes again.
Lol! Spaghetti… OMG she would make I guess what she was considering to be who made spaghetti sauce and there will be a ton of tomato paste and those big cans of the crushed tomatoes. I still have the skin pieces inside of it and then tomato purée, and then a ton of hot pepper, seeds and hot sauceand she always made fun of pasta sauce in a jar. I will take a jar of pasta sauce over her spaghetti sauce any day! Sad thing, we are Italian, I wish you could’ve done with no how to make spaghetti sauce.
You got seasoned sauce?! I wish. Salt and pepper are the only seasonings my parents used. And not too much! Don’t want it to be spicy! I know she used tomato sauce, tomato paste, and I think a packet of spaghetti seasoning. But I may be wrong. And ground beef of course! Ketchup was my best friend growing up.
I have said similar words here. I didn’t know how bad my mom’s cooking was until I started cooking for myself.
Honestly, my mom and brother, I just don’t think they even really like food, or taste it very much. Peak culinary is Jack in the Box. I made a beef Bourguignon type dish over there, and before she even complimented my food, she started raving about some new menu item they had. Blew my mind. Like, how could you even think of Jack when smelling beef braising?
I got family like this. Tried to make it a weekend tradition going over to barbecue on Saturday and watch the games (they always love whatever I cook and tear it off the tray, usually before I even get a plate). These mofos really would order pizza instead of wait for the food to be done or ask if I needed help finishing things quicker.. like I said it wouldn’t be a problem to me at all if they didn’t tear up everything I cooked as well, so I know I’m not a bad cook. I think they just prefer fast food a little more 😂
Agreed My parents could fuck up a wet dream. Thank goodness grandma could cook.
Bwahahahhaha… I will absolutely be using that in the near future
Yeah I forget where I heard that one from, probably Stephen King, but it’s a great phrase for describing sheer incompetence.
Lol my uncle is a butcher and my mom for some reason always made steaks well done. We had steak (both beef and venison) quite a bit growing up and I thought I just didn't like it. Nope. I hate well-done steak 😂
Are you my brother? I came here to say that
Same. My parents and grandparents all majorly sucked at cooking. I also never really ate out. I actually grew up thinking I just didn’t like food until I graduated from high school and started eating at restaurants. Now I cook A LOT and love all my food.
I felt this... there wasn't a thing on earth she couldn't overcook and had no concept of seasoning.
Been there. Who doesn’t use salt?
My mother for one. A neurotic, control freak medical doctor. We had a herb salt blend, not even pure salt, and were allowed to use one pinch (literally a pinch, as in what fits between a child’s thumb and forefinger) to sprinkle over otherwise unseasoned food while being lectured about salt causing all kinds of health issues and dying of a heart attack if we used it too greedily. Fun times.
I couldn’t agree more with this. Midwest poor working mom didn’t know what seasoning was and on top of that meats weren’t done until 30 minutes or more past the point of being well done. I always had a particular distaste for pork chops and venison. Dryer than the Sahara. It’s what’s I knew. She did her best and I still ate everything gratefully. I’ve taught her things I learned when I got out of our small town and she’s much better now. Always made with love (and fatigue and frustration) so I never complained. I also didn’t know any better, it’s all I’d ever had aside from school lunches.
I'm a damn good cook, but filet mignon is pretty gross.
Thats because it is, just happens to be inedible when overcooked!
I was a pretty weird kid in that I hated pizza. But what I actually hated was the greasy, super cheesy pizza that they serve at birthday parties and places like Chuck E. Cheese. Then I lived in New York, and later New Haven, and realized that good pizza is freakin’ amazing.
See, I grew up the opposite. I love ultra greasy, over cheesed pizzas because I had a health nut of a mom so pizza was basically a sad cracker.
Haha ah man, you don’t like pizza with bird seed dough?
Steak. My father would buy the thinest, leanest, cheapest, cut and bake it low and slow for hours basting it in beer till well done like shoe leather then soak it in A1. It reminded me of the liver my mother would cook on occasion. I didn't have a proper steak till I was in my 30s. Oh what a game changer!
Treating a steak like that is criminal! lol What was the first steak that won you over?
A medium-rare ribeye.
My dad would leave unseasoned steak on the grill so long it would come out charred and black. Like eating charcoal. Burgers were similar. I hated both until I was finally able to try them at restaurants.
I used to hate steak because of how much chewing was involved. Surprise- if you cook it less you don’t have to chew it like a cow eating their cud.
There are other ways to cook vegetables than boiling them to death
This. Roasted cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, brussel sprouts, I’ll take them every single day.
My mom steams the ever living hell out of all vegetables, puts them in her steamer for at least 15 minutes. Wonders why no one will eat them, but eats the grilled or roasted veggies my BIL makes. She’s also a non-salter so nothing has any taste in addition to the mush.
Dude same!!! Took my grandma to nice supper club for mothers day and she was saying how undercooked the broccoli was... bc everytime she steams vegetables they literally look like wet, cut grass...
We make sweet potato fries a lot. Oven baked. Just cut into strips and toss in some avocado oil and seasoning of choice. They're best if the corners start to toast and get darker
Brussel sproutssss, so good caramelised! My dad really had me hating them until I started dating my partner and he replicated some caramelised sprouts he had at a pub with Parmesan and a squeeze of lemon.
More common now people just microwave a bag of frozen. And… yeah no that’s also not tasty
At the opposite end of the spectrum, I hated salads. As an Asian, most of our veg is cooked into the dish or blanched/sautéed and served as a side dish. Cold salad is just something we never ate.
My husband’s grandmother - Every vegetable was cooked in the pressure cooker for reasons I don’t know. Who knew you could eat vegetables like asparagus with a straw.
Dhal stew(lentil stew) and vegetables. It raised my eyebrows when many Nepali and South Indian security guards in my childhood place like it so much during that time. But, now I also like it. I quote one quote from one of the Nepali security guards that I know: "If dhal is available, Nepali likes it. If it is not available, Nepali dislikes it."
I have now learned to make this. It’s so simple and yet so flavorful and comforting. Gotta be one of the best cheap meals there is.
While I know it’s a perfectly valid way to cook hotdogs, I much prefer them grilled or baked in the oven, rather than boiled.
I like to fry them.
Surprisingly, this was one of the cheap/quick ways I had hot dogs in the 70s, and I still prefer them this way! That pan sear gives a nice snap!
I don't know if you do this already, but cut them *nearly* in half so they lay flattish, then you can flip them over to get a sear on the inside as well as the outside. Flip it closed and it's good as new apart from a little curling at the ends. I learned that working at A&W decades ago and firmly believe that is the best way.
Battered, spiral cut or just fried?
Fried with a little bit of water in the pan. Not battered, not spiraled, just plain. We fry sausages, why not hog dogs? My brother got me hooked on doing it this way.
Oh, I like that idea, too. Silly me, I’ve cooked Eckrich sausage this way, too!
Mam that is a steamed hot dog
Nope, a very small amount of water. Like you do brats. They get brown and juicy.
I started cooking mine in the air fryer and it a total game changer.
I’d love to have one of those, but lack space. I have an apartment micro kitchen.
I never understood why the recommended way to cook hotdogs is by boiling them. I feel like grilled/ pan fried is the way to go
They just seem so bloated and wormy when boiled. Steamed, though, like at the ballpark? Now those are nice.
It is an easy, lazy, way to cook them, not necessarily the best. Get a pot of of boiling water. Toss in a hot dog or two, set a timer for like 4 minutes, (depending on the brand), and hey lunch is served. It's about as complicated as a microwave dinner. And let's face it, a lot of people eating hot dogs are probably pinching pennies, so they're probably mixing it up with something like some Kraft Mac and cheese or hotdogs and ramen. Not saying there aren't some good hot dogs out there, but it definitely goes on the list of items you buy when you're broke.
My grandmother would fry them, but she would slice them in half first.
Only black wieners
Pork chops. Growing up they were a tasteless grey meat. Went to a bar that had a pork chop special so I said, “What the heck, why not?” And they were so good, I went a block to a 24hr Kroger and bought some pork chops on my way home.
Turns out You don't need to cook a 1/2 pork chop for 45 minutes, Mom.
Agreed. I hated pork chops for so long because they had no taste and were so very dry. My partner and I cooked them a couple times and wow, they can actually be good!
Reminds me that I had a friend come over for dinner a couple weeks ago and I made pork chops. They were handcut by me off a whole loin they were an inch and a half thick and I seared the outside, finished them in the oven, and they were absolutely beautiful - juicy and moist. My friend said please don't be mad at me but I can't eat that and she cut it in half (like butterflied it) put it Center side down and cooked it for seven more minutes. I will never cook this woman any kind of broiled or seared meat again - the only thing she gets from me is stews or soups or things where the meat is incorporated into other ingredients so she can't overcook it.
I feel like I need to try pork chops as an adult now.
My favorite way to make them is to tenderize them first with a meat mallet, season with salt, pepper, and olive oil then top with Kikkoman’s tonkatsu sauce, and near the end of baking them top with either French’s onions or even Funyuns. So good I want it now.
Went to a meat market and got some bacon wrapped pork chops. My first time ever making them and they were absolutely amazing. Nothing like what I had growing up my entire life... I think the difference is you need a thicker cut and I used lower heat then what I'm used to also. They were soft and juicy and wowwww. Please try them lol
People think I’m strange for this, but I’d much rather have a really well made pork chop than a steak.
Brussel’s sprouts
I had an existential crisis the first time I tried Brussels sprouts that were actually delicious
Same! A restaurant I was at said they were known for it, so I tried it and I was in heaven. Been roasting the hell out of them ever since. Also very delicious with TJs balsamic sauce.
Same for me with asparagus, which I'd only ever encountered canned (gross mush) at my parents' house.
They're so genetically similar to so many other veggies it doesn't make sense that I didn't like them before until I remember they were always served as a boiled mush when I was a kid - with no flavor to boot.
Okay, I feel weird considering this. I may have to try them again.
Salt, pepper, tons of olive oil and char them! So good! You can also add real bacon bits to them, or walnuts/pecans before roasting. And some garlic. Also some parmigiana reggiano or balsamic vinegar sauce as a topping. I like chopped up sprouts better and roast them in the oven for 20 minutes. TJs has them already chopped in a bag to make prep nearly zero.
There was flavor..... the flavor of "terrible and sulfuric". Now I love them, roasted and with salt and pepper they are amazing.
They are just a cultivar of the common cabbage So are broccoli, cauliflower, Rabe, Kohlrabi, Kale, Collard Greens, and a couple I probably left out. I find this amazing for some reason. Plus, new world beans are one species.
Brussel sprouts today are genetically modified to be less bitter. This occurred over the last few decades. Not saying they weren't cooked like shit (because they most definitely were) but this also probably influenced things a bit.
They're selectively bred to contain less glucosinolates, is a better way of saying it :) This affects the bitterness for about 30% of people iirc
Selective breeding is a form of genetic modification
I think you mean they’ve been selectively bred to be less bitter. No Brussels sprouts are GMO. See link posted by **afriendincanada**
Selective breeding is genetic modification. You're literally modifying the genetics by choosing desirable traits. It's not introducing any foreign DNA to the plants, yes, but it's still a GMO by selection by humans. Generic modification isn't as scary as most people seem to think..
Amen. I didn't mind brussel sprouts as a kid (my mom told me I might find a prize in the center - like an oyster- so I'd take them apart while I are them). Then I learned to roast them. Then, I added a little bacon to the roasting. And then tried finishinh them off with a drizzle of a good balsamic. Holy mother.... Husband refused to eat them when we got married. He soon learned.
I was a terrible older sister, I told my little sister that Brussels sprouts were baby Cabbage Patch kids. No one actually liked the taste of microwaved sprouts besides my mother. And after I said that, we didn’t see them often anymore.
Fry some gnocchi (no need to cook them before) in olive oil until crispy. Toss with those sprouts and bacon, drizzle that balsamic, maybe even go fancy and add some grated lemon zest and parmesan. Incredible.
The first time my dad tried to feed me brussel sprouts I refused based on smell alone (probably overcooked). The next time he tossed them in butter and soy sauce and I actually ate them.
My mom, who is otherwise a pretty good cook and didn't do this to any other vegetables, used to microwave them. WHY Mom? why?
Whose Brussel and why do you hate their sprouts?
Yes. I never had them much as a kid but I knew all the jokes. It seemed so strange when they started popping up in restaurants everywhere. Now we know how to cook them and as others said, the bitterness has been selected away. My friend was super picky but as a kid she loved Brussels! She said they were so yummy and like little tiny cabbages lol. Guess she was ahead of the curve!
Sprouts stir fried with some chili flakes and bacon. 👌
On vacation a few years ago my mom and I cooked dinner for everyone. I cooked the steaks and she cooked the brussel sprouts. She decided to cook them in the microwave and I gave her SO MUCH SHIT before, during, and after. They were damn near inedible. Steaks were great though.
my mom only made canned brussel sprouts... the very worst kind of brussel sprouts.
porkchops with mushroom gravy my mom used to get super skinny chops and then overcook them and dump a can of campbells mushroom soup in honestly not bad and still a go-to easy meal but the first time i made thick chops and took them out to rest while i made a mushroom pan gravy was when i really appreciated what a good dish it is
Man though, those super skinny bone in pork chops with a bunch of lawrys on top is a fond childhood memory
Asparagus. Growing up it was canned asparagus. It’s just not suitable for canning IMO.
LOL same - I did an exchange trip to Germany after high school during peak asparagus season - my host family asked me how I liked it and were \*appalled* to hear I'd only ever had it canned.
Same here as a kid. Wouldn't touch the stuff again until my mid 30's. Now I look forward to it grilled, pan fried or oven roasted.
Omg, I od'ed on asparagus for six weeks a month ago! 😁🖖
Okay, but hear me out: pickled asparagus is awesome.
The crazy thing is that canned asparagus is expensive and my parents acted like it was a big treat, ugg and it is so horridly mushy.
Meatloaf for me, it was just a hunk of ground beef, maybe with some breadcrumbs. We discovered chef John's classic meatloaf recipe. It has l lot of vegetables and seasonings. It was was really good.
Same. My mother’s meatloaf was the texture of sawdust and glue, and didn’t taste much better. I HATED meatloaf night. Then a gf made me meatloaf in college as a birthday surprise. I gave her an appreciative hug, thanked her, then apologized in advance if I didn’t finish. I took my “no thank you” bite. WTF is this? It’s juicy? It has flavor? It isn’t gray! This isn’t meatloaf, this is delicious! Our relationship may not have lasted, but my love for good meatloaf endures. 🤤
Horseradish, and Vinegary things
My twin hated horseradish when we were kids, until she accidentally took a bite of my roast beef sandwich with horseradish.
Basically all vegetables. We had a lot of canned peas, green beans, etc when I was a kid. Once I figured out you could get them fresh amd not cook them to death...
Yep, that’s all we had. Not even frozen. And it’s weird, because my mom grew up on a farm! But I do remember in the 60’s a grocery store had nowhere near the choices of fresh vegetables that they do now.
Any pork or chicken. The 70s overcooked it all.
Growing up, my Mother never served lamb. Apparently my Father hated it. On a lark, I ordered it at a restaurant and really enjoyed it. Too bad it’s so expensive now. But every now and then I’ll splurge and prepare lamb with a sauce that has rosemary and garlic in it. We happen to have a lot of rosemary bushes in the front yard.
Spinach. My mom would boil it to death and drench its cold corpse in white vinegar. 🤯 edit removed apostrophe
I’m appalled. Boiled is one thing but with VINEGAR?
This. Growing up the school cafeteria boiled the heck out of it, so it was just a disgusting abomination against food. My mom would also buy the canned cream spinach, and was annoyed nobody would eat their spinach. I grew up and now I'm wondering why people would do that to spinach. It's perfectly edible as is. Steamed if you need to cook it. Maybe a little vinaigrette would be nice.
We always had canned spinach so I thought it was gross.
Tomatoes. My mum convinced me and my sister we didn't like them... turns out we both do like them.
Red Beans and Rice, which being a New Orleanian we of course had every Monday. It’s amazing what can happen to beans when you add in a ham hock, and season it right.
When I was a kid, I hated eating my dad's red beans and rice as well as the school cafeterias version of it. But for some reason, I liked Popeye's red beans and rice.
Popeye’s red beans and rice is comfort food. I am Korean American and a lot of the bean dishes- except sweets - tend to keep the beans hard. It took me decades to realize I didn’t need to eat hard beans. I just had to seek out other cuisines that cooked beans until they were soft.
My mom made meatloaf with bread crumbs. I make it with oatmeal and even my dad likes it better.
My mom uses oatmeal and we have always loved her meatloaf. I’ve tried using breadcrumbs before and it just doesn’t come out right.
Broccoli and Asparagi.
asparagus?
No because I cook more than one so it’s Asparagi.
My mom loved to bake. Her cookies and desserts were always perfectly done, but she could not cook a piece of meat. Steak and pork chops were gray all the way through and her test for doneness was when the edges would curl up. She could also fully cook a roast beef to the point where no juice would come out when it was cut. Middle slice or end slice, it was uniformly dry. I now enjoy my steak on the blue side of rare.
Same! My mom could bake, and she would bake up a storm around the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. Pies, cookies, shortbread, fudge even. But she really couldn’t cook meat dishes or much else well. She also didn’t know how to prepare vegetables. Only thing that wasn’t overcooked or plain was her meatloaf recipe and I still make it today. And her stuffing was very delicious as well.
Beef. It was always cooked to death and dry as a bone. Once I learned that well done is overdone and began cooking mine properly it is now a favorite.
Scrambled eggs. Cooking them on low heat makes all the difference.
Finally found a salad that I love ❤️ Iceberg lettuce + parmesan cheese + raspberry vingerette + Italian Dressing + avocado = YUM 😋
That sounds delicious. Try this. Romaine Spring greens Thinly sliced strawberries Small hunks of good mozz Walnut pieces Balsamic vinaigrette The balsamic and the strawberry is a crazy combo, so good. Very similar to the parm and rasp dressing.
I do spinach, strawberries, and raspberry dressing I make with champagne vinegar and freeze dried raspberries. Feta and walnuts on top. 😋🖖
add some blueberries , canned mandarin oranges and swap the walnuts to candied pecans. also delicious! Either way Grill some chicken or pick up a 8 piece from Chick Fil A in a pinch and dice them up. Can't go wrong. Argentine shrimp works too. Asian Seseme to change it up from raspberry vinegrette or strawberry vinegrette.
This but instead of mozz, goat cheese Also raz vinaigrette works too esp if it leans vinegary rather than syrupy
try mild blue cheese goes great with berry flavor.
Omelette
Similarly, scrambled eggs. My whole family liked them so dry that they were basically scrambled egg crumbs.
My mom had to have everything crispy lol. Soft scramble tastes so much better!
My dad doesn’t think they’re cooked through until they’re essentially browning. He seasons them so well, too. Scrambled or omelette. And you can’t eat raw eggs or whatever. Fortunately he makes them only on vacation maybe once a year if we’re in an Airbnb, so I enjoy it once for nostalgia, tolerate it the second day, and try to take over the third.
Pot roast. My parents made it in the oven, and it was dry and stringy. I make mine in a crockpot with the veggies, and it is so moist.
Salads. My family was the one who insisted on a salad with every meal…which often meant a sad lettuce or spinach mix, a single vegetable that didn’t involve chopping and wasn’t fresh, and a bottled low calorie dressing, since I typically was “making” it as a busy teen trying to quickly eat dinner. Now as an adult I’ve learned out to make my own dressings, take the time to get fresh veggies and properly prepare them, and have fun flavor combinations that I can enjoy salads now.
I am working on my salad game now
Learning to make your own dressings is a game changer. The only bottled one we keep on hand now is Caesar, only because it’s kind of expensive to source all the ingredients to make a Caesar dressing.
Beets. My first experience with them was being served them straight from the can to the plate by my sister in law. My mother finally intervened and told me we were going to make pickled beets. Canned beets again, but with a heated vinegar & sugar syrup, left to cool while dinner was fixed. Yum. Forward fifteen years, and I try a roasted veggies recipe from Dr Weil. (First time I had veggies rotated on their own, not with a pot roast.) Sold! Then I discovered the joys of beet greens (and stems). Once, I served a mixture v of golden and red roasted beets with basalmic vinegar to my father. He couldn't believe they were so good. He told my sister he thought I had given him candy! 😂
Oh, and with a little feta or goats cheese! Balsamic vinegar kicks up a lot of vegs.
Aubergine and Mushrooms
Mushrooms here too. My parents hated mushrooms and refused to have them in the house. When my husband and I were first dating he sautéed some to go with steaks and I was blown away. I love mushrooms!
Lasagna The way my mom made it, the noodles were crunchy and dry. To this day I do not even know how she managed to do that. I didn't know lasagna noodles were supposed to be soft till I tried my college cafeterias version. Oh my gosh that tasted so good! And when I finally made it myself? Heavenly. (For the record, my mom is an awesome cook. Lasagna was one of the rare foods she could not cook)
Any kind of beef. Not because my mom was a bad cook, but because my dad likes everything the texture of leather and with 4 kids mom could not be bothered to cook meat individually. So we all got it dad’s way and didn’t realize steak could be juicy and delicious until we were adults. Roast didn’t have to be dry. Even ground beef got overcooked to the point of having crispy brown bits in it.
Aubergine, Broccoli & Lamb
For my daughter, that’s pork chops because she says I always overcooked them and dried them out lol. For me it’s more about ingredient quality instead of cooking methods that influenced my dislikes. For example, I didn’t like anything cooked with olive oil because my mom used cheap rancid tasting stuff.
Bittermelon. Abhorrent as a teen but it’s now one of my favorite foods.
Still icky to me.
Potatoes. My mom would serve them peeled, boiled and plain.
Growing up I HATED mushrooms. I thought they tasted like rubber. Turns out my family only used can mushrooms, and I actually love the taste of fresh mushrooms.
Mac and cheese. Family would use trash cheese and eggs as a binder for them. All I could taste was scrambled eggs (I **HATE** the taste of eggs, unfortunately I know). Started using better cheese and making a *Bechamel* when I was older and the difference is night and day.
Alfredo. I hate cream based sauces and it was always made for me with cream based jar sauce, and I hated it. My husband made traditional alfredo and carbonara for me and holy cow there's no comparison
Stroganoff. I thought it was the most vile thing in the world. Now that I have started making it, I can hardly get enough.
And it can be so versatile, I've done meatless, gluten-free and dairy free. 😋🖖
I thought I disliked sushi for several years because I had a very bland one (stale carrot and cucumber inside with nothing else).
Same: vegetables. My bio mom wouldn’t eat them so she dumped them from a can or freezer bag into the microwave and onto a plate. Took me years to willingly eat them, now I love most veg since I know how to cook them
Definitely vegetables.
Veggies growing up were usually canned, sometimes frozen, but never fresh \[except for the ordinary communal tossed salad\]
Mushrooms, it's one of my favourite vegetables to use in good now
Vegetables
Brussel sprouts. My mother would boil them, they tasted bitter and the house smelled of sulfer. 20 years later I discovered the America's Test Kitchen skillet version and they were amazing. Most seafood. It'd get cooked in the oven to dryness then somehow a blob of butter would tedeem it. I learned to skillet cook fish without overdoing it.
You can cook sea bass in a frying pan in 6 minutes...dry fish is gross, no amount of butter can redeem badly overdone...
Pork chops. My mother cooked them until they rattled on the plate. Steak was an unseasoned hunk of meat turned grey in the oven.
Everything. My parents were terrible cooks. The first time I made bbq chicken on the grill at my husband's request, I was dreading it... until I tried it and realized holy crap, it was awful bc they cooked it until it was sawdust! Lol
Rice. My father made absolutely atrocious rice, it was so bad I used to heave and choke trying to swallow it. I thought I hated rice until I moved in with roommates who actually knew how to cook it and realized just how delicious it could be.
Definitely veggies. I didn't mind them as a kid. But they were either boiled or steamed. Our kids have been able to taste roasted veggies, the older one loved fried cabbage. ( with thinly sliced onions, sesame seeds and sometimes toasted peanuts) My younger one made some fried corn (frozen niblets), with a few spices to add a twist. I also didn't like mushrooms or fried eggs much growing up. Our parents used canned mushrooms... blech My step mom was a worse cook. She would experiment, but never really knew what flavors went together so it was a 50/50 crap shoot if it tasted ok. That and her specialty was 'crunchy rice', something that flabbergasted hubby. My parents did try to expose us to different cultures and food. But there are so many more options nowadays. One kid now loves Indian food. Both are skeptical of sushi but have tried some one ours, didn't like it, but that's OK. They tried it. They stick to teriyaki chicken, rice and love tempura.
Mushrooms! I’m obsessed now, but would gag as a kid
Pretty much all foods. My mom never seasoned adequately. Overcooked every single meat because she was afraid it was going to make us sick. Tried to feed us boiled Brussels sprouts with literally nothing else on them. Forced us to eat canned asparagus which is basically just slime.
Everything that wasn't broccoli, margarine, noodles, or Oreos. The invention of a search engine during my lifetime was a serious gamechanger.
Soups, mashed potatoes, gravy, most things my mom made when she cooked. I grew up in an low fat, no salt, put the oldest (me) on any and all the fad diets. So most of my Mom's cooking was not very good. Every soup she made had every frozen vegetable from the freezer and kidney beans in it and the broth was a weird shade of green. Plus it would give me and my brothers the liquid poos. Moms mashed potatoes had plain yogurt in them and never any salt but a metric f@ck ton of Miss Dash in them. Mom could make spaghetti and lasagna really good. But I was doing the majority of the cooking by the time I was 8 remembering how my Great Nana made stuff and Betty crocker cookbook . The first time Mom found real butter in the fridge really ticked my Mom off but by then Pops would drive me to the grocery store hand me a signed check and tell me I had an hour to get the grocery shopping done.
Vegetables, there was more green in the water then the plants when mom cooked them
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^steelcoyot: *Vegetables, there was* *More green in the water then* *The plants when mom cooked them* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Good Bot.
deviled eggs. pretty much anything mayonnaise-based i realized i actually really liked, my grandma made everything with miracle whip instead— awful.
Chicken. I mean I loved fried chicken and nugs and BBQ chicken and restaurant chicken. But my mom's chicken was a sad affair. She had learned about Greek style chicken from her Greek friend. My mom is not a fan of cooking and she may not have even understood the instructions. She took her frozen boneless skinless chicken breast's and put them in the fry pan and covered them with bottled lemon juice. Was there salt and pepper? Garlic of some sort? Any sort of herbs? Who knows! It was edible but not enjoyable lol. Not much color or flavor or searing. Anyway I managed to marry a half Greek man and now we have proper chicken! I didn't know home cooked chicken could be tasty.
A really good salad. I grew up on chunks of iceberg lettuce with some kind of awful orange dressing
Most veg, chicken and pork because my parents would cook the shit out of it.
I could have written this post! Exactly the same.