Your mother's worst meals
 

I feel like we've chatted about this before, but I can't find the thread, so I'm starting again. If there is another thread please suggest merging.

One day over lunch at work we starting talking about our mothers' worst meals. It seems that everyone had one. Something in Mom's regular rotation that veryone hated but yet it kept reappearing.

Mine was something called Russian Fluff, which was neither, and to this day no one can explain the name. It consisted of layers of ground beef, peas, rice and likely tomato soup (the recipe is lost to the mists of time.) The entire thing was dry and tasteless (and cetainly NOT fluffy!).

The winner from our dicussion was Spam Chop Suey.

Anybody else have [un]fond memories of childhood meals?

Pork chops. She would cook them for what seemed like 100 hours. My Shoe soles were more tender

My mom was infamous for her garlic bread. If it weren't for Italian restaurants I would probably still think garlic bread was supposed to be charred black.

Of course the worst meal ever was when she tried to make biscuits, but the oven in our new house was broken so she tried to use the convection oven feature of the microwave. The biscuits looked absolutely perfect - but hard as rocks doesn't begin to describe them. We soaked one in water overnight - still felt like a hockey puck the next morning.

my mother grew up before the depression and before decent refrigeration. she should get the cast iron skillet award. every friday salmon croquets. once a week, something like flank steak (make certain the pink is all gone). on sunday, she'd get up at 3am so the roast would be done by 3pm. corn on the cob got 30 min..... in the pressure cooker!!! yes, the pork chops were unbelievable. had to kill those trichinosis things, then a can of campbells cream of mushroom soup on top.. the only thing she did not kill was frozen peas. she followed the instructions on the box, which was to dump them into boiling water for a couple minutes. had the same salad every night for 18 years(i left) iceberg lettuce and a dressing of hellman's mano cut with milk. home canned string beans were first grown to full maturity before picking. the army bought up the whole supply to spin them for cable.

Pork chops. Early on I called them pork jerky.

You could stand your glass on them without it falling over.

Sounds much like how my grandmother would cook. If we had a small turkey for Thanksgiving (only 7 of us), and we were eating at 3 PM, she'd have the turkey in the oven well before 7 AM. :)

Brisket. Cooked to the point it was gooey, yet dry, with carrots and celery cooked so far they tasted more of carbon than anything.. I never understood why people like it until I had it done as a smoked meat. Now I smoke a brisket twice a year for family dinners. Little mix of Jewish and Southern cookin'.

Oddly enough ;) her two best dishes were chili and french onion soup. Imagine that. She overcooked everything but anything that took a long time to make she'd do better than a professional chef.

Without a doubt...beef liver. Then again, a four-star Michelin chef could make it and I'd think the same thing. :rolleyes:

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Too many too count...

But one thing she made, EVERY week, was these things she called "pierogies", which were cheese egg and flour dumplings, boiled in water. We ate them just like that. Just unsalted, unflavored, unsauced little masses of crap.

I have forgiven, but I will not forget.

Incidentally, she's turned into a decent cook these days. Figures. :mad:

Pierogies, cooked properly, and served properly, are delicious! I usually sauté onions in lots of butter while the pierogies are boiling, and then toss the pierogies into that mixture to fry.

Doesn't sound like notsosmart's mom went to all that much trouble to make them edible. ;)

:) This is true. I'm simply suggesting that they not be deemed horrible due to improper cooking. :)

My Mom would our Paul Newman's Italian salad dressing over boneless and skinless chicken breasts and bake. Healthy, to be sure, but completely devoid of any flavor.

In general I loved - and still do when I visit - my mom's cooking. But there was this one soup she'd make that was a combination of every imaginable vegetable out there that ended up tasting like vinegar. It was repulsive, but the rule was you don't eat the soup, you don't get the main course or desert either. So I ate the damn thing. Luckily it only made the rotation once or twice a year but even 20-25 years later I can still taste that awful vinegary broth. Shudder.

Tongue. 'nuff said.

Like others here, my mom over the years became a more than decent cook. But back then women married young, before they had the chance to learn. My father claimed that he taught my mother how to cook--interesting, since his mother was no culinary genius. Don't know where tongue came into the equation, though.