childhood traumas or

[gknl]

Are there any foods out there you have trouble eating because of some bad childhood experience?

My big one is nori, dried seaweed. When I was growing up, my mother would buy rice crackers instead of potato chips because we'd eat the chips too fast. We'd also have sheets of the stuff lying around (she still does). I never really liked it but could sort of tolerate it in small doses until one Thanksgiving dinner.

We always had traditional Thanksgiving dinners with the extended family; turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc. My maternal grandmother would always bring huge platters of sushi, a mix of plain nigiri sushi, rice wrapped in seaweed, and some stuffed with pickled vegetables. She also made inari sushi, which is still my favorite, but we called it age sushi. She always made sure everyone got sushi and because she was bachan, you had to eat it otherwise her feelings would be hurt.

It became somewhat of a joke to say "Bachan, so and so doesn't have any sushi" which would immediately result in the platter being passed your way and you had to take at least one piece. When I was 9, I got the "Grant doesn't have any sushi" and for some reason, instead of passing the plate, she grabbed a handful, probably 4-5 pieces of the dreaded nigiri and shoved them on my plate, right on top of my mashed potatoes and gravy. I remember staring in disbelief and horror while she urged me to "eat sushi" in her broken English.

In case you're wondering, that combination does not work. It was a total East meets West Fusion disaster! The seaweed totally permeated the gravy and the gravy did not improve the sushi at all. But I choked it down, being the dutiful grandson.

Over 30 years later, I can eat nori, but it's my least favorite part of sushi. And I still don't really like it on rice crackers either, I peel it off a lot of the time.

[Vanessa]

School foods that I was forced to eat and we never got at home and even now, after an unmentionable number of years, I am no nearer being able to eat: baked beans, tinned peaches, custard (the packet/tin stuff), spam, corned beef. Only relatively recently have I even been able to consider a freshly made creme anglaise.

And from home: tripe. The stink of my father's tripe & onions in the house still fills me with horror and I feel much the same about chitterlings/andouillettes and such like.

However, I have no such problem with brains and sweetbreads!

v

[jaybee]

Lima beans. not then, not ever. ugh.

[Saffy]

Cabbage and swiss chard - too many dinners of watery overcooked cabbage and swiss chard sitting on my plate :(

[Blue Heron]

I had a trauma with mayonnaise. My mother had set up a table which included hor d'ouevres and chip and dip. I ate what was a generous portion of chip and dip and then my mom told me that what I had eaten was not dip, but just a bowl of Best Foods mayo she had put out for something else. I was so grossed out my the idea I had eaten gobs of plain mayo that I didn't touch the stuff for several years. I have since recovered from that trauma and eat mayo again (but not plain, and not with potato chips).

Also, for some reason (I don't know why), I cannot eat cold cereal w/milk. It must be from having eaten it almost every morning while I was growing up, or maybe from cereal getting soggy (which I hated). I also couldn't eat sandwiches for years after leaving home, I think from trauma of wonder bread. I can now eat them again as long as it's not wonder bread.

[maggiethecat]

Cottage cheese. My mother served it for lunch three days out of seven when I was in my early teens. Big clob of cottage cheese served with any of these:

canned peaches

canned pineapple

lime jello salad containg sliced radishes and cabbage

salami

sliced tomates

green onions

I have never bought cottage cheese in my adult life. Ugh.

[Blue Heron]

Cottage cheese.  My mother served it for lunch three days out of seven when I was in my early teens.  Big clob of cottage cheese served with any of these:

canned peaches

Ewe! I'm with you. I would rather go hungry than eat another plate of cottage cheese w/ canned peaches! Also just remembered gramma's tomato aspic.

[maggiethecat]

BlueHeron...you wretch! I had actually forgotten the tomato aspic...blocked out the pain. How Muumy adored it served with cottage cheese and salami. Horror of horrors.

[Nick]

Lima beans.  not then, not ever.  ugh.

I'm with you. My mother was a good cook but never got the hang of lima beans, liver, or turnips. When I was young we used to spend winters at our house in Florida (New Symrna) and the public grammar school often served black-eyed peas which were awful. Right up there with lima beans. But years ago I had some black-eyed peas cooked by a friend and they were delicious.

It's all in the cook.

[cugel_the_clever]

The dread brussels sprouts. To get out of eating them (we had to eat all our veggies), I would make sure I had my big plastic mug to drink out of. Pop a brussel sprout in my mouth, pretend to drink, and spit those nasty bastards right into the cup. I thought myself quite clever...

[nightscotsman]

Peas or beans of any kind (especially limas - ick!). Growing up my Mom home canned almost all of our veggies - there were always gray and mushy. Even if they weren't canned they were frozen, which wasn't much better. To this day I still cannot eat even the freshest, sweetest peas because they instantly bring to mind the frozen peas and carrots we were forced to eat. I'm getting queasy just thinking about the texture.

By they way, Mom also had this weird method of reheating leftover cooked broccoli in milk. The milk would end up curdled and stuck to the florettes like soft cottage cheese . Has anyone ever heard of doing this?

However, I'm very thankful that she didn't even try to serve us brussels sprouts. I didn't have them until years later at a fine restaurant and I loved them.

[Marlene]

Skim milk and fried fish. Any kind. When growing up, my parents went on Weight Watchers. Back then, this is what most of that program consisted of. And even worse, for some reason, they made up big batches of powdered skim milk. Ugh.

[spqr]

Raw seafood, particularly shellfish. A birthday dinner present of Oysters 4 Ways - one of which ways was raw - put me in intensive care for a week and nearly killed me. Now I just say no.

[tommy]

beets. out of a can.

[awbrig]

clowns

[snowangel]

Vegamite.

[RBloom03]

Ham due to a not so great casserole by Mom on the same night I came down with the stomach flu. To this day I swear it was the ham.

[MHesse]

Soft boiled egg - in an egg cup.

My mother spent a number of years in England after leaving Germany before WWII. Evidently she learned this method of eating hen fruit over there.

I always had a problem with that gloopy liquid transparent insufficiently cooked egg white.

[bigbear]

Outgrew the lima bean thing, but gave up on liver, even though I like scrapple, braunschweiger, etc.

[Dave the Cook]

To this day, the second I enter a school cafeteria, I smell sauerkraut and sloppy joes, and I get bilious.

[maggiethecat]

Jeff: I too gave up on the lima bean thing, and because I am a woman who lacks the Chocolate gene, in times of stress I have been known to cook up a package of frozen limas, apply butter, salt and pepper, and eat them on my front porch.

I too like liver if it's a part of something else, like sausage or pate. Otherwise, the texture gags me. Remember that old Second City song "I Hate liver?" A classic, The line I love best says something like: the liver lies over the pancreas like a whore on a pillow of fat." That's about it.

[StephenT]

Nothing at all... I seem to be very lucky in that regard

[wawairis]

Spinach. My mother would cook the life out of it and she always served it with my favorite meal - meatloaf and macaroni and cheese. I used to do major neogotiations to try to get out of eating it.

Mayo - My evil older brother and sisters used to tell me it was poisonous (ok, so I was a gullible child!)

Any kind of shellfish. It just seemed like eating insects...

[lamb]

Sardines. My mom would pack a sardine sandwich on white bread for my school lunch. I was able to clear the entire lunch table at St. Bernards elementary school in Brooklyn, NY. No matter how much I pleaded, she insisted on packing that once a month. Thought she made up for the sandwhich by packing Hostess pink snowballs with them. Hate them too.

[tommy]

Sardines.  My mom would pack a sardine sandwich on white bread for my school lunch.  I was able to clear the entire lunch table at St. Bernards elementary school in Brooklyn, NY.  No matter how much I pleaded, she insisted on packing that once a month.  Thought she made up for the sandwhich by packing Hostess pink snowballs with them.  Hate them too.

that's child abuse. the pink things i mean.