18 People That Will Never Forget the Awful Food They Had to Eat in Their Childhood

Most parents cook but not all of them can make tasty meals and some moms and dads fail in their attempts to cook something yummy over and over again. Children might not even notice this if they are used to it, but when they grow older, they usually start to suspect something.

We at Bright Side have come across a lot of interesting stories where parents turned out to be pretty bad chefs and we decided to share them with you.

• When I was a kid, I always hated “roast beef day”. Mom would cook a roast by putting it in a pan, and then cooking it at 350°F. For 3 hours. The inside was kind of like shoe leather. I always thought “Man, adult food is terrible.” During college, I got a job at a steakhouse. One of the things we cooked was Prime Rib that only took 55 minutes to make. I tried a piece of the prime rib cooked medium. It was absolutely the best beef I had ever tasted. © Jaimi McEntire / Quora
• My boyfriend’s mom is a terrible cook. And when we go to her place, she never asks us if we’re hungry. She just puts a lot of food on a plate and tells us to eat it. Recently, she served porridge with meat and eggs, added fried carrots on top with mayo, pickles, and tomatoes. If you don’t eat it, she gets super-dramatic. © Podslushano / Vk
• My dad always said that he loved cooking. On the weekends, he often locked himself in the kitchen and started creating. It was bad: when he needed to fry something, he’d add too much oil, when he cut vegetables, it was never pretty, it looked like he chopped them with an ax. And the entire kitchen was always dirty afterward. My husband was the only one who’s been able to convince me that men can actually cook well. © Podslushano / Vk
• My mom still laughs when she tells people the story of how I became a vegetarian at 14 and hated vegetables. Turns out I just hated when vegetables were boiled to an unrecognizable mush. Still can’t tell her it was her cooking, so I just fake laugh along with her. © ThisYoungQuings / Reddit

• My grandma was always scared of getting infected by the germs in food. This is why she always used the hottest temperatures there were: when she fried something, she burned it, when she boiled something, it turned into mush. She only ate fruits as jam and never fresh! When I made her porridge, she often said she wouldn’t eat it because it wasn’t boiled enough. She passed away 15 years ago. Today I’m an adult doctor and I think she had some psychological issues — if she had consulted a specialist, she would have had a calmer life. © Podslushano / Vk

• I became a vegetarian for 23 years because of my mother’s cooking. Not until I was married with kids did I realize what meat was MEANT to taste like. Luckily I married an expert cook. © seehispugnosedface / Reddit

• Thanksgiving had always been a massive affair at my house growing up — my parents would wake up at like 3 in the morning to start slow roasting the turkey and ironing a tablecloth the size of a football field. I had always been brainwashed to assume that if a dinner table has more than one fork, that’s an indicator of quality. I also assumed turkey was supposed to be dry and flavorless, and the ritual bird I had been eating annually had in fact been the optimal iteration of it. Not so. Fast forward to some November in college years ago. One of my friends had made a meal for a small group (maybe 6–8.) The turkey was incredible. I mean, juicy, flavorful, perfect. I was stunned. “How did you make this turkey? What’s your secret?????” “I followed... the directions... on the package...?” Apparently, if you cook a turkey for less than 8 hours, it comes out less dry. © Seth Fox / Quora

• After I grew up, my mother confessed to me that when I was little, she cooked food we didn’t like on purpose, so there would be more leftovers. Money was tight and she was able to cut the grocery bill in half this way. Still, even after our situation improved, she was never a great cook. She wasn’t a bad cook per se, just a very timid one. Nothing was ever seasoned — she was afraid of getting it wrong. One time I opened her spice drawer and found the same spices I remembered as a kid. Not just the same types of spices, but literally the same jars. Most of them had dates in the 70s on them. But the real kicker was about 10 years ago when she told me: “I’ve just learned about the most amazing thing. It makes food taste so much better. Pepper! Have you ever tried it?” I love my mom, so I kept my mouth shut. But yes, I have tried pepper. In the college cafeteria. © Rebekah Lackman / Quora

• My dad’s method of cooking steak was to buy any cheap, flat red meat and char it on the barbecue. Whereupon we would spend 5 minutes sawing off a bit and the other 5 chewing it before adding it to the pile of spat-out bits on the side of our plate. © PuddleOfHamster / Reddit

• I was 18, on a date at a remote (and romantic) country cabin. He bought the groceries for our cook-out. Hamburger meat and buns to grill burgers outside. He took the (minced) hamburger, formed it into patties, and threw them on the grill to cook. I thought... I was going to be poisoned — here I am, miles from home, and it’s the last anyone would see of me. Where was the egg? Where were the breadcrumbs? It was a transforming moment where I realized that, perhaps, the additional ingredients weren’t necessary and that my family made a terrible version of normal meals. © Holly Holl / Quora

• In 9th grade, my friend and I went to our classmate’s house. She was eating meatballs and my friend wanted some too. Our classmate said, “You can try them but you probably won’t like them.” I wish we had listened to her. They were terrible. Now I understand why. They used very cheap ingredients to save money. © Evgeniya / AdMe

• My parents were mean but would brag all day about how they were the best cooks in the world. Then the fateful day comes when my mother sits me down and tells me that I have to learn how to cook. Being only 10, I was scared of the flames from the gas cooker was told to, all on my own, make spaghetti Bolognese with minced meat. Sure it took quite a bit of effort, I made lots of mistakes, seeing the meat made me sick, but I did like eating it, except into the sauce goes the accidental sugar, wanted to add a little bit but it turned out that I added a tad too much, namely about 3-4 tablespoons. My parents found out and asked me to throw it away. Well, I took a bite. I was amazed, it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten (on my first try). From there on out, I continued cooking my own meals and realized how much better they were than my parent’s meals... © unknown author / Quora
• I was always jealous of friends whose moms were good cooks. I went to visit my mom and she made a mix of rice, wheat, and oatmeal, and it was terrible. © 2diesel / Pikabu
• When I was 8 years old, my parents wouldn’t allow me to leave the table until I finished my Brussels sprouts. So I sat there, truth be told, for an hour, sobbing, mouth high in sprouts because I could not get myself to eat them. After an hour or so, my mom figured I probably wasn’t going to finish them, and I was pleased that I could finally leave. After this, I never ate another Brussels sprout... Until I was 22. My roomie adored cooking. She had those sprouts and I decided to try them. They weren’t fantastic but still, I realized that it was something I could possibly really consume. I realized my mom didn’t know how to make them right. But now, at the age of 49, she’s trying to improve. © Jaden Watson / Quora

• Growing up, I always hated eating unless it was junk food. We ate cereal, oatmeal, or doughnuts for breakfast, and sandwiches or canned soup for lunch. But for dinner, we had to eat the terrible food our parents made. Until my 3rd grade summer, when she let us stay with our aunt. We were in a whole new world. They were magic. EVERYTHING they cooked was delicious. Most meals, I would want more. I’d eat till my stomach hurt. The next year, we moved in with them. My aunt started to teach us to cook. She let us pick recipes out of cookbooks and attempt them. It was so easy and so fun. It made me wonder what was wrong with my mom. © Angel Martin / Quora
• My grandma is a terrible cook and she could ruin even fried eggs, but every time I go to her place, I always eat what she cooks so I don’t make her feel bad. Last weekend, I was eating an over salted piece of meat and she was sitting in front of me. She said, “You must really love me if you eat something this terrible.” © Palata № 6 / Vk
• I absolutely hated fish and meat. Mind you, I was not a vegetarian, but I was disgusted by the sole thought of eating those dishes. The reason for this is that growing up I had no idea what properly cooked fish and meat tasted like: my mother had cooked for us ever since I was born — the problem was that she had no idea how to cook fish or meat. She’d just basically turn on the oven or the gas stove, place a slab of meat or fish in a pan, and let it cook FOREVER until it was so overdone that it basically tasted like wood and had the texture of a leather boot. It wasn’t until much later on when, god knows why, I decided to prepare a fish dish, that I realized that I was wrong all along, and that fish and meat actually taste DELICIOUS when properly prepared. © Frederico Sylar Zambelli / Quora

• My older sister is 4 years older than I am, and she remembers a time when my dad made her soup. It was canned soup, cream of something or other, so you’d think it would be pretty easy, right? Add milk, stir, heat. Simple. Except my dad didn’t read the instructions. He added water and didn’t bother stirring, so he served my sister hot water with chunks of cold, congealed soup concentrate floating in it. She was so upset that she still talks about it occasionally, and my dad hasn’t cooked since. © Susan El / Quora

How well do you cook? How about your parents?