Gross things you ate as a child or your kids eat?

Inspired by Sashac's gelite fish..

Me, American mustard sandwiches. My kid, peanut butter and cheese rolled into a chapati, with pickles.

Microwave-prepared cheese sandwiches, topped with absurd amounts of chili, garlic powder, tabasco etc. My brother and I used to dare each other into putting on more and more: I'm amazed we managed to eat it, and even more amazed neither of us developed any chronic stomach disorder.

W.

#1, I don't know if you will be able to access this or not, but the second strip is for you Eat That Taco

I used to babysit a kid who wanted peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch every day.

Ewwwwwwwwwww peanut butter and mayonnaise!

My parents tell me that, when I was really young, I used to love gribinas sandwiches (spelling?). It's chicken fat, butter and onions on white bread. I was apparently too young to remember and I still think they were lying.

My daughter eats dinner leftovers for breakfast. The last time we went to the Waffle House for breakfast, she had a hamburger. The only breakfast food she'll eat is pancakes and then only on occasion.

Oh and thank you, OP, I'm finally inspirational. :)

Edited by: sashac001 to thank OP.

Gribenes is the cracklings left over from rendering schmaltz (chicken fat) plus onions.

You could go fancy with the sandwich. _ Ilan Hall's Gribenes Sandwich_.

I've always preferred non-breakfast food for breakfast. As one of my cook books says "where is it written that you can't have a bean burrito for breakfast?" I'm with your daughter--last night's leftovers make the best breakfasts.

That's funny. My parents used the schmaltz for the sandwiches.

I eat breakfast for dinner on occasion, especially on the rare times I go to a diner. Diners tend to have the best waffles. But I generally have to have breakfast food for breakfast. I can't stomach spaghetti first thing in the morning.

Sugar sandwiches. White sugar, white bread, butter.

Rice crispies, or cornflakes. with milk, sugar and dollops of red jam.

Which I think is gross now, but which I doubtless enjoyed as a child

My daughter used to love sugar sandwiches! I can't let her see this, she used to make a huge mess making them.

You reminded me NOTB - I don't consider it gross but I like either jelly or syrup on scrambled eggs, especially if I'm eating spicy sausage. The sweet balances out the spicy really well.

Nothing wrong with a jelly omelet, unless you are English and are trying to stuff lime flavored gelatin dessert in there.

Not quite a sugar sandwich, but when I was a kid & we had pancakes, my folks would make extra cakes and put them in the bread box. We'd eat them later in the day, rolled up around sugar. American pancakes

That's a lot more involved than I get. I just slather some jelly on scrambled eggs. Apricot is the best.

I only eat my own home made pancakes. I like them thin with crispy edges, cooked in butter. No one else makes them like I do.

I remember us kids on holidays down the South coast of NSW, we lived like kings eating such things as many fresh caught fish we could eat, prawns, mangrove crabs, blue swimmers, lobsters and abelone and any sea food that you could name. But we kids did think we were being hard done by, and pined for some 'real' food, like tinned baked beans, tinned spagetti and vegemite on cheese toast!

The staff here still cringe when I use marmite instead of butter on hot cross buns.

As kids we ate dripping sandwiches preferably with a thick sprinkling of salt.

I suppose i should explain 'cheese toast', we used to put sliced cheese on bread and grill it till it was nearlly burnt, then let it go coldish, and then smear vegemite all over it, we though it was the ants pants and just loved it!

I used to love ham and egg roll sandwiches with loads of tomato ketchup on sliced white bread. In the UK you used to be able to buy sliced processed ham slices which had hard boiled egg slice in the middle from the deli counter. It is like this. My mum would allow me to have this in my lunchbox for school once a week and it was such a treat...the thought of it now makes me feel a little bit ill!

My cousins used to climb up onto my Nan's kitchen counter and get into the high cupboards so they could eat the sugar straight from the sugar bowl - yuk - they also like sugar sandwiches.

Way back in the '40's and 50's white dread with a spread of sickly sweet and gooey canned condensed milk was considered a special treat for breakfast or dinner dessert especially for the kids.
When kids were recovering from colds/fevers,measeals or chicken pox a,"special treat" to boost them up was the ghastly Scott's cod liver oil emulsion on sliced white bread,the thought of which still makes me gag:))

OMG!! Cod Liver Oil on Bread!! I've given my daughter Mineral oil on occasion (on a spoon) which she chokes down asap. I can't believe anyone would force a kid to eat cod liver oil on bread! That's so cruel.

Our parents used to make my siblings and myself swallow a spoonful of tran (Norwegian cod liver oil) every morning when we were kids. Of course it has beneficial health effects, but I strongly suspect the real motivation was to toughen us up mentally: if you can swallow tran (must have been their reasoning) then you can also swallow the many frustrations and disappointments in life. Can't say it didn't work.

W.

When I was a kid I had to take the most disgusting liquid medication in the history of mankind. It was the consistency of rubber cement (but of course, not as sticky) and urine colored yellow. It tasted like burnt tires dipped in dog poop. Eventually, my mother told me that if I learned to swallow pills I wouldn't have to take it anymore. I learned really quickly.

When I was five I had to have a spoonful of 'malt syrup' every morning.
I think it also had cod liver oil in it as it tasted awful. It was because I kept getting colds and being generally not well.

If I fell and cut myself I had to eat liver, as I was told it would replace the blood I had lost.

I suppose you now know that your blood replaces itself so you don't have to expose yourself to liver every time you cut yourself NOTB. You poor thing.

Malt syrup shouldn't taste awful. In Libya all the expats bought huge quantities of a Swiss malt syrup called Bio-Malt for brewing purposes. (You had to smuggle in hops or hop extract.) We would have been the healthiest bunch of people in the world had we used it as intended.

But now that I think of it, Roo hated extract of malt, although Tigger loved it.

In the US in the early 70s you could buy big tins of both plain and hop-flavored malt syrup in supermarkets, both with a beaming baby on the label. The hop-flavored stuff would have tasted awful straight, but I don't think anyone would have given it to a baby, despite the label. If you sent away for recipes to the address on the back, first you would get an envelope from the manufacturer with standard recipes for malt-flavored bread etc, and then a week later you would get an envelope with no return address, with a sheet of paper headed "Recipe for a five-gallon batch" and beer brewing instructions. Wine and cider were legal to make at home in those days, but not beer.

sashac, the German, specifically Bavarian, equivalent of gribenes is Griebenschmaltz, made with pork fat, onion, and apple. It's excellent. The French, specifically Touraine, equivalent is rillettes, also very good. Gribenes would ordinarily have onion already cooked into it.

I can't see putting butter on the bread you're about to spread with gribenes though.

My sister ate Christmas beetles... nasty little hard shell Beatles that look like black peanuts...

I ate Marmite and Honey... Yummy!

Edited by: kobusliferemotely

sashac, the German, specifically Bavarian, equivalent of gribenes is Griebenschmaltz, made with pork fat, onion, and apple. It's excellent. The French, specifically Touraine, equivalent is rillettes, also very good. Gribenes would ordinarily have onion already cooked into it

Wow! I never realized others actually ate schmaltz. Of course, since my mother kept kosher she wouldn't have used pork fat.

I can't see putting butter on the bread you're about to spread with gribenes though

Yeah, my dad used to be on the big side (he since lost a lot of weight and hasn't eaten gribenes for many, many years) and I constantly fight the battle of the bulge, partly due to habits learned as a child.

I remember when i was a kid, that 'Cod liver oil' was seen as being some sort of medicine.

It's rich in vitamin D, strauss. I don't think Australians would ever have had any need for it, but in England rickets was a problem.

Cod liver oil... a spoonful every morning. Foul! The remedy was a Haliborange vitamin C pill dissolved on the tongue which was a damn sight better tasting.

I got travel sickness as a kid. Lemon, orange & strawberry flavoured glucose tablets were fantastic!

No Vinny you are very wrong here, the Australian chemists sold it as we had this need for it and told us so, and i remember that they accualy sold it in bottles with a measuring spoon for every morning doses!

Actually Vinny is only partly wrong. Here in the US it is/was sold mostly as a medicine for constipation.

I loved cheese and grape jelly sandwiches for some reason but I dont think that is as gross as a peanut butter and mayo sandwich lol thats disgusting

What kind of cheese bluecorp?

cheddar

strauss & sasha, maybe you should revise the wikipedia article on cod liver oil.

Cod liver oil is a nutritional supplement derived from liver of cod fish. It has high levels of the omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, and very high levels of vitamin A and vitamin D. It is widely taken to ease the symptoms of arthritis and for other health benefits. It was once commonly given to children, because the high levels of vitamin D in cod liver oil have been shown to prevent rickets and other symptoms of vitamin D deficiency.

It definitely belongs on the "gross" list:

Cod liver oil was traditionally manufactured by filling a wooden barrel with fresh cod livers and seawater and allowing the mixture to ferment for up to a year before removing the oil.

I'm sure like any oil it would have some laxative effect, although wikipedia doesn't mention that. But I don't think that was the primary purpose. Castor oil was the traditional laxative that children hated.

I remember our chemist was viewed as a sorta doctor when i was a kid, he sold all sorts of things over the counter and did give out advise on what the medications should be used for. I remember Dr MacKenzie's mentiods, Dr Nan's Cod Liver OIL, Ford pills, Vick's 'Vaco Rub', Alaskan Medicated Ju-Jubs and i guess was there was many more that i have forgotten.

In pharmacies here its possible to find tiny bottles of olive oil, sold either as a laxative, or to put down your ear in order to get ear wax out.

Vinny - maybe I was thinking of castor oil. Sounds like I should be taking cod liver oil for my arthritis. Welllll, maybe not.

Drovers reminded me - my cat used to throw up wads of dried cat food. Looked like poop made out of cat food. One day, my husband and I went to the unfinished side of the basement to find our daughter, who was about 1 year old at the time standing there eating one of them. She had a really attitude when we interrupted her meal, didn't fuss at all.

#35 -- That was about the only way you could get olive oil (under the name "sweet oil") in the English-speaking world up until Italian emigration started c. 1890.

But still to be buying it this way nowadays.I find it surprising that even if you did want to put it in your ear you would go down to the chemist and buy yourself a teeny tiny bottle. It would suggest there are still a large number of people who would not think of using it as a foodstuff. Just cost wise, you could buy a big enough bottle to keep yourself 'regular' from the supermarket. I guess that old habits die hard.

Castor oil is also used for lubrication of vehicle engines and mechanical moving parts apart from being a laxative for constipation.
Think "Castrol" the lub oil company adapted the name from castor oil.
Pretty certain that it can be,or already is, used as an alternatve bio fuel for motor vehicles as well.

my cat used to throw up wads of dried cat food.

Today, April 29, is Hairball Awareness Day.

Vicks Vapo-Rub is still around. I don't think I'd like to rub in on my chest & go around smelling like a pile of eucalyptus leaves, but it does help ease a congested chest if you put it in boiling water & inhale the steam.

I once had an interesting correspondence with was stuck answering the letters from a gentleman who decided to let me in on his cures for all sorts of ills. He recommended 20 Mule Team Borax (a laundry additive) to control Dutch Elm Disease, based on his cure of the "fungus ills' of an orchard. When I read through his description (he sent 10-12 page letters in the vilest handwriting) I realized he had cured the trees of boron deficiency.

HIs finest was his cure for cancer. He described his symptoms in detail--TMI detail--and explained that he was about to "go under the knife," when "theophanic connection" (i.e. personal message from God) gave him a "whiff of Vick's Vapo-Rub." He started eating a couple of tablespoons a day and all of his symptoms disappeared, except for a little ringing in the ears.

Eating Vick Vapo-Rub! That is really disgusting.

I can't believe today is Hairball Awareness Day! That is amazing. Talk about your Twilight Zone coincidences! Only you would even think of an H.A.D., much less know about it.

You are truly amazing nutrax!

sashac #36
That reminds me of my daughter, when she was about 3 y.o.
We were on the subway and she walked back and forth, entertaining some commuters.
Then she comes back and I ask her:
-what are you chewing?
-a chewing gum...
-someone gave you?
-no, it was on the floor....
!?!?

That's very practical of your daughter - waste not, want not. And really disgusting. (I'm presuming it was pre-chewed?)

Edited by: sashac001 for prechewing

My mother's chicken salad. I don't know what she put in it, but it was awful.

My parents tell me that, when I was really young, I used to love gribinas sandwiches (spelling?). It's chicken fat, butter and onions on white bread. I was apparently too young to remember and I still think they were lying.

Early on, I spread a slice of caraway rye bread very generously with schmaltz and grebenes. It was excessive, and I got sick to my stomach. Since then, I can only eat the stuff hidden in other foods, such as Black Radish Salad.

Or in Potato Knishes.

I recall that the first foods I concocted as a small child was a peanut butter, butter and green mint jelly sandwich. Truly revolting and inedible.

I also used to love to eat... salt! My parents had to keep it on the high shelf or otherwise I'd OD on the stuff and throw up all over the place.

I remember a childhood friend in kindergarten often licking a wall. He would find a small hole where the paint came off, and start licking it vigorously.

In "One hundred years of solitude" although it's fiction, Rebecca used to eat earth. Not quite uncommon among children, not necessarily starving.
Apparently, instinctively and unknowingly, children compensate that way the deficit of minerals in their bodies.

lord howe island

I believe I've mentioned this on a different thread already, but still: my cousin used to eat mosquitos. (He later became a vegan.)

W.

Anonimo - knishes are actually what the bible was talking about when it mentioned manna from heaven. In my younger days my favorite lunch was meat and potato knishes with a nice, barely pickled kosher pickle on the side, or a pickled tomato if the kosher ones looked too pickled.

walking - my daughter loves soy sauce (and plain salt). When she was younger, she would drink soy sauce instead of anything else with her meal if we would let her. Mosquitos? did he cook them first or just eat them live? Did he take the stingers off? He must be the least allergic person in the history of mankind.

Fieldgate - one has to wonder if your friend had lead poisoning.

Yonah Schimmel's still makes knishes on the Lower East Side, as they have for over a hundred years. They're now on Houston St, just up from Russ & Daughters Appetizing.

Alas, Guss's Pickles no longer has a shop in the neighborhood.

sigh I haven't had a knish for more years than I can remember. I really need to get to the Knish Shop. The problem being that a lot of delicatessens make a mushy knish with heavy chewy dough that just isn't right. Finding a nice crispy one isn't all that easy.

sashac, our standard for everyday knishes were the heavy, doughy ones sold at a kosher deli across 86th Street in Bensonhurst. They formed a solid base for the hot dogs and pickles we'd eat.

The homemade ones are so much daintier and crisp. I like them, too.

Anonimo - My problem with the doughy ones is probably that, for much of my early life we went to my grandparents' house for dinner. My grandmother always, and I mean always, served the crisp mini meat knishes and kosher pickles as an appetizer. They were my favorite part of the meal. I never even saw the doughy ones until years after we stopped going. The first time I bought one, I didn't know it was doughy and the flavor was different. It wasn't bad, just very dissapointing.

PS - my daughter's new disgusting favorites are eating cold dim sum (dumplings, in this case pork). And then drinking the sauce that comes with it.

Edited by: sashac001 due to watching her daughter have her snack.

did no one eat snot????? I didn't either .... but my granddaughter seems to have a fondness

I think even people who eat an occasional snot ball would be put off by snot-like food. After all, they know the snot didn't come from their own nose.

I used to eat butter, whole sticks at a time. They had to hide the butter dish from me so that I wouldn't scarf it all down.

You did walking - did you ever say whether your cousin ate them raw and what he did about the stingers?

@sascha

He'd just squash 'em and lick 'em off the back of his hand. He had exceptionally fast metabolism and needed his snacks between meals.

W.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

@lolasf how are you even still alive now lol eatin butter whole sticks at a time

bluecorp, butter doesn't contain any poisons. It's a fairly nutritious food, in fact.

I like butter.

Maybe blue is thinking of the cholesterol and fat.

I think you're right, sashac. But I get impatient with people who think that consuming a pound or two extra of butter over a couple of years of childhood is inevitably going to kill you. It's part of the "heart attack on a plate" or "I can feel my arteries hardening just reading the recipe" mentality that I just have no patience with.

I know what you mean but mayhap blue was joking. I've said that kind of thing jokingly.

People who say "I can feel my arteries hardening just reading the recipe" are joking; they don't expect the listeners to believe that they could feel their arteries hardening just reading the recipe.

But I think it's a joke that's evidence of an attitude towards food that I find annoying. Food is to be enjoyed. If it's food, then it isn't poison, and any food, including sticks of butter, can be part of a perfectly healthy diet.

I have to admit, if I'm really enjoying something and someone starts talking about the health issues involved, I get a bit miffed, especially if they're eating it too. Otherwise, I don't think about it much.

I was joking of course but i still dont think its a good idea to eat butter sticks