• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Growing up not wealthy - a meal you ate so much and grew to hate it, but now love it

Might me an oddball question. For many years of my life my folks hit a rough patch, so we ate cheap but enough to feed 5 people and try to be healthy.

Pea soup with hot dog sliced in it (ham was pricey) was very common, we'd have that maybe 3 times a week. We ate it so much I grew too hate it. I hadn't had it for probably 10 years after that rough time.

Years later as an adult with my own family and house and we're ok, bring on the pea soup, I can't get enough.

Any of you got stories like this where you had something so much you hated it, went through a dry spell and now love

Also if you have a recipe post it, sometimes cheap and healthy and easy,.I now see as an adult are some of the best things you can eat.
 
Last edited:

teezzy

Banned
Grew up fairly poor in Detroit

My tastes haven't really changed

I miss my mom's chicken noodle soup, stuffed cabbage, and spaghetti with meatballs quite a lot. Wish I had her teach me to make em before she passed

A real cheap meal I still make is hot peppers and egg. Slice up some jalapeño and banana pepper in a pan with olive oil. Cook em up. Add eggs. Salt and pepper to taste. We'd eat it right out of the pan, my dad and I. It's awesome
 
Last edited:

Kev Kev

Member
i always found beans and white rice (plain, no sauce or seasoning or anything) to be boring, bland and disapointing. but i eat it all the time now because its cheap, filling and decently nutritious. throw a couple over easy eggs on top and thats a damn good meal.

honestly tho im really easy to please so i never complained about food as a kid, despite being pretty poor and not always having the best meals put in front of me. i was just happy to have something to fill my belly, and im still that way today. but yeah beans and rice is the first that comes to mind
 
Grew up fairly poor in Detroit

My tastes haven't really changed

I miss my mom's chicken noodle soup, stuffed cabbage, and spaghetti with meatballs quite a lot. Wish I had her teach me to make em before she passed

A real cheap meal I still make is hot peppers and egg. Slice up some jalapeño and banana pepper in a pan with olive oil. Cook em up. Add eggs. Salt and pepper to taste. We'd eat it right out of the pan, my dad and I. It's awesome
Stuffed cabbage was another one for us too, but that was a "Sunday treat" once in a while. Still love that to this day, we didn't eat it enough to get sick of it
 
Hamburger beans. Several cans of pork and beans, a pound of ground beef, a little bit of brown sugar, ketchup, and mustard. Simmer for 20 minutes and it would feed a family of 4. The funny thing is, it would be a lot more expensive now with the cost of meat being what it is. 😉
Right! I was telling my wife, my grandparents who didn't have a lot of money at all would make pot roast every Sunday, or sloppy Joe, in the 90s that was cheap cheap meat. Now a chili is fuckin gourmet at the price of chop meat.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Didnt grow up poor. By the time I was raised as a kid my parents were already doing fine. Although their dirt poor immigrant roots showed (even to this day).

Some weird shit we ate, as they didn't want to spend more money:

- Ate burgers and hot dogs with bread
- Ketchup only. My mom never bought mustard
- Used corn syrup on pancakes
- Our fam never ate breakfast. One part lazy, one part half the typical breakfast food we never had. At most a bowl of cereal. We almost never ate bacon or sausages. Eggs were meant for using in baking
- My mom made this weird tomato slop sauce. It didnt resemble or was made for pasta sauce. It was this gooey slop that was meant to pour on potatoes or rice. Probably my most hated dish my mom made

I'd say the only thing I now might copy is eating burgers or dogs with bread if I dont got buns around.
 
Last edited:
Didnt grow up poor. By the time I was raised as a kid my parents were already doing fine. Although their dirt poor immigrant roots showed (even to this day).

Some weird shit we ate, as they didn't want to spend more money:

- Ate burgers and hot dogs with bread
- Ketchup only. My mom never bought mustard
- Used corn syrup on pancakes
- Our fam never ate breakfast. One part lazy, one part half the typical breakfast food we never had. At most a bowl of cereal. We almost never ate bacon or sausages. Eggs were meant for using in baking
- My mom made this weird tomato slop sauce. It didnt resemble or was made for pasta sauce. It was this gooey slop that was meant to pour on potatoes or rice. Probably my most hated dish my mom made

I'd say the only thing I now might copy is eating burgers or dogs with bread if I dont got buns around.
What nationality were they?
 
Last edited:

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
- Fried bologna sandwiches. Came to hate them as a kid. Now they seem like luxuries few people realize the joys of. I dress them up all fancy with different cheeses, lots of veggies, even avocado sometimes
- Instant mashed potatoes. They're convenient and while obviously not as good as freshly made mashed, it has a unique taste I came to love. Makes me nostalgic
- Tuna casserole
 

Meicyn

Gold Member
7vHeIwo.jpg


I still eat this shit. One of my coworkers called it prison food. lmao
 

Biff

Member
Tuna sandwiches. Go to lunch growing up. Absolutely hated them by high school and stopped eating them once I went to university.

Now in my adult years I actually look forward to a simple tuna sandwich, or even just a tuna salad. Tuna, mayo, diced tomatoes and pickles gawddd dammnnn that's good eatin
 

Trogdor1123

Member
Beans on toast. Love it! Kind of did as a kid too. I would never have called myself picky though. You ate what was put in front of you at my house.

My mom used to come up with fun names for stuff to make them better too. Some days we would have a “feast” which was really just a bunch of veggies cut fun by her with some dip and we would eat them on the floor around them. Loved it.

Btw, whoever the beautiful bastard who gifted me gold, thank you!
 
noodles GIF

When i was in highschool & college it was Instant Ramen all day everyday
Hate it so much but was poor as fuck then so had to eat it daily
But now i enjoy it weekly gotta have it atleast twice a week
 

Sakura

Member
All the foods I hated as a kid, I still hate. The only exception being spaghetti. Not sure why I hated it for some reason, maybe my mom just makes some bad spaghetti.
 

Braag

Member
When I was studying I was probably the poorest I've ever been. Me and my flatmate would throw noodles in a pot and just throw all scraps we had in the fridge there. Canned tuna fish, beans, mushrooms... Anything really to make it more filling.
Now 13 years later, we are still friends and despite never having to eat stuff like that again, sometimes when we hang out together we make that noodle scramble thing again, cause despite being cheap it was still oddly good.
 
Last edited:

nush

Gold Member
Grew up poor and ate a lot of bland food, when I got older I learned the food was supposed to be good except my mum can't cook and seasonings herbs and sauces required to make the food taste good were beyond her skillset.
 

Dithadder

Member
I don't love it, haven't eaten it since then, but im curious if i still hate liver and onions. I looked for liver at the store but couldnt find it.
 

Nobody_Important

“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Mazzios pizza. I fucking LIVE for that shit now that I live in Texas and there are no Mazzios here. It was the go-to weekend meal for me when I was a kid because we were kinda poor, but could feed my mom and I all weekend long for a good price.


I grab that shit literally EVERY time I go to Oklahoma for anything now. It is like nostalgia for the soul.
 

Meicyn

Gold Member
I don't love it, haven't eaten it since then, but im curious if i still hate liver and onions. I looked for liver at the store but couldnt find it.
You might have to check the freezer section. Liver, chitlins, gizzards, and all that other fun stuff doesn’t sell through like they used to.
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
My diet and taste preferences have absolutely changed. Being exposed to high end cooking really helped. Nowadays I crave healthy food and don't have much of a desire for things like fast food or highly processed foods. It helps that I can tell how much my diet affects my mental & physical state. Bad food makes me feel like shit and good makes me feel great.
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
noodles GIF

When i was in highschool & college it was Instant Ramen all day everyday
Hate it so much but was poor as fuck then so had to eat it daily
But now i enjoy it weekly gotta have it atleast twice a week


But these soups, I imagine, are made from recyclable diapers. 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮
 

Lady Jane

Banned
My roommate was a waitress at a high-end Chinese restaurant, she always brought home noodles that slapped hard. It was our dinner for a good year. Now I'm always searching for places with good noodles.
 
Last edited:

lachesis

Member
My mom grew up rich, so even though we weren’t rich - I grew up with food that’s rather high class. She loves cooking, and still learning new recipes, tries new things.

JXAMIux.jpg

Like this. (Her actual home cooking that she sent the pic to me the other day)

Acacia flower tempura - something she ate when she was young at a high-end restaurant.
 
Last edited:

p_xavier

Authorized Fister
Fried baloney and Kraft Dinner with ketchup. We used to have it a couple of times a week when younger. Started to hate it but it is good comfort food.
 
Since I grew up in a post war country, my folks were used to have little to no ingredients, so every breakfast would be this huge piece of dough baked in the oven, when they serve it they put homemade "sour cream" over it and fresh cheese. I used to hate it, but tbh I haven't had it in 6 years and I'm down for some.

maslenica-tajna.jpg
 
Last edited:

German Hops

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
Since I grew up in a post war country, my folks were used to have little to no ingredients, so every breakfast would be this huge piece of dough baked in the oven, when they serve it they put homemade "sour cream" over it and fresh cheese. I used to hate it, but tbh I haven't had it in 6 years and I'm down for some.

maslenica-tajna.jpg
Why didn't they put the cheese in the dough? The Greeks love it.
 
Last edited:

nush

Gold Member
I don't love it, haven't eaten it since then, but im curious if i still hate liver and onions. I looked for liver at the store but couldnt find it.

Go to a Chinese restaurant and order fried liver, it's amazing. Trying to make liver an onions by yourself would maybe not be a good test if you like it becuse you probably don't know how it's supposed to taste. But that's great too, hated it as a kid.
 

p_xavier

Authorized Fister
Go to a Chinese restaurant and order fried liver, it's amazing. Trying to make liver an onions by yourself would maybe not be a good test if you like it becuse you probably don't know how it's supposed to taste. But that's great too, hated it as a kid.
I watched Leolo as a movie and the family eated liver that the son masturbated and came in. Couid never ate liver after that.
 
Hamburger beans. Several cans of pork and beans, a pound of ground beef, a little bit of brown sugar, ketchup, and mustard. Simmer for 20 minutes and it would feed a family of 4. The funny thing is, it would be a lot more expensive now with the cost of meat being what it is. 😉
Heck being poor. This sounds awesome.
 
My diet and taste preferences have absolutely changed. Being exposed to high end cooking really helped. Nowadays I crave healthy food and don't have much of a desire for things like fast food or highly processed foods. It helps that I can tell how much my diet affects my mental & physical state. Bad food makes me feel like shit and good makes me feel great.
This is the equivalent of walking into a restaurant and announcing you're vegan. Of course good healthy food is best, but it didn't answer my question at all.
 

TheUsual

Gold Member
I wouldn't say we were poor, but there were times that now I could tell my parents were squeezing the budget.
One thing was taking hamburger meat and mixing it with a can of tomato sauce. That's it. I tried it again when I was on my own and it was surprisingly good. But we had it way too many times growing up.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Tuna sandwiches. Go to lunch growing up. Absolutely hated them by high school and stopped eating them once I went to university.

Now in my adult years I actually look forward to a simple tuna sandwich, or even just a tuna salad. Tuna, mayo, diced tomatoes and pickles gawddd dammnnn that's good eatin

Tuna sandwich with thinly sliced cucumbers and tomato. *chef's kiss*
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Not related to be wealthy but my parents forced me to drink and eat:

Cold and hot milk
Fresh Orange juice
almost any bottled Fruit juice
Broccoli/califlower
Pasta with boiled green lattuce


And now i fucking hate all that stuff and i get sick just by smelling it.

Thanks for nothing mom.
 
Top Bottom