For years I was in a bi-monthly cooking group. We usually met at a friends house and would make dinner there. One night all those terrible things your mom and your aunt Sally forced on you came up.
Number 1 was Green Bean Casserole, for the uninitiated this is 1 can green beans, 1 can Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, topped with Durkee fried onions then baked. It is terrible, canned green beans are mushy and flavorless, cream of mushroom soup is also mushy and terrible with the added bonus of tasting like a salt lick. Durkee fried onions I will eat as a snack (I will hear no bad words about them, though they are also terrible in their own way. Don’t start). The original recipe unsurprisingly came from Campbell’s Test Kitchen as a way for working housewives to get dinner on the table with a minimum of fuss.
We talked about it (argued) and half the group thought it could be a great dish, the other half speed dialed their therapists.
The next time we met Green Bean Casserole was the main. Blanched fresh green beans were layered with crimini mushrooms simmered in cream and herbs, then topped with Asian fried shallots. It was a hit, and ended up in rotation. It is actually fantastic when made fresh.
No.2 was Fish in Aspic. No one could do anything with this, the dish just sucks.
No.3 was Fondue, which I hated as a kid then had good versions of. Porcini (Cepes) with Beaufort and sourdough, Beef loin with carmelized onions and red wine reduction, etc.
What are yours? Have you recreated any horrible dishes and made them delicious?
p.s. great aunt Beth you almost put me off Turkey for life…
ETA: I know we’re supposed to tag posts, I don’t see a way to do that in Voyager. Anyway, Discussion
Thinking very hard, I’m unsure if they’re was any food so bad I remember it being bad. Mother would claim her meatloaf was bad but I legit don’t remember it being bad? It was fine. She held herself to a high standard when she had two kids, one of which ate sour cream with a spoon and pickle juice from the jar.
She never did make green bean casserole since she hated it so much.
She canned green beans, and those could be weird after a year or two on the shelf, maybe once I get a pressure canner I can try to make those.
No one in my family could cook, at all. I say that as someone who would happily eat Spaghetti-O’s cold from the can after turning it upside down so all the pasta was now on ‘top’.
I was extremely lucky. My mother knew how to cook (not from her mother though, she never cooked) and my dad, during his stint of “all jobs are a job” he was a line cook and made a number of nice dishes.
Neither did baking much, and that fell to me during the holidays since I looooved cookies.
Hmmmm… Pickle juice… 🤤
It’s delicious!
And unnerving, apparently, so I’m not allowed to just drink it from the jar, even when the jar is empty. I must be polite and use a glass! XD