I had such fun compiling my list of favorite childhood foods (see “Food Memories: My Favorite Foods as a Child”) that I’ve decided to list my least favorite childhood foods to see whether or not they are still on my list of all-time most disliked foods.

  • Least Favorite Breakfast: Boxed dry cereal with milk poured over it. Yes, let’s start with the absolute worst food item on my list. I hated it then and I hate it now. As a child, I liked to eat many different cereals right out of the box—I just didn’t like it submerged in a disgusting bowlful of milk. There’s nothing more repulsive or nauseating to me (concerning food) as boxed dry cereal becoming soggy and lifeless, depositing all kinds of gunk into the milk. I used to gag whenever I was near somebody who was eating it. When my mother ate it, I’d have to leave the room before she was finished, because I knew she would be lifting the bowl to drink the milk that was leftover—the milk that was full of particles and slop and…just the thought of it still makes me queasy. Yuck!
  • Least Favorite Lunch: Grandma’s home-canned mystery meat, a slice of bread, and her home-canned peaches. Whenever we stayed with Grandma, she would serve us this horrible lunch. With her questionable canning techniques (it’s amazing that we weren’t all poisoned), her canned meat had the flavor of a damp cellar and the color of road kill. I hate to pick on Grandma, but that lunch was enough for anyone to lose their appetite. I usually stuck with the bread—it was the only thing that I considered safe since it was commercially made and came from the supermarket. Remember, if you’ve read my other posts about Grandma’s cooking, she did not fit into that stereotype of all grandmothers being good cooks (unfortunately). Since I am no longer forced to experience the misery of her canned lunch, I can’t think of a lunch that I would now consider being among my least favorites, but if Grandma were still here, her infamous home-canned lunch would still take the prize, hands down.
  • Least Favorite Dinner: Sauerkraut and spare ribs. Dad insisted on having this once a week (his favorite meal), but I hated it, especially the sauerkraut. Today, I’m still not a fan of sauerkraut, but I like spare ribs very much—just not covered in mounds of sauerkraut. I much prefer the ribs covered in barbecue sauce.
  • Least Favorite Side Dish: Canned creamed corn. Why wreck perfectly good corn with all of that milky horribleness? That’s what I’ve always thought about canned cream corn. Since corn was the only vegetable I would eat as a child, it was a real disappointment when it was ruined by that awful milk bath. I still hate canned creamed corn with a passion.
  • Least Favorite Fresh Vegetable: All vegetables, except corn. I still like corn, but today, I like most vegetables and actually prefer them over several types of meat (except chicken, of course).
  • Least Favorite Fresh Fruit: Peaches. I think my hatred of peaches as a child was definitely because of Grandma’s home-canned peaches that she served at lunchtime. They looked old and rusty and most unappetizing. Today, I like peaches very much as long as the peaches are not home-canned.
  • Least Favorite Dessert: Chocolate cream pie. When I was a kid, I happened to get violently ill after eating chocolate cream pie, so I never ate it again. More than likely, I got sick because of something else—a germ or virus or, perhaps it was because of Grandma’s infamous home-canned mystery meat. Now, whenever I see chocolate cream pie, I continue to associate it with being ill, so I still can’t make myself eat it.
  • Least Favorite Candies: None. If it contained sugar, I loved it, and I still do.
  • Least Favorite Between Meal Snack: Raisins. Mom was determined that her children were going to eat healthy for as long as she was able to force it upon us. She managed this very well until we were about twelve or thirteen years old. Raisins were another of the healthy between meal snack choices that she offered, but I couldn’t stand them. As a kid, I thought raisins looked like wrinkly dead bugs. Today, raisins are among my favorite snacks.
  • Least Favorite Beverage: Milk—still is. As a child, I had to hold my nose to force it down. I could tolerate it when I added chocolate syrup to it, but it was a rare occasion when we were allowed to do that. When I was about fourteen or fifteen, my mother no longer forced milk on me (Hallelujah!), and I haven’t touched it since.
  • Least Favorite Childhood Foods—Period: Cereal with milk, canned creamed corn, and plain milk. I have never budged in my intense dislike of this terrible trio.

Conclusion: Some of the foods that I hated as a child, I now like very much: spare ribs, vegetables, peaches, and raisins, but the three foods I most disliked—cereal with milk, canned creamed corn, and plain milk—are still tops on my list of foods that I can’t do. And, of the three, boxed dry cereal with milk is still the champion—I can’t even look at it without feeling sick.