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
I grew up despising liver. Other organ meats qere fine (especially steak and kidney pie!) But I could not do liver. Just…ugh.
Had it at a local diner recently, for reasons I have a hard time elucidating…and while I didn’t love it, I appreciated it far more. Now I few a sort of once-in-a-blue-m9on obligation to have it - even now, having hit middle age, it feels like an obligatory ‘grown-up’ thing to do, a requisite act of adulting.
That said - I also used to hate avocado, but Inexplicably sushi changes that. The one thing from my childhood that is a hate I’ve never revisited is frozen baby lima beans. They were always chalky, bitter, dry, and nasty…yet I saw a lima beann and bacon hummus recipe and some hithertofore unknown part of me wants to try it.
Corgiettes are tight out due to having had toblive off of them f or a summer. NEVER AGAIN.