Immigrant kids in the West, what was the old country food you hated?
January 7, 2025 11:58 AM Subscribe
I was recently talking to an adult friend who immigrated from Belarus when he was in elementary school. I told him how I'd discovered kholodets (aspic) and enjoyed it, but he reacted with such revulsion, and told me it was the kind of old country food he could only stomach if his parents let him have it with a glass of Coca-Cola.
That reminded me of my own childhood with immigrant Asian parents who enjoyed fu gua (bitter melon), that I would also only stomach with a Coke. It also made me wonder if there are other such beloved old country foods that don't fit an American palate, and so are despised by early-generation American children. Natto? Haggis? I want to try them!
I am not an immigrant kid, but I am an immigrant in-law.
Romanians are often fond of ciorbă de burtă (tripe soup). And I've learned to love so much that my spouse's side of the family feeds me, but I just cannot with the tripe soup. It's not only gross as an idea, based on what it is, it also has a revoltingly spongy texture I just cannot handle. I will eat any number of the other ciorbă soups (sour soups) but not that one.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:03 PM on January 7 [3 favorites]
Romanians are often fond of ciorbă de burtă (tripe soup). And I've learned to love so much that my spouse's side of the family feeds me, but I just cannot with the tripe soup. It's not only gross as an idea, based on what it is, it also has a revoltingly spongy texture I just cannot handle. I will eat any number of the other ciorbă soups (sour soups) but not that one.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:03 PM on January 7 [3 favorites]
I was raised in Scotland and didn't mind haggis - although we only had it on Burns night and I'm not sure I'd feel the same way if we'd had it more frequently.
I don't know at all if this is particular to Scotland, but from time to time we'd have liver - served like a steak, with potatoes and a vegetable - and it was disgusting, both in taste and in texture, yet my parents would chomp it down like eating the liver of an animal is a perfectly normal thing to do (see also kidneys in a steak and kidney pie - what?). I don't eat meat now.
posted by 7 Minutes of Madness at 12:24 PM on January 7 [2 favorites]
I don't know at all if this is particular to Scotland, but from time to time we'd have liver - served like a steak, with potatoes and a vegetable - and it was disgusting, both in taste and in texture, yet my parents would chomp it down like eating the liver of an animal is a perfectly normal thing to do (see also kidneys in a steak and kidney pie - what?). I don't eat meat now.
posted by 7 Minutes of Madness at 12:24 PM on January 7 [2 favorites]
Salo (pork fat) - ymmv if you're into bacon and/or fat
Holodets (meat jelly) - you already know this one, the word "aspic" is new to me though
Herring under fur coat (herring with beets and mayo) - often I do like it, sometimes it's just weird
posted by danceswithlight at 12:26 PM on January 7
Holodets (meat jelly) - you already know this one, the word "aspic" is new to me though
Herring under fur coat (herring with beets and mayo) - often I do like it, sometimes it's just weird
posted by danceswithlight at 12:26 PM on January 7
I don't know about despised but I never got the taste for Indian pickles (achar), they were too strong for me as a kid and now when I'm much better with eating stronger tasting foods we don't have them in the house (my mom used to have jars of the stuff but she's stopped eating them).
Also there was some kind of dish with brain in it that just squigged me out because of brains. Less hate and more us kids noping right out without even trying some. I was OK with eating liver and kidney but something about brains just got to me.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:42 PM on January 7
Also there was some kind of dish with brain in it that just squigged me out because of brains. Less hate and more us kids noping right out without even trying some. I was OK with eating liver and kidney but something about brains just got to me.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:42 PM on January 7
Whenever Nonna Rose made tripe, all the kids suddenly had tummy aches. Of course we loved it until we found out what it was.
We all looked forward to the Feast of the Seven Fishes, mostly for baccala ,calamari, but especially scungilli.
I was never a fan of bitter greens until I grew up. Now I LOVE them.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:16 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]
We all looked forward to the Feast of the Seven Fishes, mostly for baccala ,calamari, but especially scungilli.
I was never a fan of bitter greens until I grew up. Now I LOVE them.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:16 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]
I'm not an immigrant but my parents are. Honestly, I'm a picky eater and I'm not down with most traditional foods or for that matter most foods made by any other culture. I'm just picky.
But if we're talking about actual ewww, gross, instead of just "No, thank you," then Fenesca which is a stinky gross soup that Ecuadorians make for Good Friday.
It's only made once a year because it's a crap load of work. Traditionally it is said to have 12 grains in it, but i think they play a little fast and loose with what they count as a grain (I mean pumpkin, really?) so it's more like 7 or 8 different kinds of beans and some squash-adjacent vegetables. Those 8 different kinds of beans are cooked from dry and then peeled one by one before putting them in the soup. Seriously. I know someone who makes and sells the soup every year for families who have the good sense not to make it but lack the good sense not to eat it. Last year she made 200 gallons all delivered on Good Friday. The whole family spent days peeling beans. Like peeling lentils one by one. Seriously.
Ok, so in addition to too many beans and vegetables, there's salt cod. The salt cod is also soaked and cooked separately before it goes in the soup. That's where half the stink comes from. Then there's a bunch of other stuff: creams and cheeses and milk. Herbs. And then, the ultimate stinky they add cilantro, so now your whole house stinks of cod and cilantro. Gross.
They serve it with fried plantain and hard-boiled eggs (oh good, more stink!), and tiny little empanadas.
Now just to be clear, I've never tried it because I dislike virtually every ingredient, but unlike my usual pickiness, I actually object to the existence of this stuff even for one day a year.
* Those of you with an unhealthy and disturbing attention for detail will know that earlier today I mentioned in another post that I have no sense of smell. This is true, but I used to have an excellent sense of smell and trust me can be quite stinky.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:16 PM on January 7 [2 favorites]
But if we're talking about actual ewww, gross, instead of just "No, thank you," then Fenesca which is a stinky gross soup that Ecuadorians make for Good Friday.
It's only made once a year because it's a crap load of work. Traditionally it is said to have 12 grains in it, but i think they play a little fast and loose with what they count as a grain (I mean pumpkin, really?) so it's more like 7 or 8 different kinds of beans and some squash-adjacent vegetables. Those 8 different kinds of beans are cooked from dry and then peeled one by one before putting them in the soup. Seriously. I know someone who makes and sells the soup every year for families who have the good sense not to make it but lack the good sense not to eat it. Last year she made 200 gallons all delivered on Good Friday. The whole family spent days peeling beans. Like peeling lentils one by one. Seriously.
Ok, so in addition to too many beans and vegetables, there's salt cod. The salt cod is also soaked and cooked separately before it goes in the soup. That's where half the stink comes from. Then there's a bunch of other stuff: creams and cheeses and milk. Herbs. And then, the ultimate stinky they add cilantro, so now your whole house stinks of cod and cilantro. Gross.
They serve it with fried plantain and hard-boiled eggs (oh good, more stink!), and tiny little empanadas.
Now just to be clear, I've never tried it because I dislike virtually every ingredient, but unlike my usual pickiness, I actually object to the existence of this stuff even for one day a year.
* Those of you with an unhealthy and disturbing attention for detail will know that earlier today I mentioned in another post that I have no sense of smell. This is true, but I used to have an excellent sense of smell and trust me can be quite stinky.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:16 PM on January 7 [2 favorites]
Colombian pasteles are traditionally eaten or given as gifts at Christmas and I hate them.
posted by justjess at 1:26 PM on January 7
posted by justjess at 1:26 PM on January 7
I never got up the desire to try balut, and coming downstairs to find my uncle eating one in the kitchen in the dark didn't help.
posted by PussKillian at 1:47 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]
posted by PussKillian at 1:47 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]
My parents emigrated from Kansas to the mid-Atlantic but none of their children inherited my father's love of beef liver (one of the few 'foods' which I would characterize with the word revulsion).
posted by Rash at 1:47 PM on January 7
posted by Rash at 1:47 PM on January 7
(also not a recent immigrant family) but the tripe theme in these comments reminds me of a buddy from Poland originally, and for whatever reason I sent along a gift to his mom and it was a CD from the Barra MacNeils and she sent back a couple of care packages of Polish foods that (I think) are common during the Christmas season? and a lot of those dishes featured tripe. And I'm not a big fan, I stomached through because a food gift is a food gift but not a fan.
posted by ginger.beef at 2:01 PM on January 7
posted by ginger.beef at 2:01 PM on January 7
My bubby kept a kosher kitchen, but that whole side of the family has never seemed to me to understand or enjoy eating for its own sake. I've never been sure if it's kosher food preparation I don't care for (not revulsion, it's just all so dry, bland, overcooked, devoid of unctuous pleasure) or if bubby was just a bad cook.
Kugel. Margarine on the table. Frozen Lender's mini-bagels. Gefilte fish from the store. Iceberg lettuce salads with thousand island dressing from a bottle. Dry chicken. Tuna fish sandwiches.
Late in her life, I went with my dad to Russ and Daughters south of Houston (not Texas, Manhattan) and brought back a whole smoked trout for her and I to share. She tried to say she couldn't have it, since she was on a no-salt diet, and I said bubby, what for? You are 92, let's live a little. So we sat in her kitchen in Kew Gardens and pulled the smoked trout off the bones and ate it. She and my zaydeh had not eaten salt since the 1970s, I'm pretty sure, but he had been gone for more than a dozen years at that point, and I think it was his heart that mandated the no-salt diet, not anything of hers. I hope she enjoyed that fish as much as I enjoyed sharing it with her, but maybe she thought it was too salty and was just humoring me.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 2:03 PM on January 7 [4 favorites]
Kugel. Margarine on the table. Frozen Lender's mini-bagels. Gefilte fish from the store. Iceberg lettuce salads with thousand island dressing from a bottle. Dry chicken. Tuna fish sandwiches.
Late in her life, I went with my dad to Russ and Daughters south of Houston (not Texas, Manhattan) and brought back a whole smoked trout for her and I to share. She tried to say she couldn't have it, since she was on a no-salt diet, and I said bubby, what for? You are 92, let's live a little. So we sat in her kitchen in Kew Gardens and pulled the smoked trout off the bones and ate it. She and my zaydeh had not eaten salt since the 1970s, I'm pretty sure, but he had been gone for more than a dozen years at that point, and I think it was his heart that mandated the no-salt diet, not anything of hers. I hope she enjoyed that fish as much as I enjoyed sharing it with her, but maybe she thought it was too salty and was just humoring me.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 2:03 PM on January 7 [4 favorites]
My mom HATES taramosalata.
My dad is a huge weirdo (affectionate) who loves gefilte fish and chopped liver but most of my fellow Jewish kids hate 'em.
For me growing up the 'old country' food I hated was of course the one common to both my Greek and Jewish ancestry: falafel. I thought it smelled like farts. (Love it now.)
posted by capricorn at 2:51 PM on January 7
My dad is a huge weirdo (affectionate) who loves gefilte fish and chopped liver but most of my fellow Jewish kids hate 'em.
For me growing up the 'old country' food I hated was of course the one common to both my Greek and Jewish ancestry: falafel. I thought it smelled like farts. (Love it now.)
posted by capricorn at 2:51 PM on January 7
oh god I was about 11 visiting family in germany, and spent a week with my grandfather, a very sweet old guy. The first dinner was Schinken, (black forest ham) but instead of thinly sliced like you get in a deli, they had a hunk of it that was cut into little cubes then put on a nice crusty bun with butter. Very nice, loved it. So, I was looking forward to see what the next dinner would be. It was Blutwurst, but they split it open when frying it so it was a nasty black crumbly pile of ewwwwww that looked like this. I ate shinken for the rest of the week.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:27 PM on January 7
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:27 PM on January 7
As a kid - pretty much all the Soviet/Russian-style soups: borscht, shchi, svekolnik, ukha, etc.
posted by kickingtheground at 4:25 PM on January 7
posted by kickingtheground at 4:25 PM on January 7
Beef tongue. Russian/Ukrainian style, which I think is just boiled with no additional flavors added. I've also seen it sliced and added to holodets, but it is eaten on its own too.
Liver, as others mentioned.
Chicken hearts and chicken gizzards. Although I don't mind chicken hearts now when they're deep fried. They're just crispy and you can't tell they're hearts.
Ukha (fish soup) was something I couldn't stomach as a kid but I love all kinds of Asian seafood soups and seafood chowders now, so I wonder if I wouldn't mind it now.
My husband is Dominican and hated bacalao as a kid. I think he disliked the dried bacalao that was reconstituted and cooked with. He's ok with fresh cod now but it's still his least favorite fish. We tried bacalao in Portugal and Spain and still didn't love it compared to other seafood.
posted by dabadoo at 7:34 PM on January 7
Liver, as others mentioned.
Chicken hearts and chicken gizzards. Although I don't mind chicken hearts now when they're deep fried. They're just crispy and you can't tell they're hearts.
Ukha (fish soup) was something I couldn't stomach as a kid but I love all kinds of Asian seafood soups and seafood chowders now, so I wonder if I wouldn't mind it now.
My husband is Dominican and hated bacalao as a kid. I think he disliked the dried bacalao that was reconstituted and cooked with. He's ok with fresh cod now but it's still his least favorite fish. We tried bacalao in Portugal and Spain and still didn't love it compared to other seafood.
posted by dabadoo at 7:34 PM on January 7
Oh. Herring for breakfast. I don't mind it later in the day but first thing in the morning? Nope. And basically a lot of "regular" food for breakfast. My mom made tuna salad, mashed potatoes for breakfast sometimes. I couldn't stomach that in the mornings.
Also, some of my family bites into sliced raw onion in between eating grilled meat /kebabs and that is just vile, in my opinion.
Also, my grandma makes a pumpkin kasha. This might just be a bad recipe and might not be something that other people eat in Russia/Ukraine. It's essentially pumpkin rice pudding but she doesn't add any sweetener or cinnamon or spices and hers is watery and a little lumpy. Gag.
posted by dabadoo at 7:41 PM on January 7
Also, some of my family bites into sliced raw onion in between eating grilled meat /kebabs and that is just vile, in my opinion.
Also, my grandma makes a pumpkin kasha. This might just be a bad recipe and might not be something that other people eat in Russia/Ukraine. It's essentially pumpkin rice pudding but she doesn't add any sweetener or cinnamon or spices and hers is watery and a little lumpy. Gag.
posted by dabadoo at 7:41 PM on January 7
Polish kaszanka. Pork blood and barley sausage. Just say no. It was sliced and fried, and the smell lingered so awfully long.
posted by Yavsy at 8:43 PM on January 7
posted by Yavsy at 8:43 PM on January 7
Third generation here, so maybe not applicable, but I used to think kasha tasted like dirt. Now I'm a fan.
posted by brookeb at 9:51 PM on January 7
posted by brookeb at 9:51 PM on January 7
growing up a child of South American immigrants, for this one dish it wasn't so much due to the taste but to the, in my eyes as a child from the US, unthinkable horror of eating "cuy" (guinea pig). they are roasted whole over a fire so you know exactly what you are eating. we had a couple in my elementary school class back in NYC as class pets, so this dish was so unthinkable that it was crazy.
posted by alchemist at 11:26 PM on January 7
posted by alchemist at 11:26 PM on January 7
For me, too, this list: "Frozen Lender's mini-bagels. Gefilte fish from the store. Iceberg lettuce salads with thousand island dressing from a bottle. Dry chicken. Tuna fish sandwiches."
Adding cholent, too.
My parents also avoided salt and fat in the 80s and 90s, and don't like heavily flavored foods including garlic and onions, so spicy and/or well seasoned food was novel to me as an adult.
posted by wicked_sassy at 4:43 AM on January 8
Adding cholent, too.
My parents also avoided salt and fat in the 80s and 90s, and don't like heavily flavored foods including garlic and onions, so spicy and/or well seasoned food was novel to me as an adult.
posted by wicked_sassy at 4:43 AM on January 8
growing up a child of South American immigrants, for this one dish it wasn't so much due to the taste but to the, in my eyes as a child from the US, unthinkable horror of eating "cuy" (guinea pig). they are roasted whole over a fire so you know exactly what you are eating. we had a couple in my elementary school class back in NYC as class pets, so this dish was so unthinkable that it was crazy.
OMG, so yummy I literally spent 8 hours on a plane to go eat it one last time before losing my sense of smell/taste. Sorry to yum your yuck.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:16 AM on January 8
OMG, so yummy I literally spent 8 hours on a plane to go eat it one last time before losing my sense of smell/taste. Sorry to yum your yuck.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:16 AM on January 8
oh, If only I had a penguin..., not at all! that was a childhood thing. I've completely gotten over it and do enjoy it occasionally whenever we go by Ibarra. but i do stand with you against fanesca... my family in ecuador make it from scratch and it's a whole family thing for a couple of aunts where they make it and invite everybody, and i can't stand it...
posted by alchemist at 7:25 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by alchemist at 7:25 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
My German grandparents make a Christmas dessert dish called "wine soup." They say it's old country but who knows. It's sickeningly sweet and stinks up the whole house. Imagine: frozen grape juice, cheap red wine, raisins, barley, currants, lemon and sugar, all boiled for hours and served hot while adults laugh as the kids choke and splutter.
Grandpa also likes a whole raw onion before breakfast.
posted by lloquat at 11:36 AM on January 8
Grandpa also likes a whole raw onion before breakfast.
posted by lloquat at 11:36 AM on January 8
I see there has been no mention of lutefisk in this thread yet. Possibly due to the "immigrant kid" generation being the one my dad (or grandfather!) belongs to.
Definitely an "old country" food. Worth a try if you are in the upper midwest around christmas time when the churches have their big public dinner events.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 12:08 PM on January 8
Definitely an "old country" food. Worth a try if you are in the upper midwest around christmas time when the churches have their big public dinner events.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 12:08 PM on January 8
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posted by Rhedyn at 12:01 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]