At a recent dinner, Tina and I shared stories about the foods (good and bad) that we’d eaten as children. So just for fun, I thought I’d conduct an informal survey of my Facebook friends. Here’s what I wrote: “I’m taking a break from Trump-bashing to toss out a frivolous question: What did you eat in your youth that you now look back on and think ‘Gross!’? I’ll start: A grape jelly and Velveeta cheese sandwich on white bread. (In fairness, I grew up in West Virginia in the 1950s.)”

Wow! I struck a nerve — and a funny bone. Seems like my Facebook friends, many of whom are in their 60s and 70s — loved the chance to strut their gastronomical stuff. So here goes. (NOTE: I suggest you not read the rest of this column right after you’ve eaten.)

Bologna earned many mentions, but the grossest entry in this category was, “bologna with mashed potatoes and applesauce inside.”

Many people noted “liver and onions,” but the best of these was, “liver and onions because my mother didn’t know that burning the liver was a bad thing.” Another person called out her mother saying, “My mother took everything that was in the refrigerator and threw it into a big pot. Anything I had after that was haute cuisine.”

One person reported the “delights” of fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, while another cited peanut butter and ketchup sandwiches.

A person who had spent much of her youth in Asia offered a long list, topped by sea cucumber, pigs intestines cooked in chicken blood and dried jellyfish.

The question prompted one person to remember a school lunch consisting of “salmon patties in the cafeteria with stringy okra and overcooked soggy spinach.”

One woman recalled that she loved Pop Tarts, but her nutritionist mother wouldn’t let her have them, so she could only satisfy her craving at a friend’s slumber party.

One man confessed that his family mostly ate what was left over from his parents’ store. “When I was a kid, I didn’t know that cheese wasn’t always green or that fruits and vegetables weren’t always stewed.”

How about “butter on rye bread doused in sugar.”

“Would snowball cakes covered in marshmallows and coconut” satisfy your sweet tooth?

One woman said, “My brother loved hog brains so we had them pretty often.” And another submitted, “calf brains and scrambled eggs.”

How about “a process ham sandwich spread with and dill pickles with a lot of chemicals thrown in.” Or “bacon, peanut butter and mayonnaise on matzoh.”

One man confessed to his horror that, “My mother got on a sweetbread kick.”

Beef tongue got some citations, although the flavorings for this delicacy ranged from hot mustard to tomato aspic.

One woman confessed that it was hard just to type her entry, “cottage cheese and ketchup.”

I noted on this thread that I used to squirt whipped cream directly into my mouth, but my father admonished me by wrapping a whipped cream can wrapper around a can of shaving cream. (Yes, I fell for his prank.) A Facebook friend said that her brother would squirt Cheese Whiz right into his mouth. (My kind of guy.)

Let’s give scrapple, mentioned often, its culinary due along with creamed chipped beef on toast.

Ever had cusk? One guy simple wrote, “Cusk. Hands down.”

One woman allowed as how she would pick up a piece of chewing gum on the ground explaining that, “It still had some sweet.” Okay, then.

“My father loved to hunt,” remembered one woman, “so we often had rabbit or pheasant riddled with buckshot.”

Perhaps the overall winner on the grossness scale was the offering of a woman who wrote, “Soggy tuna fish sandwiches with worm guts on my fingers while fishing.”

That’s enough. Your tour down gastronomy lane is over. Obviously, one didn’t have to have grown up in West Virginia to have experienced off-the-wall food, at least back in my day.

On the brighter side, one woman wrote, “It’s amazing that we are mostly healthy after all that food.” Indeed.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns dtreadw575@aol.com.

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