'I can't stand these things': Porcupine meatballs and other despised family meals

If you were a lucky kid, family meals might have meant Taco Tuesday and Wings Wednesday, but there might still be one meal from childhood you'll never forget, for all the wrong reasons.

For On The Coast's Lisa Christiansen that meal was her mom's porcupine meatballs.

"They were simple," said Diane Christiansen. "You put them all together, rolled into balls and then you put them in the Crock-pot."

The meatballs are a mix of Minute Rice, ground beef and onion cooked in Campbell's tomato soup. Christiansen would prep them early in the day and they would be ready by the time her hungry kids got home.

The problem was her kids, Lisa and Steven, couldn't stand porcupine meatballs.

"The last time you said 'I can't stand these things' which was probably you were in grade school at the time," said Christiansen.

"I think I only probably made it a few times and then it just wasn't fun watching your little faces all wrinkled up as you ate it."

Listen to On The Coast's Lisa Christiansen make porcupine meatballs with her mom Diane.

The reviews were so poor the recipe for porcupine meatballs never made it into Diane Christiansen's spiral notebook of favourites like pumpkin pie and pork chop casserole.

At times a stay-at-home mom and other times working, she says the daily cooking and cleaning workload wasn't frustrating for her.

"I was just doing what all my friends were doing. We were all homemakers and enjoying our children."

Although she has fond memories of that time of her life, Christiansen says things would be different if she were a parent in 2019. There would be more fast food being picked up, and her kids would be making their own meals.

"That would be nice too and feeding mummy," said Christiansen. "Yes I'm game for that."

On The Coast  wants to know what family meal you hated eating. Send an email to onthecoast@cbc.ca if you'd like to go back and make it again.