The Most Memorable Meal You've Ever Eaten

[LastSupperWaitress]

Hello Everyone! I am a young food writer living in Toronto Canada and I am currently working on a cookbook anthology about conventional and unconventional meals that totally marked a person for life: like the Porterhouse Steak and Coconut Cream Pie my father had at the Hilton Hotel on Waikiki Beach back in the 60s when he was a merchant marine, was a definitive moment of the carefree celebration of youth-he's been talking about that dinner ever since I was a little girl. Anybody have a story to share?

[Omar Little]

The most memorable meals I have had in my lifetime have been when I have been famished or fatigued from working more strenuously than I normally had. The food itself may have not been that much more exceptional but because of my mental state prior to eating it, the food made a much stronger impression on my mind and the memory of it more indelible.

- The grilled ribeye steak my mom made after I spend the day loading hay one summer I was in high school.

- The spaghetti bolognase we had in a Chicago eatery after spending all day sight seeing and probably walking about 20 miles.

- The club sandwich and fries on the beach in Barbados, after a long day in the sun and playing 36 holes of golf.

I know that I've had better meals with better quality food, than those examples, but they are some of the most memorable to me as being tasty and satisfying.

[Al Bundy]

I can think of several notable means- Vegas, Grand Hotel in Mackinaw.

The most memorable taste for me was eating wild muskrat in the 60's in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I probably had worked up an appetite by fishing, farming or firing. That muskrat was so well prepared to melt in the mouth. It's a very dark meat and a once in a lifetime experience for me.

[zoid]

Some good ones here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=559165

[Baker]

I agree with Omar Little in the second post. Sometimes it's not just the quality of the food but the circumstances.

I used to dislike eggs over easy. But after surgery I spent the night at my folks house. When I got up in the morning and shuffled slowly into the kitchen my mom told me to sit down and she'd fix me breakfast. I got buttered toast, bacon, and over easy eggs. I couldn't tell her I wouldn't like the eggs, so I ate them with the toast, and surprised myself by finding I really like them.

I've eaten exactly the same meal since, and it's always good, but that one time, when my body really needed food, and I felt so down, was really special.

The best thing I ever had to DRINK was sweetened iced tea, with a little lemon in it. It was during basic training, after I'd joined the Army. This was in South Carolina, in August, hot and humid as it could possibly be. We were on a long hike, and our drill sargeant surprised us by having the tea set up for us about two-thirds of the way through. Nothing ever felt so good sliding down my throat as that tea.

Drill Sgt. Carol Ogg, if by the slimmest of chances you should ever hear of this post, let me tell you I'll be forever grateful for that tea.

[tdn]

So many choices!

On vacation, I decided to take a chance and try something I'd never had before -- snow crab. Also chowder, cole slaw, boiled potatoes, and an ice cold beer. I was accompanied by someone I loved, and it was a warm summer night in my favorite place in the world, on an outside deck overlooking the ocean.

There was another time when we'd spent the day at the beach, and didn't know what to do about dinner. We finally decided on a really awesome BBQ place. We were famished, and we had to wait a really long time for our food. (The place usually has lines out the door.) On the way home the intoxicating aroma of BBQy goodness was filling up the car. It took an enormous amount of willpower not to climb into the back seat and satisfy my BBQ lust right then and there.

[lieu]

The most recent memorable experience would probably have to be the first time I had Chilean Sea Bass. It was at The Beach House (http://www.stkittsbeachhouse.com/) at St. Kitts, a beautiful evening and having arrived a little early we had the entire place to ourselves. The service, food and atmosphere were all equally magnificent and it made for the perfect Mother's Day for my wife from the daughter and I.

[Derleth]

'Memorable' does not mean 'good'.

I remember going out to a 'nice' restaurant in eastern Montana, well away from any roads that'd know first-hand what a 'rush hour' is, and ending up with an experience out of a sitcom. A 'wacky' sitcom.

The proprietors had heard of 'mood lighting' and decided that they wanted seconds. This meant the meal was conducted in the kind of half-light you associate with periods of minor emergency. I could not reliably see across the table, and reaching out to find food was a minor feat of rote recollection.

Not that the food was all that great. IGA does many things acceptably, but crudités are not among them. I can think of many culinary sensations that have easily topped the experience of eating Velveeta in the dark; however, none came instantly to mind when I saw the thread title. This restaurant was the absolute perfect example of someone completely misunderstanding an entire cultural experience, and I guess you don't easily forget your first archetype.

[overlyverbose]

Memorable good:

-The lemongrass/coconut milk soup I had in Hawaii on my honeymoon
-The lobster I had at my sister's wedding (even though my nose was stopped up and I couldn't taste much, it was still one of the best meals I've ever had)

Memorable bad:
-The capybara I had on the way up a mountain in Peru (really, really stringy and stinky)
-The cow brains I ate in Indiana just to say I had

[tdn]

'Memorable' does not mean 'good'.

In that case, one stong memory is not about the meal itself, but about the check.

There were four of us. The check was about $80 after the tip. We each put in $20. But counting the money, it only totalled up to $75. So we all put in more money. It added up to $70. So we put in more. It added up to even less. The more we put in, the less it totalled to. After we'd each put in about $200, it totalled to 37 cents, IIRC.

Four reasonably smart guys, and we couldn't figure it out.

[chacoguy]

We once did the full Thanksgiving dinner: Turkey, Ham, dressing, gravy, corn, green beans, potatoes, croisants, cherry and apple pie with whipped cream.

Under a cliff, using dutch ovens 40 miles from the nearest light bulb.

[Shodan]

In that case, one stong memory is not about the meal itself, but about the check.

There were four of us. The check was about $80 after the tip. We each put in $20. But counting the money, it only totalled up to $75. So we all put in more money. It added up to $70. So we put in more. It added up to even less. The more we put in, the less it totalled to. After we'd each put in about $200, it totalled to 37 cents, IIRC.

Four reasonably smart guys, and we couldn't figure it out.:confused:

Regards,
Shodan

[Yorikke]

In that case, one stong memory is not about the meal itself, but about the check.

There were four of us. The check was about $80 after the tip. We each put in $20. But counting the money, it only totalled up to $75. So we all put in more money. It added up to $70. So we put in more. It added up to even less. The more we put in, the less it totalled to. After we'd each put in about $200, it totalled to 37 cents, IIRC.

Four reasonably smart guys, and we couldn't figure it out.

I'm reasonably smart, too, but what are you on about?

Joe

[Rushgeekgirl]

My sixteenth birthday.
My mom knew I had a crush on her co-worker so she had him take me out to dinner at his parents' restaurant. One of the finest in town at the time. It's still pretty exclusive.
I had never been anywhere higher-class than Shakey's pizza at the time and I was scared to death. I learned about proper silverware and table manners and we shopped for days to find the right dress, heels, hose, etc. I was uncomfortable the entire time. I didn't know how to order a steak, so I repeated what I'd heard on TV and asked for medium-rare. It was bloody, and I couldn't eat anything but around the edges. The entire time my date was cracking jokes, I'm sure trying to help ease my stress but I just got more nervous.
But I did it! I didn't embarrass myself or my family during the entire dinner. . .

Until we were walking out, and my half-slip (I'd borrowed my mom's and she was about sixteen sizes bigger than me) came unpinned and fell down as we were walking to the door. I didn't realize it until it was at my ankles and we were standing in front of just about every eye in the place, or at least it seemed that way.

[Clothahump]

There have been two, and they were about six months apart.

The first time I ever ate sushi was in Indonesia, of all places. The head of the purchasing department took all of us contractors out to dinner one night. I was nervous as all hell - ya know, the "yuk, raw fish" thing - and was incredibly surprised and have been a sushi addict ever since.

When I got back home, my gf said that dinner was on her the next night once I got over my jet lag. She fixed an absolutely outstanding steak dinner and then screwed my socks off for dessert. :D

[diggerwam]

Last Saturday. Wife, SIL and myself went out for a very nice wine dinner. 5 courses, free flowing wine, good southwestern cuisine, Pork Mole to die for.

I had a Szechuan button (blossom) for the first time. That was really wild, I'm sure I'm waay behind the curve, but Wow. Mouth just tingled for a long time. It was supposed to be a palate cleanser, just Wow.

Anyway, with the wine flowing freely eveybody got sloppy drunk. Within a few seconds the guy accross from us went from pretty obviously feeling up his wife to both of them telling SIL that they want their kids to grow up just like the SIL.

Apparently, we bought three additional bottles of wine and I took it upon myself to take another one. Also apparently, thankfully I have expensive taste. I barely remember any of this. Really embarassed doing this, but God the food was so good, I want to be invited to the next one. I have no idea what inspired me to go back to my Klepto teenage ways. The hangover was almost (but not quite) worth the cost.

[Rhythmdvl]

In that case, one stong memory is not about the meal itself, but about the check.

There were four of us. The check was about $80 after the tip. We each put in $20. But counting the money, it only totalled up to $75. So we all put in more money. It added up to $70. So we put in more. It added up to even less. The more we put in, the less it totalled to. After we'd each put in about $200, it totalled to 37 cents, IIRC.

Four reasonably smart guys, and we couldn't figure it out.

:confused:

Regards,
Shodan

I'm reasonably smart, too, but what are you on about?

Joe
You're supposed to figure out where the missing dollar went, but actually it's all in the phrasing of the question.

[Omar Little]

My sixteenth birthday.
My mom knew I had a crush on her co-worker so she had him take me out to dinner at his parents' restaurant.

You were just turning 16. How old was he? :eek:

[Omar Little]

Last Saturday. Wife, SIL and myself went out for a very nice wine dinner. 5 courses, free flowing wine, good southwestern cuisine, Pork Mole to die for.

I had a Szechuan button (blossom) for the first time. That was really wild, I'm sure I'm waay behind the curve, but Wow. Mouth just tingled for a long time. It was supposed to be a palate cleanser, just Wow.

Anyway, with the wine flowing freely eveybody got sloppy drunk. Within a few seconds the guy accross from us went from pretty obviously feeling up his wife to both of them telling SIL that they want their kids to grow up just like the SIL.

Apparently, we bought three additional bottles of wine and I took it upon myself to take another one. Also apparently, thankfully I have expensive taste. I barely remember any of this. Really embarassed doing this, but God the food was so good, I want to be invited to the next one. I have no idea what inspired me to go back to my Klepto teenage ways. The hangover was almost (but not quite) worth the cost.

:confused: Is this a whoosh? I'm not sure what klepto has to do with any of the anecdote you made.

[GuanoLad]

What an odd thread. I don't remember any meal I've had. They were all bland and insignificant.

[Count Blucher]

A cup of coffee in the central lobby area of the Hilton Hotel in Bogota, Colombia in 1980. There was almost a ... thickness (?) to it? So naturally sweet, no sugar needed to be added. A 6 oz cup...and it was neither too little nor too much.

Many other cups of coffee have tried, but all have failed.

[Rushgeekgirl]

You were just turning 16. How old was he? :eek:

I think it was his first year of college so maybe 18? My mother worked in retail so she had a lot of younger co-workers.

[MikeG]

What an odd thread. I don't remember any meal I've had. They were all bland and insignificant.


That's very sad.

[Ludy]

Hmm I can think of three that really stand out.

I was probably about 17 or so and I got mono which brought on a really bad case of strep throat. For about a week I couldn't consume anything and had to go to the hospital to get an IV just to get fluids into my body. When I could finally eat solid food my Mom told me she would make anything I wanted. I chose a homemade hamburger, and wow was it tasty.

For just one of the best tasting meals I have had, I'll go with a salmon stuffed with strawberries and feta cheese that I had in Halifax Nova Scotia. I have tried to recreate it many time to no success.

Well actually after writing those two I have forgotten what the third was. So by default it's off the list.

[twickster]

Moved MPSIMS -- Cafe Society.

[Jack Batty]

Leonardo's in San Francisco. I'm not sure if it's still there, as this was about 10 years ago.

As I recall, it was a family style restaurant, as in, you sat at one long table with a bunch of other people all sharing the salt and pepper and the huge chunks of parmesan the waiters walked around with to carve you off a hunk.

I had a dish, that I can't remember the name of (something Italian, and the only thing coming to mind is Cosi Fan Tuti, but I think that's an opera), but it was a seafood/pasta dish with clams, mussels and scallops over linguini with some sort of creamy, spicy tomato sauce. It came in a huge pasta bowl bigger than my head. It was so effing delicious that I couldn't stop myself from shoveling every last bite down. I was severly uncomfortably full for a good 2 or 3 hours, but it was worth it.

I've ordered the same dish in other restaurants since then but it never matched the quality at Leonardo's.

[lieu]

I think I can answer for a good friend of mine, a hunting buddy passionate about the sport. He broke his jaw, cracked it right down the middle and was reduced to protein shakes, infant formula and the like for about 6 weeks while it was wired shut. He's a big guy and had lost a lot of weight doing this. So we went duck hunting and brought them home to cook. We chicken-fried the duck breasts, had a bunch of Texmati rice, homemade gravy, fresh green beans, buttered drop biscuits, etc. So desparate for real food, he put all that in a blender, added a little milk, got a giant straw and enjoyed the hunger-buster shake of a lifetime. That managed to put a giant smile on his broken face.

[sparky!]

One of my most memorable:

I was about 8 or 9 years old and at my Great-Aunt's convent visiting. I was an extremely picky eater as a kid (I'd take forever to finish my dinner every night), but that evening the cook made spaghetti (which I had always hated) and I loved it so much that I had seconds.

I remember getting to the bottom of my plate and finding a whole, intact bay leaf and wondering what to do with it.

Anyway, that meal has always stuck with me. Man, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

[zoid]

I had a dish, that I can't remember the name of (something Italian, and the only thing coming to mind is Cosi Fan Tuti, but I think that's an opera), but it was a seafood/pasta dish with clams, mussels and scallops over linguini with some sort of creamy, spicy tomato sauce.

I'm gonna guess frutti di mare.
I've never had it with a creamy sauce but like everything else in the world there are probably dozens of variations on the core theme.

[Flutterby]

My memorable ones have less to do with the food than the circumstances surrounding usually.

One that has stuck with me though, for the moment. Maybe I'll come back with more later.

I couldn't have been more than 7ish, and my Grandfather took us all out to a fancy place for a brunch buffet (we had to dress up, and it had multiple forks and knives etc). I still remember the crepes, I wasn't allowed to have the flambé fruit on top (alcohol you know) but I stacked mine with fruit and chocolate banana sauce and watched the chef flambé fruit at the buffet table. One of these days I will go to that buffet again and be horribly disappointed it doesn't live up to my childish memory.

[Ludy]

Ooh, I remembered the third one.
I was on vacation in Peru and we had been told to avoid raw vegetables to avoid getting sick. Well near the end of week two all I wanted was a salad. We stumbled across a restaurant that catered to tourists and in big bold letters across the menu it said they used bottled water to clean their vegetables. Man that was a great salad.

[Jack Batty]

I'm gonna guess frutti di mare.


That's the ticket. Mmmm. It was goooood.

[norinew]

Two come immediately to mind. The first was here in WV, years before we lived here. We were having a long weekend in Elkins, WV, and the lodge we were staying at had a restaurant attached. The restaurant was billed as 'gourmet', but you wouldn't have known by looking at it! Anyway, the evening we ate there, the special was broiled sea scallops with a hibiscus reduction sauce. I love sea scallops, and had never had hibiscus sauce before, so I ordered that. Man, it was awesome. The scallops were as sweet and tender as could be, and the sauce was so light but still rich, and you definitely got the floral notes as you inhaled with it in your mouth!

The second was much more a matter of circumstances surrounding the meal. I'd been having a bad kidney stone attack, and hadn't eaten in probably three days when my doctor decided to hospitalize me. In the hospital, I was on clear liquids for two more days, then he decided to just go in and remove the stone. When I woke up following the procedure, I was starving. My doc said I could eat, but dinner time had already passed, so I was stuck with whatever the floor nurse could scare up for me. Turned out to be some chicken noodle soup (probably out of a can) and a peanut butter on white bread sandwich. Completely awesome meal!

[LastSupperWaitress]

What a great story! Did You have dessert or wine?

[norinew]

What a great story! Did You have dessert or wine?
Were you talking to me? ;)

When we had dinner in WV, I had a Pinot Gris with my meal (goes really well with the scallops), and we shared a piece of cheesecake with freshly made local berry sauce for dessert. At the hospital, no wine. I may have had some Jell-O afterward. :p

[salinqmind]

1) I've told this story many times here, but as no meal has come along that can eclipse it: one summer I bought king crab legs. Like ten pounds. Sweet corn, little new potatoes. Italian bread. Caesar salad. I cooked what needed to be cooked, steamed the already cooked crab legs in a pot, and cracked them open with a hammer (wearing oven mitts) Melted a whole package of butter, sliced some lemons in half, opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio. That meal was better than any sex I've ever had in my life!

2) Runner-up: I was invited to a man's log cabin out in the country, and he fried up sliced potatoes in a cast iron skillet, asparagus cut from the asparagus bed out in his back yard, and enormous venison burgers. And red wine. The burgers weren't at all 'gamey'. He also gave me a package of venison chops to take home, with a recipe calling for green peppers, bacon, butter, onion, and I forgot what else, I lost the recipe, but I made it in the crockpot and THAT was excellent, too.

[longhair75]

I was eleven and it was my first camping trip with the Boy Scouts. we were told to bring a sack dinner for the first night, and my mom made me a PBJ sandwich with an apple and a few cookies. When we got to the camp site, there was a man named Leo who had come out early and had made a huge batch of venison stew so everyone would have something hot with their cold dinner.

It was delicious. I can remember just how it tasted. This was in the fall of 1964.

[Hazle Weatherfield]

I was eleven and it was my first camping trip with the Boy Scouts. we were told to bring a sack dinner for the first night, and my mom made me a PBJ sandwich with an apple and a few cookies. When we got to the camp site, there was a man named Leo who had come out early and had made a huge batch of venison stew so everyone would have something hot with their cold dinner.

It was delicious. I can remember just how it tasted. This was in the fall of 1964.

There's the opening scene for your novel/voice-over for your film...

[don't ask]

Something remarkable pedestrian. When I was a kid we all got up early one Christmas Day, opened presents and the my mother started her Christmas cooking. For the one and only time ever she cooked a duck. After browning it in the electric frypan she put it in the oven. She then cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast in the rendered duck fat.

I had no idea at the time that it was any different to everyday bacon and eggs but it tasted like absolute ambrosia. I asked what was so good about it and she explained. I think that was when I first learned how cooking actually works - the big stuff is straight forward, it's attention to details that makes things stand out.

[EvilTOJ]

That would be the bison burgers we had after being up in the Wyoming mountains backpacking for two weeks. Freshly slaughtered, white cheddar, homemade fries. After living wild greens, Clif bars, filtered water and hummus it was a cheeseburger of paradise.

[jjimm]

So many. If I had to choose two:

For food, taste, and sheer insanity, the 17-course tasting menu at the Fat Duck, one of the best restaurants in the world. The most expensive meal I ever ate, and the most intensely bizarre and delicious.

For weeping-with-pleasure "oh thank god for that" return to familiarity, a baguette fresh from the oven, spread with Vache qui Rit cheese, for breakfast in Sa Pa, Vietnam, after having arrived - and not eaten anything the previous day or night - after three months of eating disgusting slop in China.

[Caiata]

It was early October and I was in Goreme, the middle of Cappadocia, towards the end of a 5-week journey around Turkey. It'd been a ridiculously busy day capped off with a 2-hour-long horseback ride as the sun set in the rose-coloured sandstone valley. Given that I'd fallen off the horse during the ride I was sore, bruised, and grumpy. It was dark and briskly cold on our walk back from the horse camp to the town, and by the time we reached the restaurant strip we didn't really care where we were eating.

We picked one at random, a tiny restaurant on the top floor, accessed by wooden stairs on the side of the building. We were the only three people inside, and it was very, incredibly warm. There weren't any chairs, just pillows on the floor and low tables, and I gingerly eased down into a pile of pillows to let my badly sprained and scraped ankle rest. The owner brought us a complementary platter of zucchini fritters and hot apple tea since we were her first customers of the night.

Since the menu was entirely in Turkish, she chose meals for each of us. Twenty minutes later she delivered to me a small sealed clay vessel supported over a bowl of flaming something. She cracked the vessel with a hammer, breaking it cleanly along a seam in the clay, and lifted off the lid. Inside was a piping hot chicken, tomato, and cubanelle pepper stew. It was the perfect cap to the day, delicious and exactly what I didn't know I wanted.

The hot chocolate after the meal was amazing, too -- it tasted like pure melted chocolate. I don't think I'll ever forget that meal.

[Hazle Weatherfield]

This is about as mundane as it gets, but... Senior year at U of I. I had just had surgery on my wrist and my Mom had driven up to taxi me to and fro. She gave me a Tylenol 3 w/ codeine and put me to bed. Hours later, I awoke to the smell of her FAMOUSLY FABULOUS potato soup: chunky spuds, onions, plenty of butter and pepper...with Zesta saltines, natch. Heavenly!

[Indygrrl]

It wasn't an entire meal, but I'll never forget the crepes I had at a little shop alone Duval Street in Key West. I had a few different varieties in the three days I spent in Key West, but the best had some bananas and Nutella with some carmelized nuts or something in it. So wonderful, I would plan another trip to Key West just for those crepes.

[Yorikke]

You're supposed to figure out where the missing dollar went, but actually it's all in the phrasing of the question.

Please explain it to me as if I were four years old. I still haven't the slightest idea what's going on.

Joe

[GuanoLad]

Please explain it to me as if I were four years old. I still haven't the slightest idea what's going on.He took a well known puzzle, and deliberately twisted it into a silly anecdote that doesn't make any sense.

[samclem]

Cassoulet at a NY City French restaurant in the 1980s. It was, for NYC, quite reasonable. Had friends in from California and England. Three of us ordered it, and there were only two servings left. One of us(not me) said they didn't mind having something else. Their loss. I'd never had it before, and came home determined to make it myself sometime. Maybe a year later, took out my Joy of Cooking, read the recipe, went to store and paid tons of money, spent the whole day cooking it, and it was a pale imitation of what I had in NY.

[Eureka]

For presentation, as much as anything else, although there was nothing wrong with the flavors.

Dinner in the hotel restaurant, in a very nice hotel in Cape Town, South Africa-- our last night in town.

I don't remember the salad course with any degree of certainty, although it might well have consisted of a stack of slices of tomato alternating with slices of eggplant. I'm absolutely certain it was layered, and not particularly remarkable by itself.

The next course, the main course, consisted of a small steak, topped with mashed sweet potato, topped with something else (maybe), topped with whole green beans.

While waiting for our dessert, we speculated on what it might be. Deciding that it must be served in layers.

Sure enough, a little apple tart--apples sliced thinly and stacked on top of each other (or maybe it was apricot, rather than apple), with a scoop of ice cream on top.

I no longer remember all the details of the food, but that layered presentation of the main course is indelibly stuck in my brain.

And it was all delicious.

That wasn't the only memorable meal on that trip, but if I had to pick just one, that's the one I'd pick, because of the layered presentation.

[Naxos]

[QUOTE=LastSupperWaitress;13817767]

Before industrialized food production reached small villages in the Mediterranean countries... I had an oven baked chicken with olive oil, garlic and oregano, fried potatoes and a watermelon, that is imprinted in my memory forever.

The oven was a stone oven, outside the main house, kept hot by burning wood.

The chicken was farm grown and raised of course, and it was cooked over hot coals buried in a hole in the ground, very similar to many other cultures around the world. Even in Hawaii I've seen people cook a whole pig like that.

The potatoes were from the farm and fried over olive oil from the farm too, over a slow cooking gas burner and an iron cast frying pan.

The watermelon was farm grown and cooled for a few hours by placing it in a stream that was coming out from an ice cold spring in the same farm.

All the above "farms" were the same farm that my relatives lived in. Their house was choked with greenery and vines and all kinds of plants and flowers and in the hot, humid Mediterranean August, their yard outside their kitchen was so shady and so cool and breezy...

The most amazing meal of my life.