# Egregious cooking violations. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 25, 2009, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044 "2009-10-25T13:54:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/61 "2009-10-27T00:39:04Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > Ya gotta like cheese to order something like that. > [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Wouldn’t that be “cheese cheese”? Aw, shoot. :kicks dirt: Ironically, just yesterday morning, I served with breakfast a small plate of cubed cheese which I had [del]pan-fried[/del] sauteed. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/62 "2009-10-27T02:04:12Z")
Reposted from the other [Cooking Disasters thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=536918): I was living in an all-male shared house. One of my cohabitants was an, um, original cook. For example he once made a spaghetti bolognese sauce and thought he’d add a touch of the exotic. He’d heard about duck l’orange so added some interesting flavouring; Orange Tang. He wasn’t big on detail so didn’t really stir it in very much. Nothing brings tears to your throat like biting into a solid lump of powdered dehydrated citric acid and sugar. After we’d scraped our faces off the inside of our skulls and rid the plates of the more egregious lumps, the remainder wasn’t half bad - it was completely dreadful. Another famous occasion was when he made a casserole that called for a reasonable amount of garlic. So he threw in the requisite number of cloves - not, not bulbs, it was another of my friends who made that mistake - cooked and served. There was a powerful run on the meagre household supply of toothpicks and floss as we endeavoured to rid our interdentine interstices of the garlic paper that now infested the dish; he had apparently reasoned that you didn’t need to peel potatoes or apples if you were going to cook them, so why bother to peel garlic? ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/63 "2009-10-27T04:04:23Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > And some also seem to think that it is a reasonable way to get cheese into an omelet to make a very thin frittata, then fold it in half with triangles of Kraft singles in between the halves. How would you do it? There are a number of styles of omelet - what you’ve described sounds like a [French omelet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FoodOmelete.jpg) (aside from the Kraft Singles), and is the way I’ve made omelets in most of the restaurants where I’ve been the breakfast cook. ---
**Author:** ![Sodalite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@Sodalite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sodalite)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/64 "2009-10-27T04:07:30Z")
> [@butler1850](#): > > What “juice from the apples”? Was he using canned filling, and dumped the syrup? Any fresh apple pie I’ve made had no “juice” to pour off. Mix the apples with the sugar and flour, and pour into a pie crust, cover and bake. ``` It really depends on the recipe and the type of apples you're using. Since fresh apples come in a wide variety of firmness and juice content, you can get a wide range of results. **ALWAYS** use the type of apple specified in the recipe in front of you. Otherwise, you could end up with a dry, rubbery pie looking thing or wet, mushy pan of pie soup. Equal cooking crimes in my book. Poor little defenseless would-be pastry. :( You also have to consider the fact that some recipes are designed to bring more of the juices out of the fruit. Generally those are the ones that instruct the baker to add the sugar and spices to the cut apples first and let them sit in a bowl while the crust is being assembled. Flour is added just before the mixture is dumped into the crust to thicken the collected juices during baking. Oh, and if you're using canned filling you are a terrible person who will spend eternity in Culinary Hell. ;) ``` ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/65 "2009-10-27T04:25:02Z")
I have eaten a lot of thoroughly crappy dishes in my day, but I don’t think any were bad enough for this thread. Except maybe for Mom’s roasted pork loins, seasoned with salt and pepper only, no vegs or aromatics, that routinely clock in at over 200 degrees. An insult to cardboard. ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/66 "2009-10-27T04:26:36Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > When a friend of mine was still in high school, his sister decided to cook a DiGiorno pizza for the family. She cooked it, cut it, and placed it on the counter. My friend was the first to try it and he said the inside was still cold even though the top was almost burnt. After some investigating, he found out that she had left the cardboard underneath the pizza… I have done this on more than one occasion. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/67 "2009-10-27T07:29:29Z")
> [@voguevixen](#): > > Today’s Price is Right : “A Wine Cooler!!!” > > I’m thinking “uh…Bartles & Jaymes? $2??” There was once such as a thing as a “wine cooler,” right? Not a “flavored malt beverage,” but a commercial product containing actual wine? I didn’t just fabricate that memory? I distinctly remember trying to drink them as a young teen who hadn’t yet acquired the taste for alcohol, because I would always suffer a crippling stomachache about halfway through the first bottle. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/68 "2009-10-27T09:48:01Z")
> [@Sodalite](#): > > ``` > Oh, and if you're using canned filling you are a terrible person who will spend eternity in Culinary Hell. ;) > > ``` Not if you can apples in the proper filling flavors yourself, then all you have to do is open the jar, dump into pastry, bake and recycle the bell jar for next fall =) ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/69 "2009-10-27T10:07:46Z")
When I moved to this part of NE Ohio, which is far more Midwestern in sensibilities and tastes than where I was before, we made the mistake of ordering “buffalo wings” from a pizza place. There is a peculiar abomination here that consists of wing segments run through the pizza oven and coated in buffalo sauce. The rubbery result is nasty beyond belief. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/70 "2009-10-27T10:44:06Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > But I’ve also eaten at plenty of Mexican-American places that have mayonnaise-based chipotle sauce. I wouldn’t want it every day, but on occasion and in small quantities it’s kind of tasty. Yes, but do they call it “salsa”? Regardless, the stuff I’m talking about isn’t chipotle sauce… or if it is, the chipotle is undetectable. It’s not bad, actually - just like all their food, it’s decent food, it’s just not Mexican. Or Tex-Mex. Maybe it’s Mich-Mex. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/71 "2009-10-27T11:37:35Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > How would you do it? There are a number of styles of omelet - what you’ve described sounds like a [French omelet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FoodOmelete.jpg) (aside from the Kraft Singles), and is the way I’ve made omelets in most of the restaurants where I’ve been the breakfast cook. I’d use a grated or crumbled cheese. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/72 "2009-10-27T12:03:37Z")
My recently departed grandmother used to get a lovely chunk of beef and put it in the oven on Saturday night, in time for Sunday lunchtime. When my dad once requested that maybe she cut a bit off for him and put it in the oven about an hour before lunch, she refused to talk to him for 48 hours. She also boiled all veg for a minimum of an hour. However, even this is palatable compared to the shite that my ex-step-mother-in-law serves up. One example is that at Christmas, she pressure cooked Brussels sprouts for THREE hours. Her food is the most disgusting I have ever tasted, and she and her daughter always served the same amounts to her seven-year-old granddaughter as she did to her early-twenties sons - with the result that her granddaughter, now a teenager, has a serious weight problem. ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/73 "2009-10-27T12:04:35Z")
At a dinner party, I was once served homemade stuffed grape leaves where the cook somehow missed the part of the recipe where you cook the rice. Mm, crunchy! I don’t know what she thought was going to happen to uncooked rice sitting in a cold dish. > [@DoctorJ](#): > > I ate at a decent-looking Mexican restaurant in Asheville (a town that is not without good Mexican food) a few years ago. Both the chips and the salsa were Tostito’s. There was an old Tex-Mex place in Austin (might still be there) where, after taking your order, the waiter would bring salsa and … a sleeve of saltines. It’s actually better than it sounds. And they would bring tortilla chips if you asked. Still, it seemed like they had probably been doing it since 1952 and saw no reason to stop. The waiters also had cloths draped over their arms, like cartoon waiters. > [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > That brings me neatly to my contribution: when I was young, our mother went through a macrobiotic phase that seems in my memory to consist mostly of fried brown rice, dark brown-to-black onions and brown lentils. I think vegetarian food gets a bad rap because so many people’s first vegetarian meals were prepared by a zealous convert who just read 3 pages of _Laurel’s Kitchen_ and decided that the really pure, spiritual thing to do is serve a meal of just wilted kale and unseasoned brown rice. These are the same life-hating people who were making pizzas with ketchup and American cheese before their conversion. ---
**Author:** ![scareyfaerie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scareyfaerie/32/3135_2.png) [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/74 "2009-10-27T12:53:05Z")
I once went out for a meal at a local pub, it’s part of quite a large chain so the menu in each establishment is the same. This was a different pub than the one I normally went to, but I ordered the same meal as usual. Chicken Caesar salad. It arrived with no dressing. Just chicken and lettuce leaves - not Kos lettuce, mixed lettuce leaves from a bag. No parmesan, no croutons…just lettuce and chicken. I asked them what had happened to the dressing, they came back with a small pot of mayonnaise instead. ---
**Author:** ![Jimson\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@Jimson\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimson_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/75 "2009-10-27T13:10:31Z")
We have a good family friend who is a hit or miss cook. We once had duck that was fantastic and then there was the pork loin incident. She’d just moved into a new condo and held a small party for her friends. She was grilling a whole pork lion from one of the best butcher shops in town. It was brined and to be smoked with apple wood. It sounded amazing. We arrived and the pork was on the grill. After a glass to two of wine she asked if I would come out and check the roast with her. We step out side and I saw a considerable amount of smoke come from the massive stainless steal grill. This should have triggered some alarm but it just didn’t register. I lifted the massive lid only to discover a pork loin that resembled a Dur-aflame fireplace log. It was on fire. Not burned not over done it was burning— a lot. The lovely fat cap the butcher had left on had melted caught fire and the entire roast was engulfed in flames. The hostess was in shock. I grabbed the near pot holders and extinguished the roast. At this point I would have given in and ordered pizza. Our hostess informed the guests that there had been a minor cooking mishap, cut off the 1/2 thick carbon char and served us something that reminded me of the dehydrated pork patties they used to put in MRE’s. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/76 "2009-10-27T13:50:10Z")
I’d spent a lovely day with my family in southern Georgia. We hiked a bit, had lunch (best sandwich I’d ever made), then spent the afternoon at the beach. We were exhausted and starving when we headed back home. We decided to get some BBQ to go. Mmm, BBQ! As a lifelong northerner I’ve found the good places to go. I mean, if I love love love it here, it should be a total mouthgasm in the south, right? We stopped at a BBQ place that had quite a reputation. What we got was luke warm lunch meat and cold sauce in little plastic containers. And by sauce, I mean ketchup with a little brown sugar added. And everyone thought it was delicious. Just goes to show you, if you want real authentic southern BBQ, go to New England. ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/77 "2009-10-27T14:14:43Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I once went out to a bar with my brother and sister. My brother wouldn’t let me order for myself. He whispered my order to the waitress, then got a big grin on his face. Ooh boy, I was in for a special treat! I had my tastebuds set to “amazing.” What marvelous concoction was in store for me, I wondered. Then it came out. Beer and tomato juice. It was one of the most vile drinks I ever had. I came in to add a similar vile drink. Beer and _clam_ato juice. brrrrr I knew it was gonna be bad going when trying this horrid, horrid drink but I must have been feeling masochistic that night because I had to know just how revolting it actually tastes. The really amazing thing is that this was not some special concoction. My friend picked up a tall boy of this from the gas station. It’s poplular enough that Budweiser actually makes good money selling this stuff. ETA: **butler1850** You’re a wiser man than I for not going near the stuff. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/78 "2009-10-27T14:34:02Z")
On Saturday mornings, 9YO **mudgirl** has bowling league “in town” (town being a sizable town, about 30 minutes from the hicksville we actually live in). So after bowling, we do whatever shopping we need to do, and go out to lunch. Last weekend, my 18YO daughter was visiting for the weekend, and went with us. After bowling, it was decided we would go to Shoney’s for lunch. Hubby and **mudgirl** both ordered the buffet, but I ordered a bacon cheeseburger with fries, and older daughter ordered pancakes with a side of bacon. Hubby and kid went and got plates from the buffet. Eventually, my burger and fries came, no sign of older kid’s pancakes. I noticed there seemed to be a _lot_ of dried parsley sprinkled all over my burger and fries, but hell, it’s just dried parsley, not gonna hurt burger and fries. Finally, older kid’s order comes. Dried parsley _on the freakin’ pancakes_! I tried to catch the waitress’s eye, but couldn’t. After a bit, the manager came over to see how everything was, and I pointed to the pancakes and said “I’m sorry, but, is that _parsley_ on the pancakes? Because that’s just strange!” She chuckled a little and said the kitchen is supposed to put parsley on _everything_, _except_ for pancakes, French toast, and desserts! She took the pancakes away to bring back parsley-free pancakes. After a bit, the waitress finally came over and asked how everything was. I said fine except for the fact that the pancakes had parsley on them. She said “Oh, well, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t taste like anything, anyway!” :rolleyes: She didn’t even notice that the pancakes had already been sent back. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/79 "2009-10-27T14:39:49Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > But seriously… improving Budweiser by adding a _clam-based product_? Nah. Too easy. ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044/80 "2009-10-27T14:43:40Z")
The only meal I ever sent back was a plate of corned beef hash at a normally good local diner. Only it wasn’t so much corned beef hash so much as fried spam and onions. And tasted like what cat food smells like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egregious-cooking-violations/515044.md?page=5)