In college, we had this very strange housemate, who once served Potted Meat Food Product at a party. She went around saying “It’s pot-te,” and winking at me. I wanted to smack her. Fortunately, she moved out at the end of the year.
OpalCat’s story about the oyster reminds me of something that happened to a cousin of mine when she was little, and they were living in France. She absolutely refused to eat mushrooms (she’d read Alice in Wonderland and it had freaked her out). Her dad (my uncle) gave her a bowl of soup. When she asked what kind it was, he told her “champignon” and she ate it (having no idea what a “champignon” was). When she was done, he told her that “champignon” was French for “mushroom.” The soup reportedly came right back up.
Never attribute to malice anything that can be attributed to stupidity.
– Unknown
My vote definitely goes to haggis. The reason that it is traditionally brought into the dining room with a bagpiper playing is so that you will be distracted from what you will be eating, and the reason that it is served with Scotch whisky is to (1) take the taste away while you are eating it and (b) make you drunk.
My wife refuses to eat beef tongue on the grounds that it crosses the line between being a piece of meat and being a piece of dead cow.
Stop ragging on the Kim Chee, there are Koreans on this board, ya know, and our feelings are easily hurt.
Now what’s really gross is Kim Chee soup. My mom takes just about everything and anything (once she put hot dogs in it!) and boils it up with kim chee and eats it over rice. EWWWW! Stinks up the house for days.
Marmite is dreadful. As is this disgusting, um condiment I think, called pickle I tried when in the UK. Actually almost everything in the UK was pretty bad. I even tried veggie Haggis and could not choke it down.
To Health Doolin: No, it was Hamburger Handout. Culver City, CA, near Sepulveda & Jefferson boulevards, 1959. Famous for 19-cent hamburgers. I remember the name because, for one thing, that’s where I first saw the word “handout,” although it was years before I knew what the word meant. In any case, their corn dogs almost made me sick. (I was ten years old at the time, for what it’s worth to mention that.)
Hostess Grape Flavoured Potato Cips. The worst part was getting purple stuff all over your hands. They had cherry, but I was never brave enough to try them.
Lamb fatties. Yes, that’s what the label said. I don’t know what drug my mother was on when she (a) purchased them and (b) cooked them up. The smell is simply vile–heavy and greasy and, yes, fatty. Ugh.
Great ideas in fictitious gross food:
“Hiker’s Grog” (The MAD Guide to Leisure Time; includes spaghetti, cereal, milk, and a dozen other mismatched ingredients!)
“Spinach Shortcake” The Best of [cartoonist] H. T. Webster; like a combined strawberry shortcake and spinach casserole!
Peanut butter and ketchup sandwich (Dennis the Menace).
“If you drive an automobile, please drive carefully–because I walk in my sleep.”–Victor Borge
Hawaiian King frozen meals. I’ve purchased exactly two: sweet and sour chicken rice bowl, and teriyaki chicken noodle bowl. It was my brilliant idea to save a little time and effort cooking on nights when I have rehab after work. It wasn’t worth it!! They were INCREDIBLY VILE! Bleah! Feh! YECCHH! (The above opinion is solely that of Gr8Kat and does not reflect that of the Chicago Reader, the Straight Dope, Cecil Adams, or any of their employees, so please don’t sue, Mr. Hawaiian King. PS, your food SUCKS!)
Green beans are yucky, too.
I’m a pretty unadventurous eater, and if I just think I won’t like something, I won’t try it. I like to think I’ve saved myself a lot of misery that way.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Several memebers of my family (the ones we think were abandoned on the doorstep…'cept Mom, of course) are wild about String Bean Casserole. Canned string beans and cream of mushroom soup. It’s a triple threat…it looks, smells AND tastes worse than it looks. Every damn family dinner somebody shows up with it and plunks it down right in front of me.
Every damn family dinner they all scream at me for calling it Creamed Moose Boogers.
Apologies…though that was too wierd because I associate handouts as bum food. Why anyone would name a restaurant after it is beyond me.
And I agree with BurnMeUp…Thai is awesome food if you get it from a good restaurant. Where else can you cry cause your food is ultraspicy but you cannot stop eating it.