B-b-beet enchiladas…huuuuuuuuuhhhhhaaaaaauuuuuggggghhhh!
Prepared by a very well meaning vegetarian with a wonderful imagination, just no sense of smell OR taste…
Here’s my most recent horror story. My wife and I enjoy going to the various ethnic neighborhoods of Chicago and trying new foods. We’re not overly adventurous, but certainly willing to try new things. So we step into a Vietnamese place a couple weeks back. I pick an item off the menu: “Cooked Beef with Noodles” … sounds harmless, and I’m not even afraid of undercooked beef. (I love pho tai, for example.)
“Are you sure you want that?” asks the cute, articulate waitress. “It’s soupy.” Hell, I ain’t afraid of soupiness, am I? I order with gusto, and soon the steaming bowl arrives.
…
I reach into the dark broth with my chopsticks, and pull out a piece of gristly beef. My wife shoots me a concerned look from across the table, so I put the meat back and reach in again. This time I pull out a chunk of glistening tripe. My wife frowns. I put the tripe back and try again: this time, it’s something meaty, purple and wrinkled. It slips from my chopsticks, and I grab at something else: this time it’s an inch-long chunk of intestine, a large and dark brown tube of meaty flesh. My stomach lurches, and I call the waitress over:
“I didn’t realize how late it was, ma’am. Could you box this up and bring us the check, please?” Soon after, the box of guts and noodles was in a garbage can next to the L station. My wife swears it was trying to crawl out of the can and come after us as we boarded the train, but we made it home safely. I can only hope the denizens of North Chicago are safe…
Chilidogg said, “huuuuuuuuuhhhhhaaaaaauuuuuggggghhhh!.” I think that’s about right.
I had to post a quote from this page for everyone. It introduces a Better Homes & Gardens meat cookbookfrom the 50’s:
This page reminds me of my youth. (Worst horror: my mother’s eggplant chutney and hotdog omelette. Don’t even ask: she thought it was great. And I wasn’t ready for the meat…)
I can totally sympathise about having issues with casseroles. After i moved in with my mother here a couple years ago, i forbade her from making casseroles whenever she cooked. I am a decent cook in my own right, having lived on my own for a time, and have threatened to take over kitchen duties should she dare bring out her recipe box with those dread meals in them.
Anyway. I go back to when i was about 10 or 11, my parents were still married at the time, my brother about 4 or 5 years old. Mom had made some casserole. We call it to this day, “Pea Surprise”. It’s a joke now even 20 years later. It was some foul mixture of Cream of Chicken soup, cans of peas, and chunks of boiled eggs. By the time it hit the table, it was all green, and there were bits of white stuff(boiled egg whites) poking out. It smelled HORRID. My dad ate it, but i know he didn’t like it. My brother and i, both notoriously picky eaters, naturally gave a fuss. We picked at it and complained until it was good and cold. Oh yes. We weren’t leaving the table until we ate it. My brother was young, and cried, so he got off easily. But me? No no. No way i was getting out it. I had to eat every bit off my plate. We laugh now, but it was no joke then.
Nope…I’ve never eaten this either.
CPO Initiation breakfast was mostly great despite the food coloring in the eggs(blue), on the bacon(green), in the grits(red) (yes, I know that last item in its’ natural color upsets some folks); just close your eyes and chow down. But, the final breakfast dish included a blend of Corn Flakes (sugar coated), oysters, shrimp paste, and mayo.
Mid-afternoon “hors de ouvres” included a half & half cocktail of the juice from bottles of marichino cherries and pimento olives, and other “simple but volatile” dishes and concoctions designed to really mess with you taste buds and gag reflex.
FUN FUN FUN
I don’t know about the rest of the post, most of which are hilarious, but the image of Jonathan43 eating his poorly cooked frozen pizza thinking “I’m never getting one of these again” is going to make me laugh for days.
At any rate, I’ve probably eaten worse meals, but the one that sticks out for me is a hamburger I ate at a restaraunt in Canada as a child.
Now, I was known as a picky eater. So when I complained that my burger didn’t taste right to my parents, it fell on fairly unsympathetic ears. I valiantly struggled through a few more bites, but could not eat anymore. I complained once more to my mom, who tried it and proclaimed that the burger was spoiled.
I was on vacation, and what else could a finicky eater expect to order but hamburgers? Even that was tainted to me. To this day I’ve never forgiven the entire country of Canada.
The present day, I found it amusing that while I will eat almost anything I will never eat at Taco Bell.
Like some of the previous posters, my worst meal was cooked by none other than your’s truly.
My parents were out of town at a convention. It was the day they were supposed to get back, and I was very very hungry.
I’m not a very good cook - not dangerous, but I just cook so rarely I’ve never really learned how to make anything.
So I figured I’d make some scrambled eggs - one of the few things I actually can make and have made in the past. So,
all is going well, got some eggs in the frying pan, scrambling them up, and I put in some cheese. Gotta love
cheese and scrambled eggs. [Healthy? What’s that?]
My next step was to add some milk. I swear I had seen my dad [the cook of the family] add milk to scrambled eggs.
So, I pour some in, put the milk back in the fridge, and scramble the mixture some more. But the milk wouldn’t mix
with the eggs!
It turns out I had added too much milk to the mixture, and not only had the excess milk burnt off and filled the house
with blue smoke, but I had burnt the cheese. The smell was awful and the taste was worse.
So as I’m chowing down on these eggs, which I managed to consume fully, because I was very hungry, my parents get
home and walk into a house filled with nasty smelling blue smoke. I quickly tell them what happened, and they kind of
laugh and tell me that I’m not supposed to use very much milk at all. The funny part? They didn’t even notice the
smoke until I pointed it out to them!
Fried milk and burnt cheese scrambled eggs. The mind boggles over how I managed to screw that one up.
Also, though I never have had any myself, my parents claim my grandmother [on my dad’s side] has been known to put
chunks of TOMATOES in jello. Apparently, more than once. No, I’m not kidding.
Has anyone here ever tried sea urchin?
The waiter said “it tastes like the sea.”
It turns out that it tastes like dead algae-like growth that had been rotting in a stagnant tidepool in the August sun for several hours.
I tried it and puked.
This was at the same restaurant where my friend ate the entire ball of wasabi in a single bite. His face turned WHITE and he immediately threw up. They have grown to love us there.
Well, I can think of a couple.
As a child, a babysitter told me we were having “Cream of Wheat” for dinner. I was thrilled - I loved Cream of Wheat for breakfast.
Except she didn’t tell me she was going to use a can of Cream of Chicken soup for the liquid.
And then there was the time Dad cooked dinner because Mom was travelling. Dad’s culinary taste is rather, err… how should I say? Prosaic?
His idea of a good meal was Turkey Gizzards prepared with Shake and Bake Barbecue Style.
I’ve had bad meals on airplanes, but I could at least eat them and feel somewhat satisfied. But these? I couldn’t choke down either of these.
Ah muffin a sufferer after my own heart
I myself was the victim of the infamous ‘aunt shirley’s mystery casserole o death’ as my dad so eloquently put it. The place was the annual Doolin get together where something like 150 of the Doolin clan would get together, shake hands, drink too much, then invetably cause havoc (we are irish after all). A regular fun house.
My grandmother (god bless her) could make enough food for the 9th tank division and most of a 82 airborne could hit the leftovers. And it was all good…SOOOO GOOD.
Except…
Some of my mom and dads crazy sisters got it into their minds to show up with a special plate. Not bad, kinda feh.
Except Aunt Shirley.
Now Shirl would show up with a industrial sized ceramic bowl of something and, with the calm and precise effiecency of Bobby Fisher in a chess tournament, somehow manage to set this bad boy in front of my plate (Even if no one was set at the table). Year after Year, I got to see this same dish in its tin foil coffin in front of me. I shudder now as I type.
Of course, the folks would never think of questioning what it was as every sat down, said grace, and began gettin the good stuff. I remember one year swearing to my cousin that I saw a cheese covered claw emerge from the confines, seize a dinner roll, and drag it back into the tin foil lair. I would often press the fork against the top, hoping to seriously maim whatever was in. Sometimes there was soft rolling inside, sometimes it felt like Shirl got a cinderblock and set it inside, hell once I thought I heard something yelp (though it may have been me).
Then of course, my mother would lay down the revenge she would save up from all my basic naughtiness overt the year.
“Heath open up Shirl’s casserole” My mother, though angelical most of the time, would say this with sneer curled across her lip you would think Elvis had risen.
Taking my fork, I would usually go for the corner and whip away, hoping to avoid a blastback. The stench alone would carry straight up and put a nice brown stain on the ceiling (I could trace where I sat for 5 years before Papaw painted over them). I vaguely remember my cousin thinking someone peeled out in the dining room as the casserole was unvailed.
Then of course, the dreaded words
“Dig in Heath”
Imagine seeing a long expance of ruined something in a color that can only be described as “Ugh” colored with black and green olives on top, trying to draw your eyes from the horror like putting a clown juggling on top of a 8 car pileup.
Imagine chewing something with the consistency of syrup laden pancakes…only sour and salty, then sweet over and over.
Imagine getting asked what it is and not knowing after you swallowed.
I still for the love of god never knew what was in those dishes. God help me if I find out.
Okay, this definitely doesn’t compare with most of the other posts, but I figured I’d add my two cents since I was eating it while reading this thread.
I absolutely LOVE honeydew, and I normally eat it every day, several times a day. Well, I was over in London for the past nine days, where I did not come across one honeydew, so I’ve been craving it something fierce. My mom cut some up for me today, and I heaped it all into a bowl and brought it downstairs to the computer. I was savoring the deliciousness while reading all these horror stories. With about five pieces left and one in my mouth, I was startled by a different flavor. Very different indeed.
Me: (yelling upstairs) Mom?
Mom: Yeah?
Me: Did you cut this honeydew on a board that was recently used for cutting ONIONS?
Mom: Some of it, yeah. I didn’t think you’d notice.
Me: Great. Thanks for the warning.
DISGUSTING! And what a ruination of what could have been a heavenly honeydew experience.
Well, I will speak for my friend.
I once gave her a package of powder, thinking and telling her it was chocolate pudding.
Well. It wasn’t.
It was peach colored with black specks.
She made it and actually tasted some.
It was Shake N Bake.
I would’ve thunk the color would’ve alerted her to the fact it wasn’t chocolate pudding.
She said it was realll salty.
Once, in junior high, we had to make blueberry muffins.
Instead of half a cup of sugar, someone used Salt!
I have no one to blame but myself for this one.
Back when my husband and I first started to live together we had my old roommate over for dinner. I decided to do a recipe I never tried before and went to work on it. I have no excuse for what I did - the recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, I put in 1/2 cup of baking soda.
In my defense - I told them it didn’t look right when it came out of the oven but I was ignored. I had two bites - my husband had one, we wouldn’t let my friend. We threw it out and ordered pizza.
(If anyone wants to know what it tasted like - eat a spoon of baking soda. Truly one of the most stupid things I have ever done.)
Reminds me of a business lunch I attended in Japan. I had been to Japan before, but I had kind of chickened out about the food, preferring to eat a $4.00 Big Mac at the local McDonald’s (which incidentally were the best Big Macs I’ve ever eaten; they looked just like the ones in the commercials). So for this trip, I decided to eat whatever was put in front of me, so I could experience the “real Japan”.
I’m just about done with my braised eel (very tasty, BTW) when I noticed the little compartment on the tray with pickled ginger and whatnot. There’s a bright green blob of–I didn’t know what – so I tossed it down without even thinking. Wasabi! I think I actually started to cry, right there in front of our supplier.
Oh, and then I gotta tell about the breakfasts. The hotels serve Western-style breakfasts, but they cost about $20.00. I wanted to save my per diem, so would go across the street to the 7-11 and get a packaged Hostess-type cake and eat it on the bus. After a few days of this, I’m getting pretty confident in my ability to choose things based on apperance only. I unwrap and start chowing down, and this cake I swear to God was full of salty, stewy fish. That’s the closest I’ve ever been to actually vomiting due to a bad-tasting meal.
I don’t know what the absolute worst one was but it usually falls into emergency hiking situations. I used to go w/ a stove (as I planned to build a fire) and sometimes the weather and fuel sources did not fully cooperate. One I remember was pasta soaked in warm water (till it colded down and it was just soaking in water). Pancakes that were burnt on the outside and raw in the middle (same with steak but frozen in the middle - wouldn’t be that bad though if the outside wasn’t black). And an old rusty can of spam someone left at a leanto.
most of my bad meals have been in restraunts or the results of other peoples cooking mistake…
Althouhg the worst cooking mistake i ever made was when i was swimming and i made a pan of ramen noodles ok it almost turned out fine except i have weak hands and the pan had a loose handle
well this was straight boiling water with noodles… i was wearing swimming trunks the loose type wiht the built in mesh type underwear my hand flipped broke off the pan handle and dumped boiling water and noodles right down my shorts … i received something along a 1 1?2 egree burn and
most of the worst meals came from parkview jr high in lancaster ca and a.v. high in the same place half the time the food you received was old dried out or occasionaly spoiled
parkview was noted becuase if it has surplus ketchup it froze it for later use … we learned to cover anything in bbq suace and close our eyes , also someones demented invention was called a “taco snack” it was supposed ot be a cross between a taco and a burrito ,wiht imataion cheese meat that tasted like dog food when they were soft enough to eat …
worst resturant meals usually come from the chians like dennys or a chain called perkins ect … and fast food wise taco bells boil in bag mush they call hamburger has it the worse raste …
I have a hard time eating any meat with fruit. As a child we were on a road trip for vacation and had a meal in a restaurant in Farmington, New Mexico. I had ham with cherry sauce. Not so bad and I am NOT a picky eater now and wasn’t then. But SOMETHING was bad with the sauce, it tasted terrible and I said so. My parents thought I was being difficult but Dad finally tasted it and HE thought it was bad too. That was over thirty-five years ago and we still remember it.
Oh God - dorm food.
Once, years ago, I got a hotdog at the cafateria. I didn’t know it was a cheese hot dog. I didn’t know such horrid things existed. Now I love cheese, but when I cut into the hot dog all I saw was this yellow slime slowly oze out of it.
Lutefisk.
For the uninitiated, lutefisk is a Norwegian “delicacy”. I put that word in quotes because Norwegians refer to this vile dish as such but I can never tell if they’re serious or yanking my chain. This gastric abomination is cod cooked with lye.
Don’t look at me like that. It’s true.
What results from the cauldron (yup…cooked in a cauldron) is something akin to a toxic waste leak. It is a gelatinous grey ooze with all the appeal of pig snot. And it smells bad, too.
I did not know any of this when I attended my step-mother’s Thanksgiving with her side of the family.
My father said to me, “Son, you are about to have Thanksgiving in a Norwegian household. Do you know what this means?”
“No, Dad.” I replied.
“It means that I won’t suffer alone.” my father deadpanned.
Upon entering the house my nose and eyes were assaulted with a reek and burning that I hadn’t experienced since living downwind from that illegal dump in New Jersey.
“Gack…” I heaved.
My father grabbed my bicep, hard, leaned in and hissed, “Shut up or we’re both in trouble.”
“Ooooooo,” crooned my step-mother as she took a deep whiff, “Tante Hovey has outdone herself this year.”
Throughout the day, the women in the kitchen kept shooing the men away from the pot. “Get away, you, it isn’t ready!” Tante Hovey kept shouting while brandishing some oar-like stirring implement. These guys were fiends. For turkey, I would understand but for the yet unseen, but palpably evident, lutefisk…well, I was dumbfounded.
The elder men grumbled some mix of English and Norwegian and went back to watching football. I spent as much time as I could outside. I was seriously dreading the holiday feast. I was meeting this side of the family for the first time and I wanted to make a good impression but I felt my resolve weakening. “This lutefisk must be some sort of test.” I thought. “There is no way they can be serious about eating it.”
The moment of truth came some hours later. The men were piss drunk on Aqavit (no doubt to steel themselves for the upcoming meal) and the women all giddy as they wheeled the steaming cauldron to the end of the table. The eldest man, my step-grandfather, offered his plate and was rewarded with a huge ladle full of lutefisk that hit with the sound of a large bull crapping on wet concrete. His eyes wide and his mouth working with anticipation, my step-grandfather snatched a liberally buttered piece of lefse (potato pancake) and scooped a mouthful of the sloppy mess into his gullet. I have never seen a more disgusting display of eating in my entire life.
My father handed me a plate. The time had come. He stared at me expectantly. I looked down at the still jiggling, semi-translucent former cod. I looked back up at my father - he was still staring at me. I knew what he was thinking. I could see it all over him. “Boy, you had better stuff that lutefisk in your mouth this very moment or so-help-me-GOD…”
Ah, well…when in Rome…
I mimicked my grandfather’s movements exactly. I figured that if anyone had the technique and the ability to survive this ordeal it was him. He was, after all, the oldest guy there. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any Aqavit which, I suspect, was the key to his success. I reached for a piece of lefse and shoveled what I thought was a manly portion into my mouth. My eyes began to water. My throat clenched. My stomach told me to “Fuck off!”
The lutefisk sat there. Which was a Bad Thing because it began to get lukewarm and I began to notice all the subtle flavors of bilge water, chemical toxins and cod liver oil with just a hint of - what the hell? - Pine Sol. Time stood still. The room felt way too hot. Why is everyone looking at me like that? Jesus. God?
I swallowed. Fast. The mass slithered down my esophagus like a gigantic chunk of coughed up phlegm. Taking my stomach by surprise it didn’t have time to react and just took the abuse.
Before I could think, I scooped more and more lutefisk into me never really pausing to breathe. I just had to get this plate clean and it would be over.
After finishing off the last bit, I shoved the plate away from me and slammed my fist on the table, shaking all the silverware and crystal. A cheer went up and my father clapped me on the back.
“By God that boy is definitely a Norwegian!” thundered my step-grandfather.
I didn’t know whether to spit in his eye or hug him with joy. I turned down seconds.