Your Worst Meal Ever
Following off the hilarious "worst meal you ate politely as a guest" thread, what's the worst meal that you've ever made? We weren't all born great cooks, so I'm sure there are some good stories to share...
When I was in seventh grade, I mistook Karo syrup for canola oil when making a box of macaroni and cheese after school one day. I'll never forget the texture OR the taste...
And in college, when I had gotten somewhat better at preparing food, I attempted to make a German feast from scratch, but only ended up with permanently-stained countertops (from the homemade red cabbage, which didn't even taste good), too-thick and undercooked wienerschnitzel and grease burns from having the oil in the pan too hot for the aforementioned meat. Ugh.
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12 Comments:
I haven't made anything really terrible (yet) but I did attend dinner at a co-worker's house who didn't yet speak and understand English very well. When dressing my burger she had barbequed, I noticed a bottle of IAMS dog food gravy on the table. When I asked her what it was for, she said it was barbeque sauce and she put it on my burger. I put tons of ketchup and mustard on that burger, along with many layers of onions. Thank goodness IAMS isn't bad for human consumption!
Diz at 5:42PM on 02/29/08
Hmmm. I've made my share of lousy meals, I'm sure. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but my husband once fixed me a spaghetti dinner. He was so proud of his homemade tomato sauce. It contained every type of sweetner in the house--white sugar, brown sugar, honey... It was, um, awful. But he was so proud and so excited that he cooked ME dinner. I ate it. He hasn't been allowed to touch tomato sauce since...
Kelly
Kelly Spitzer at 6:07PM on 02/29/08
Diz.. lololol that reminds me of the beef storganoff dinner I made one night for my kids and my 12 year daughter said "Mom, that looks like Grand Gourmet Dog Food!" And I gotta say it did!
NanaJoie at 6:19PM on 02/29/08
Gotta be the fried chicken dinner I tried to prepare 3 days after I got married...served realllly undercooked chicken to my new in-laws...Uhh...is that why the marriage didn't last:)
JEP at 6:24PM on 02/29/08
I'd have to say it was when I was in grad school and saw all of those cool looking boxes of dried polenta, couscous, etcetera and tried to make them on my stove--I grew up in a household where everything was underdone, and those things are horridly salty and lumpy in general--the real stuff is great, but anything 'quick noodles/pasta/rice' from a box--blech.
Oh yeah, and baking bran muffins from a box and trying to leave out all of the oil. Bran discs. Mmmm...
HeartofGlass at 7:19PM on 02/29/08
Okra and whale blubber, both canned.
srhcb at 8:10PM on 02/29/08
Well, I experiment, so occasionally things go wrong. Very wrong. For example, there were the chicken... latkes, I guess. This name would be based on appearance, nothing else (such as tastiness, potatoes, etc.). I was trying to be simultaneously thrifty AND innovative with some left-over ground chicken. The resulting pancake-ish objects incorporated most of the unpleasant textures one can find in food, with weird overtones of peanut (although no peanut products were involved).
Possibly the most disturbing LOOKING food I ever made were black bean empanadas in a buckwheat crust. I was enchanted by the cement-grey crust and deep black filling, and they did taste nice, but others evidently found them a bit troubling to look at, and I only ate one in public.
I also carelessly used sugar, rather than salt, to draw moisture from sliced eggplant, while assisting a friend of mine in the preparation of a very time-consuming and complex dish. We were in the unfamiliar kitchen of other friends, and the coarse salt and pearl-sugar they had were (on casual inspection) identical. The end result was appalling, squishy and sweet.
mongoose at 9:15PM on 02/29/08
I once used salt instead of sugar in chocolate chip cookies at my MIL's. She had it in a canister. Who keeps salt in a canister? We figured out that one pretty quickly. Phewy!
More recently I made chocolate chip cookies with rancid flour. Wouldn't you think I'd have tasted just one before I wrapped them up as a gift? Thanksfully, I at least kept a few at home and I was the first to taste. And taste. For about a week - not kidding.
Another time, when generics were the newest thing, I bought some lunch meat, made sandwiches and we all took one bite and spit it out. I looked at the ingredients list and the first was beef lips. That went in the trash and I was real wary of generics from that time on.
Usually, mistakes could be fixed - undercooked meat could use a few more minutes. I remember cooking liver one time and it couldn't have been baby liver. Mine was usually awesome and this was just dry and tough. My kids still remember that I said - nobody has to eat this, and threw it out and fixed something else.
Probably the best was the year I decided to par cook the turkey the day before TDay so I didn't have to get up at 5 am to have dinner on the table at noon, as my MIL insisted. It was 22 pounds. I figured I'd cook it a few hours, then it wouldn't take so long the next day. I fell asleep and the next morning there was only skin and bones. The meat had completely dried up. In those days, stores were closed on holidays and I can't remember what I did, but I know for sure we didn't get any meat from that turkey.
PerkyMac at 9:59PM on 02/29/08
The first time I cooked an actual meal was when I moved out of the house. It was spaghetti. I didn't know whether or not the ground beef had to be cooked first. My mom made spaghetti a million times, but I didn't go into the kitchen when she was cooking unless she called on me.
Raw ground beef went into the pot along with the tomato paste, a bunch of herbs, chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, celery, mushrooms, zucchini, and some water. It looked ok.
I suspected something was not right when everything started to cook and there was no meat. Huh?
The meat had separated into tiny particles throughout the sauce. The zucchini and mushrooms were overdone (so was the pasta), but it was edible. This was also the first meal I prepared for my then bf, now xbf, who was somewhat of a gourmet. He found it funny. We were together for several years after that and taught me how to cook.
But my most memorable faux pas...
My mother was terminally ill (2 weeks before she died) and taken to visit with me, [different] xbf, and his child since we lived quite a distance away. I figured Kool-Aid was better than offering water. It asked for 3 cups of sugar, so I made it up and gave it to her without trying it. I asked how it was, and she said it was good and drank the entire glass. When she left, my xbf's daughter and I had a glass. We took a sip. She drank her sip and I spat it out. It was heinously salty. I can now find humor in it 10+ years later, but I was devastated for years after it happened.
Cassaendra at 8:46AM on 03/01/08
@ PerkyMac: Thanksgiving was a Worst Meal Ever Day for me, too. There's always a lot of pressure to conform to people's expectations.
Three years ago, I took on Thanksgiving for the first time. I didn't do any prep work the night before, basically. A family poker game distracted me and went into the wee hours. Stupid cards.
Anyway, in a time crunch as mealtime approached, I failed to properly wash the spinach before cooking. When it came time to serve, I didn't sample it. It was "as sandy as a day at the beach," per my uncle. Everyone laughed their a_ _ es off.
And I baked an apple pie while the turkey rested--thinking it would come hot out of the oven after the meal--but in my hasty pie preparation, I failed to add butter among the floured/sugared apples to allow the pie filling to come together. Upon serving, apples tumbled out of the pie.
Talk about errors. The family laughed at me! As a result, I became a lot more disciplined. Prep work in advance is always a factor now. Always.
Susquehanna at 9:38AM on 03/01/08
when I was a real novice (instead of my current semi-novice status, heh), I made a crock pot chicken breast meal. it was absolutely disgusting. my husband and I bravely ate it, since there wasn't any other option that evening, but I am extremely hesitant about recipes that put breasts in the crock. bleah.
alosha7777 at 1:04AM on 03/02/08
my bf (now hubby) had just moved in together, and i was going to play "cook". i knew how to make mac and cheese from the box, and toast, and that was about it.
but this time, i was going to make lemon chicken. recipe? i don't need no stinkin' recipe!
into the baking dish went the chicken peices, sprinkles of salt and pepper and 2 chopped up lemons. and nothing else. bake at 350 till chicken is done.
i can't belive he ate it. i can't believe he married me.
8 years later, and we still joke about it.
redhead at 7:40PM on 03/03/08