Most embarassing food moment?
Tonight I was getting ready to bake some brownies for a work event, and as I was greasing the pan I saw a small hair (maybe even from my dog-yikes!). Luckily, I caught it BEFORE I served it to my colleagues!
What is your most embarassing food moment? Fess up. :O)
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24 Comments:
I was about 15, and it had been my job for quite some time to prepare dinner for the family. One night I decided to steam some brocolli, but I forgot to wash it first before putting it in the pot. When I was about to pop a steamed florette into my mouth, I saw a bunch of dead bugs (like, a colony!) in the piece I was about to eat. I masked my horror, slowly lowered my fork, and left the rest of the brocolli uneaten on my plate. I did not, however, warn the rest of my family about my faux pas. I was too embarassed to admit my mistake. Who knows how many bugs were consumed that evening!
juliebugsmama at 10:30AM on 10/22/08
My first boyfriend's mom was always trying to take me out and hang out with me. When I was about sixteen she asked me if I'd ever had sushi- I didn't want to say I hadn't, so I lied and said I loved the stuff.
Fast forward two days later and we're sitting at a fancy sushi place. I don't know what to order and she keeps asking me what I "usually" get. I decide the safest bet is just to order whatever she does. The food arrives and it looks like it's from a different planet, I don't know how to use chopsticks and I don't even know what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to eat the stuff.
I somehow manage to use my chopsticks and shove my first piece of raw fish into my mouth. My stomach wretched, the texture was beyond gross to me. She saw the face I made and was like, "What's wrong? Is it bad? I thought you loved sushi!" I was beyond mortified.
Seven years later I've learned to get over the texture and have proudly proclaimed sushi one of my all time favorite foods. Too bad I no longer have a boyfriend who's mom is willing to take me out to expensive sushi restaurants ...
PumpkinBear at 5:00PM on 10/22/08
PumpkinBear said -- "I don't know how to use chopsticks"
Chinese people don't REALLY use chopsticks. The whole thing is just a trick to make Westerners (specifically, Caucasians) feel clumsy and inferior.
Think about it for a minute... it's 2 STICKS. Come on!
FastFoodCritic at 3:57AM on 10/23/08
when i was first married i had my parents and grandparents over for dinner. i wanted to make this awesome beef dish that i learned from a brazilian friend. well, the beef had to be very thinly sliced and i didnt know you could ask the butcher to slice it for you, so i did it myself. about half way through the piece of raw meat i couldnt handle it anymore and stopped slicing. i figured i had a fairly large pile of meat already cut and with rice and salad it would make enough. well it didnt. all 6 of us got about 2 tiny slices of beef, a little rice and LOTS of salad hahaha!!! i felt so bad!
the night before i had made an apple crisp and wanted to share it will them so they would feel more full. but my hubs and i had eaten alot of the crisp already so there was just barely enough left to divide between my parents and gparents. barely. i think they just thought we were too poor to afford more food. i was soooooo embarrassed!!!
tamariga at 12:34PM on 10/23/08
My second restaurant job. I was on pasta and the pasta machine clogged. I thought I was being all quick-acting and on top of the situation when I ran to the bathroom to grab the plunger to unclog it... the same plunger that gets used in the toilet. Only after I unclogged the machine and saw the other cooks staring at me did I realize what I had done. Whoops.
Needless to say, the machine had to be emptied and sterilized, and nobody was too happy with me about not having a working, human waste-free pasta machine for service.
kenjialtci at 3:02PM on 10/23/08
@fastfoodcritic
And Chinese people certainly don't REALLY use chopsticks to eat Japanese sushi!
Sushi's finger food anyway - not using chopsticks is 100% acceptable.
kenjialtci at 3:06PM on 10/23/08
@kenji- awesome plunger story!
Kerosena at 3:15PM on 10/23/08
I was 24 and dining out with some high profile ad agency reps.
(I believe I was wearing my first 3 piece suit at the time!)
We went to some steak house on the north side of Chicago & I
ordered Steak Tartare, never having had it before & not knowing
it was served raw. When I was served I took one look at it and
told the waiter to send it back & cook it some more. He replied in a snotty
French accent "Monsieur, it not supposed to be cooked!" Rather
than admit I didn't know this, I insisted that they cook it anyway & said
thats' the way I like MY Steak Tartare prepared. Then I noticed one of my
clients snickering & turning red in the face...
tinytim at 5:48PM on 10/23/08
@tinytim ~ LMAO LOL out loud and fell of my chair. That has to be one of the funniest stories I've heard in my whole life. That's a keeper that I'll be repeating, with the opening - Did I tell you the story about.......
Thanks for sharing such an embarrassing, but hilarious moment in your life. I'll be laughing for the next month!
PerkyMac at 5:59PM on 10/23/08
here's one through proxy -- my mom wanted to impress my dad on their second date, so she decided shrimp cocktail would be fancy. she had (and still has) NO idea how to cook anything, except maybe a root beer float.
she went to the grocery store and found out from the man at the fish counter how to peel and de-vein the shrimp. then she went home and spent hours washing and cleaning them, and arranging them in patterns in fancy glasses with cocktail sauce. after my dad bit into one and asked how long she had cooked the shrimp for, since they tasted a bit gummy, she said "oh i didn't cook them! shrimp cocktail is COLD!"
sigh...she served the blue-black raw shrimp covered in sauce not ever asking herself why it looked different than usual.
on a positive note, that was in the early 1970's and they're still together. he just does all the cooking!
megannesta at 6:27PM on 10/23/08
These are so funny! Thanks for the stories!
barbara_flay at 9:23PM on 10/23/08
@tinytim ~ I rarely read posts to my husband. He is busy doing other things. But I HAD to read yours out loud! I was laughing so hard I had tears!!
izatryt at 9:46PM on 10/23/08
I hope being embarrassed FOR someone counts.
I had this job interview for a really great position in a really great company. I really wanted this job! My potential boss wanted to meet at an upscale restaurant for lunch. We ordered and were having a good conversation, I felt the interview was going well until they brought the food.
This man had the most horrendous table manners I have EVER seen....slurping, glurping, dropping sauce on his shirt, talking with his mouth full, shoveling food like a 2-year-old! He had food on his face. The napkin never left the table. The people around us were literally STARING AT HIM. It was horrific! It was like that Tide stick commercial where the stain on the shirt is talking to the guy and he can't concentrate on the conversation. I had no idea what he was saying...I couldn't speak, couldn't form words, just sat there, I'm sure with a stunned look on my face and I know my face was blazing red.
I didn't get the job and I'm positive it was because I said nothing for the remainder of the "interview" meal. OMG I was SO embarrassed!!!
This was almost 20 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Chef Jo at 11:12PM on 10/23/08
@Chef Jo ~ I once had a boss just like that. Other than his table manners, he was a really great guy, father, husband, boss. We had a staff of under 30 people and he used to love to take us all out for breakfast meetings and treat us for lunch and dinner. Normally, that would have been great, but we were all so embarrassed at his total lack of manners. He also spoke loudly in a crowded restaurant. He was in his mid-thirties and not hard of hearing. I think his parents didn't teach him and they probably didn't go out very often. None of us had the heart to tell him. I think we all hoped his wife or business partner would do the dirty deed. Sure am glad I didn't have to interview with him over food. BTW: We started having potlucks in the office - cut down on the restaurant experiences. That Tide commercial is spot on, isn't it? ;)
PerkyMac at 11:28PM on 10/23/08
@PerkyMac said, " That Tide commercial is spot on, isn't it?" Yea, it is, but it wants to be spot off! Sorry, couldn't help it.
My most embarassing food moment was having my boyfriend and some of his family to dinner, cooking broccoli from our garden and finding a worm in it while at the table. Nice, bright green worm.
IndyGal at 8:45AM on 10/24/08
@IndyGal ~ pun intended. Glad you noticed it! ;-)
PerkyMac at 9:08AM on 10/24/08
Ah yes, what's worse than finding a worm in your broccoli? . . . Finding a half a worm!. LOL
Fanciesmom at 11:31AM on 10/24/08
@Francie's mom. Funny! Worst moment, having someone find a hair of mine in their piece of cake. Long, wavy and no doubt mine. And then she proceeded to insist on eating it anyway. Humiliated!
dhorst at 7:47PM on 10/24/08
Inviting a new beau to dinner and having my 18 month old grab a 1/3 lb. chunk of bleu cheese off the counter and eat the whole thing (there went the salad!) while I was out of the room - then while I was taking the lemon angel pie (layers of lemon curd and whipped cream in a meringue shell) out of the fridge and dumping it upside down on the kitchen floor.
"He" told me that would teach me - the meringue belongs on top! Sheeesh!
Fanciesmom at 8:05PM on 10/24/08
In high school I wanted to make a "smancy-fancy" dinner for two for my sweetheart and myself in my parents home while they were out of town. I thought that we could act like it was our house and I was cooking dinner for my husband.
I decided to make meat fondue with sirloin, shrimp and mushrooms along with garlic bread and twice-baked potatoes.
The dinner was yummy and after I cleaned up (cause that is what a wife does...), we were sitting on the couch watching TV and our stomachs started to grumble, then it was a mad dash to the bathrooms (thank goodness we have 3), and the rest of the night involved us laying on the floors, doubled-up in pain which had to be some type of food poisoning.
My boyfriend had to call his mother to come over and get him and I will never forget that look on her face like: "What have you done to my baby??".
Yeah, we broke-up soon after that.....and everyone at school knew that story on Monday.
Hunnyoil at 8:53PM on 10/24/08
Alright - I've got a few:
Tried popping pop corn with Corn Syrup instead of Corn Oil - in high school at the time.
Ordered a Make At Your Table Ceasar Salad - but never knew they used raw eggs in it till the waiter cracked a few and mixed them in. ewww ! That grossed me out - in my twenties.
Ordered my first Tuna steak in Hawaii - never knew they were supposed to rare or the fact that cooked it looked like a gray piece of meat. Tried to send it back telling the waiter I order fish not beef. I got a quick lecture about how it should be.
Fried a bunch of turkeys for Thanksgiving one year. Most of them came out really good and done. The last one I did, didn't realize it was still a little frozen inside. After the recommended time for cooking, pulled it out - delivered it to the neighbor who was waiting on it...I got a phone call 10 minutes later that it was raw inside.
Ribster at 8:59PM on 10/24/08
Another time was my first exposure to Wasabi. I honestly thought it was guacamole and put good size portion in my mouth. Set me on fire, luckily I was at the end of the table only one person noticed.
Ribster at 6:15AM on 10/25/08
I had dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. She made spaghetti. Here's her recipe: boil a pound of pasta in about a quart of water. When all the water's absorbed, the spaghetti is ready! Dump the clumpy, sticky mess onto a plate, and cut it with a knife and fork to eat!
Embarrassing for me? No, but unpleasant? Yes!
salpico at 8:03AM on 10/25/08
when I was about 8 i baked an apple pie for my neighbor across the street. At the time, they went on and on about how much they loved it and ate every bite. I now date those neighbor's niece, and have recently learned that when I left the pie out on the front stoop it became infested with ants in about two seconds.
I guess its the thought that counts.
mikemcl55 at 8:58AM on 10/25/08