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Tyson wings. icky and slimy

Did not know until I arrived that the hostess was a vegan raw foodist. Enough said.

Does crunchy rice-a-roni count?

A quiche at a party this christmas...It was like rubber. :( I overheard my friend, whom I love dearly, telling someone how she didn't even have a recipe she just threw it all together...

I went to a wedding recently and I had skewered pieces of grape tomatoes and mozzarella cheese balls drizzled in what tasted like dirty dishwater (or at least as I imagine it would taste like...) They were awful!!! And even worse, that same drizzle was used to dress the dinner salad later on... no acid/vinegar/lemon, no salt... it was just awful!!! I didn't know someone could screw up so much tomatoes and cheese...

My step mother is a lousy cook who fashions herself as the consummate hostess, so her dishes look lovely but taste blah. The one that stands out was a frozen orange dessert that was served in an actual hollowed-out orange. Looked terrific, but you tasted it and realized that the recipe was simply orange sherbet mixed with vanilla ice cream. (It tasted like a creamsicle and I don't mean that in a good way!) It was cloyingly sweet with none of the acidity of something made with a real orange.

I was at a holiday gathering where someone brought a storebought sushi tray. I had one piece and there was something horrible-tasting with a crunchy texture. Tried a piece from a different type of roll and encountered the same thing. Finally realized that the store had used rock-hard avocado in the sushi.

Last year I was at a party where someone brought baked crab-stuffed mushrooms. Looking at them, they looked fantastic...big, loaded with crabmeat, etc. I had one, and it was completely unseasoned and the mushroom was very watery. Tried another just in case it was a fluke. Nope, just a lousy cook!

That's ignoring the party at which I got food poisoning!

Everyone in my family makes good food, and as a kid I was used to a certain standard of quality. Then I went to my best friend's house for a birthday party when I was about eight, and was served a carrot "salad" made of (over)boiled sliced carrot, with tinned tomato soup as the "dressing". I almost threw up there right into my plate! Worse, it was serve with reconstituted powdered milk, and an unfrosted carob cake for dessert! The little kid foodie in me couldn't believe that this was a birthday party.... My poor friend!

SO's mom made the apps for the first Christmas I spent with them. Ritz crackers with green liverwurst. its wasnt spoiled, she had mixed liverwurst with cream cheese and food coloring and piped it onto the crackers. she thought the green made it more "seasonal" she also took some truly lovely oil cured olives and soaked them in hot water over night because she thought they looked "dried out" Now when we go to out there, SO and I usually do a mega cooking spree and stock her freezer with individual meals.

@huney ~ All I can say is WOW. What a woman. Her son should thank his lucky stars that he met you!

The food poisoning stories are scary.

Ack!! A dip made with cream cheese, sour cream and Kitchen Bouquet!!! It was served with brown cauliflower and yellowed broccoli florets.......so, so wrong...

I guess for me, the worst case scenario is that there simply isn't anything that I can eat. I've been to parties where I can only eat plain crackers or undressed salad. I'm used to it, though, so I usually pack snacks or bring a dish to share. It's just easier.

Dinner a few years ago at one my closest friends homes. She wanted to "thank me" for always cooking for her. The chicken looked good on the plate, but when my husband and I cut into it the inside was pink.Well,
we then just picked at the veggies and rice,(also undercooked) and attempted to cover the chicken, and offered to clean the table. eeewww

It had to be today!! Our monthly munchie day. I bought 2 chickens, rubbed and marinated them overnight and put them in my rotisserie at work. The rest of the 25 plus co-workers...well, let's see...there was cold store bought meatloaf that had expired the previous day, and was sitting there...cold!! Chips and salsa, salsa and chips, 4 more kinds of salsa and of course the cream cheese salsa doohickie...a bag of chips, and some store bought dip with crackers. oh, I forgot the little 2 cup bowl of watery fruit salad!! Of course the cumin, ancho, garlic, onion powder, cayenne and paprika rubbed chickens permeated the building with the beguiling aroma and there was a crowd watching them turn and turn to crispy skin heaven. Nary a scrap was left after I cut up the chickens. All the rest of the "food" stayed on the table until 5 p.m. I am getting really tired of contributing 100% to these monthly munchie crap days and getting 5% from co-workers!!!

LOL- where do I begin? Lets see the crap they had at a "white trash" party I went to in the 90's, but that was to be expected.

This lady that I worked with years ago. Every time we had a office pot luck she would always bring this concoction that no one ate and she didn't have a clue. I asked her for the recipe so I made sure NEVER to make this It is cooked Rice A Roni according to the box instuctions, let cool, then add radishes, green onions, a can or two of chicken, olives and a ton of mayo (Paula Deen eat your heart out) mix this all together then chill in the fridge.

This lady who tried to make French onion soup and I was so excited because French onion is one of my fav soups. Couldn't eat it. She put WAY too much thyme in it. It was thyme soup not French onion, I mean there was so much thyme in that soup it was floating about 1/2 inch on the top.

A turkey dinner at Christmas time hosted my BIL and his wife - everyone brought a dish and he was to have the turkey and potatoes - he had cooked the turkey at 200F for 24 hours, then put it into a crock pot to keep warm - what came out were strings of turkey that you could thread on to a needle, with no taste whatsoever - the potatoes were in the form of a "potato salad" - literally (and I am not kidding!) ice cold mashed potatoes in a bowl - there may have been a tablespoon or two of mayonnaise and the top was decorated with pieces of radish that had bled into the potatoes. There were 36 people there - the turkey was about 12 lbs and at the end of the evening there was about 11 lbs. left and maybe three tablespoons of potato missing! Needless to say, others have stepped in to host the meal since then.

My MIL's famous pineapple chicken (of which some of you have already heard) - a package of chicken pieces, a bottle of cheapest barbecue sauce (I only mention "cheapest" because I know for certain that this is how the sauce is chosen) and a tin of cut pineapple. All mixed together and baked until tough as rubber.

Also, her salmon salad - tinned salmon with mayo and roughly chopped yellow onions. I love onions, but I don't fancy chunks of raw yellow onions in anything. Still, it would have probably been the most edible thing on her table, had she removed the bones. But she didn't. Maybe she thought that the bones added an interesting textural element. But most likely, she just didn't give a s&%*.

@pjracz10: Yeah, that Rice-a-Roni dish would have made a decent pilaf until the canned chicken and mayo entered the picture. Too bad!

@Perky and gentlyferal - I still have the recipe she gave me even after 25 years I should dig it up and post it lol. I mean the stuff was swimming in mayo. I mean I like my mayo but come on.

First Thanksgiving at my boyfriends, now husbands,home. His mother insisted on making the entire meal without help. While not great food, it was okay, and certainly made with love. What gave us all pause (and a quick pass) was the bottled gravy that had chopped hard boiled eggs added "it's a Southern thing" she said. Since most of our family works in the healthcare field we made a joke out of what body fluid it resembled most. Use your own imagination. After the second year of passing the chunky egg gravy around the table my husband and I decided to take over Thanksgiving dinner.

My boyfriend's boss held a potluck: store-bought 'Italian bread' slathered with 1/2 an inch of mayo, garlic powder, and dried parsley, then baked til burnt. At the same party, a bowl of cans of undrained kidney and pinto beans, a bottle of italian dressing, and cubes of velveeta all tossed together dubbed a "bean salad". Ouch.

The Tribune Review recipe section wasn't much better.....they made thorough use of canned chicken! I kill myself to make some really cool dishes for parties, and it kind of offends me when I see people licking cold gravy from styrofoam plates and leaving my offerings untouched.

Offends me until I realise I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsyltuckey.

Potluck #1: A salad made of raw cauliflower, raw onions, grated cheddar cheese, grapes and ranch dressing.

Potluck #2: Lasagna made with lasagna noodles, ground pork that was probably unseasoned, spinach, and cream of mushroom soup. No cheese, no beef, no tomato.

The 'worst of the worst' parties would have to be the ones I went to at college, which usually involved questionable punch, Rolling Rock beer cans, and perhaps some Domino's pizza and cans of salsa and tortilla chips, if the hosts were feeling very festive. Oh, and Jell-O shots. Not so much for the taste, because I did not 'partake' but having to be the designated hair-holder/hook-up preventer for my female friends afterward and fending off some less-than-desirable male company. (I have a feeling these comments will be 'rebuked' by the bodily functions thread...I hope I'm being delicate enough).

Since then, I have to say that being served goat is up there. Also at the same party, every Greek woman bought one of those Greek white lasangas, which I am not very fond of, but it was more the fact there was one 16 ounce lasanga for every 3 or 4 people, in addition to the rest of the food which was just. not. necessary. Oh, and Jell-O for dessert, vats of it and nothing else.

The nice thing about parties though, as the Perkster observed, is at least you don't have to pretend to eat the stuff if you don't like it as at a dinner party.

After reading about the Tiki barbecue pineapple chicken gone wrong, and the 24 hour turkey, I really have to think that some woman's magazines could be sued for some of the damage their 'recipe pages' have done to American cuisine.

My MIL asked me what I would like for my birthday dinner. Prime Rib! Love rare prime rib. So she went out and bought the biggest hunk-a-love she could find. Spent a fortune I'm sure (and this was in the '70's). That night, at the table, she proudly delivered...pot roast. Yep, she had pot-roasted that lovely cut of meat. Well, it was tender.

Another...while attending a family reunion in Michigan, after a decade in New Orleans, my 7 year old whispered to me, "What's wrong with the food? It has no taste." Since then we travel with mini bottles of Tabasco.

@ heartofglass- sounds like that party I attended in the 90's, not the people but the food and the drinks served.

@bobo - something gave us food poisoning, we had to leave immediately. Enough said.

@pjacz10--haha! Yeah, I think that every party in the 90s had that menu come to think of it--I guess the baked tortilla chips made it 'healthier' than the 80s favorite, Doritos.

@brooke29--well, I just made up that name, but it does sound like a mish-mash of every 1950s tiki-menu craze item--like when hostesses would serve Jell-O with floating pineapple chunks to be 'ethnic' and 'edgy.'

oh, and @chiff--the Tick Tock Diner is one of the most famous diners in NJ--so you probably got better deal (although a belated one).

I agree though, that it's pretty shocking to serve booze without any food, as if these people are asking for trouble--in general, with all of this 'bad' party food, there is almost no excuse. It can be hard to cook for a dinner party, but for good party food, just getting really high-quality nuts, cheeses, crackers, smoked meats and cold cuts for those who eat meat, plus a variety of breads, dips, and spreads, and even ice cream, chocolates, toppings and fruit for dessert can satisfy most people.

@brooke29- anthing with a name like Tiki Pineapple Suprise Chicken s/b called Tiki Pineapple Surprise your Stomach Chicken.
Does anyone remember a tomato soup cake in the 70's ? I remember the Crazy Cake in the 70's which I did like and then the "Better then Sex" cake in the 80's which was good, very rich? But I never did try the tomato soup cake.

@brooke29--haha--that made me laugh out loud! That is so true! Surprises are for parties and gifts, not for food!

lamora - free yourself and Stop Bringing the Chickens - you don't have too! Just bring the same type of items that everyone else is bringing and you won't be so stressed. Yes - they will complain, but after a few months go by it won't be such a big deal. They'll say ' hey remember those chickens you used to bring?' your answer: 'Yeah - so what do you think about the weather?'

My worst experience was a potluck at someone's home who cooked "curried chicken" that tasted like mothballs!

@brooke29- I know this is not a dinner party but my BF talks about when he was in high school and they made Tuesday Surprise which was canned stewed tomatos mixed with bulgar wheat and sometimes canned tuna, was added ooooo, ROTFL. This was the late 60's btw.

I had this tofu cake at a camp party once...it was spongy, tasted like nothing...the blueberry sauce was the best part of the whole thing!

It's fair to expect to be fed when you're invited to a party, and I would hope for something more than salsa or PickaPeppa over cream cheese, but those would be preferred to peculiar, soggy, strange tasting recipes prepared by someone who never cooks. Truly, I'd rather have a big bowl of Chex Mix and domestic beer than something freaky and inedible, and I've had plent of that. It seems most likely at game-watching gatherings, too. In defense of these occasional cooks, I've seen equally freaky football snack recipes in those supermarket checkout magazines. Let's lay blame evenly over where it's due.

Some people might take this as blasphemy since I read around here somewhere that the recipe was created by James Beard, but the absolutely worst food I ever had at a party was made for a post-wedding dinner thrown by one of my mother's friends for my husband and myself. White bread, cut into circles, doused with mayo, coated with raw onions (my most hated of any kind of food ever), stuck together, with more mayo on top, rolled in raw parsley. I know people say it to be funny, but I actually *literally* threw up in my mouth a little.

Pickled herring at a friend's wedding near Amsterdam. I can usually hold down anything, but this offering was slimy, raw with a bad off-fish taste, and then you get that extra sour pickle taste just to top it off...(btw, I'm a sushi fan), but this took the cake. I nearly gagged, and had to spit it out....yuck!!

Roast beef au jus is something that I find suspect in the first place - but I saw my nieces making it - first they dissolved Lipton's Onion Soup in a crock and then they dumped store bought slices of roast beef in.

Needless to say, I did not try it. I will add that my best option at those parties usually turns out to be a "bagel" with store sliced cheese from Costco!

I am far from the best cook (but I have a few numbers of excellent catering services) but when my coworker invited us over for dinner, boy did I look like Julia Childs to my boyfriend. One of the worst meals we have ever had with under and overcooked foods. The thing I remember most was the coffee "flan". You either got one that was so hard it didn't jiggle or so soft and runny it was like the texture of egg whites. Her "princess" daughter had helped her make it and since the world revolves around her, we all had to try it. BARF!!! We went home and vowed NEVER TO EAT THERE AGAIN!!!

I tried sea urchin at a fancy French Tourist Agency party. The French chicks were going wild for it and I am up for trying anything. It is presented in it's spiny shell, cold, I am not sure it it was raw? Well it tastes like gelatin made with ocean water. Just a mouthful of cold slimy salt. Blech. At least I can say I tried it right? Mostly I hate when you go to a party and the host makes a point of telling you there will be tons of food and you get there and its a bag a stale Lays, soooooooo lame!

This may not be the worst food I ever had but it's a good story. When I was a kid, my grandmother made Thanksgiving dinner. She always has been a very tidy housekeeper. She took extra care about making sure there was never a time when she did not have plenty of mothballs in all her closets. I love her but her house always smells of that awful mothball stench. (She'll be 90 next month!) Where did she stash the extra loaves of bread she bought a few days early for the stuffing? You guessed it. The hall closet. Ah, the aroma and taste of sage, onion and mothball............