48 Times People Were Disgusted By Someone’s Home Cooking, As Shared In This Online Community


One of the Hogwarts professors used to say in the Harry Potter books that you need to have an innate talent for Potions, and no books can replace its absence. Most likely, he was right - at least, this is absolutely true for those activities that are most akin to Potions, only for Muggles. Yes, we are now talking about cooking.

Many people are completely convinced that spoiling food when you do not know how to cook at all is a real kitchen crime. From this point of view, there are petty hooligans, and there are absolute gangsters whose every approach to the stove turns into a natural disaster and a threat to the lives of others. And, unfortunately, there are many such people.

Recently, a new question appeared in the AskReddit community: "What's the worst home cooking you've ever witnessed?", which caused a lively interest among redditors. At least as of today, the original post has over 8.4K upvotes and about 3.5K comments listing culinary crimes of varying severity.

Bored Panda compiled a list for you of the most popular, funny and even life-threatening stories from this thread, so now feel free to scroll to the very end, write your own comments - and never, under any circumstances, repeat the mistakes of the 'heroes' of these tales! Anyway, bon appetite!

More info: Reddit

#1 A Kinda ‘Vegan’ Omelette

I had an old friend back in college who claimed to be vegan. I didn’t understand this since she drank milk and ate cheese, which clearly are NOT vegan but insisted meat and eggs are wrong to consume. This one time she invited me over for lunch and decided to make a ‘Vegan’ omelette. I’m not a vegan, but am always open to trying new dishes. Now, I know there are options for egg substitutes out there and thought she would use one of those. Nope. She dissolved a whole box of saltine crackers in milk, sautéed some veggies in a pan, then dumped the soggy cracker concoction into it. Cooked it for a few minutes the. Added some cheese. She then divided it in half and served it to me on a plate. I’ve had some very good vegan dishes in my life but that was definitely not one of them.

Image credits: Zera1930

#2 Collecting Breadcrumbs From The Chicken's Container

We have a plastic container full of breadcrumbs that we make from stale bread. I was making breaded chicken/kotlets with my sibling, and we were using said breadcrumbs to do so. My siblings plan to avoid more cleaning up was to just dip the eggy raw chicken into the breadcrumb container, as this can then just be put back afterwards. After I caught them doing this, I said we would have to throw out all the breadcrumbs afterwards, to which they were confused as to why, because to them all the breadcrumbs that touched the chicken would have been picked up. It resulted in a big argument and despite everyone else explaining why it was bad, they still do not see why. Have never trusted them with food hygiene again.

Image credits: benicco

#3 Failing To Cook A Simple Meal, Eggs, Bacon, Toast

I worked at a restaurant for years and always loved making food at home for friends and family. Practice has made me fast and efficient. So I always cooked and made new dishes at home for me and my roommate.

One morning out of the blue my roommate wanted to make me breakfast because he wanted to thank me I suppose. It was a nice gesture. I didn’t want to intervene so I let him do everything and just peaked from time to time.

It was a simple meal, eggs, bacon, toast.
He went through the whole carton of eggs because he kept burning them. He ruined the pan by scraping with a butter knife, after that everything was sticking to it, forgot the season. It was a mess. Somehow managed to burn a lot of toast in the process, also burned the bacon multiple times that the house got full of smoke and just continue cooking with low visibility. Once I realized he wasn’t gonna do anything about the smoke I opened the windows, doors and turned fan on, by that point I was already eyeing the fire extinguisher just in case.
Then it hit me. He’s never cooked a meal in his life.
He said his mom only fed him to-go food and microwave meals.

It was a nice meal.

Image credits: outdoorschillguy

#4 Chicken With A Sauce Composed Of Balsamic Glaze, Caesar Dressing, And A Splash Of Kool-Aid

I have a friend who’s an objectively decent cook, she knows meat temperatures and what a microwave can and can’t be used for. But when she starts to get creative, all hell breaks loose.

She once served me chicken with a sauce composed of balsamic glaze, Caesar dressing, and a splash of Kool-Aid, among other things I can’t immediately recall. I think an instant ramen packet went in there? I’m actually thinking of signing her up for HelloFresh as a birthday gift so she literally only gets what’s supposed to be in the recipe

Image credits: luella27

#5 Being A Living Kitchen Threat

Depends on what you consider the worst.

Most inedible meal? Hands down my brother. My kids have food allergies. Bro decided years ago that no one has food allergies. They are just brainwashed into thinking they have them. So he won't tell us if he put things they are allergic to in his cooking. So we don't eat anything he cooks.

Most unsanitary? This event happened right after the last time he tried to make my kids eat something they are allergic to. Hands down, Bro. He married a nurse for a short time. While they were dating, he invited her over for some ham, beans and cornbread for dinner. As they are dishing up the beans, he says that it is okay if they taste a little funny. He accidentally left them sitting out for 2 days and they got a little mold. He scraped it off and then stirred in some bleach to make it safe to eat. She ordered a pizza. She still married him after this, which has always boggled my mind.

Most disgusting food combinations? Again, Bro. At one point he was visiting my family and he surprised us with breakfast. He wanted to make omelets for us. He used sweet pickle relish instead of bell pepper. He used coffee instead of milk. I have no idea what else he did to it because I was not putting that weird colored awful s**t in my mouth. He also had pancakes made. That he insisted were best with French dressing instead of syrup. He tried choking that down and it made him barf. Then he had a tantrum because none of us would eat any of it (not even his dog would eat this nastiness). Just the smell of the food had my cat in fit. For years after that, she tried to bury Bro like a s**t in her litter box. That cat of mine could hold a grudge forever!

Weirdest worst home cooking? It wasn't my aunt's dish called secret squirrel. I never did figure out what was in it, but no way was I eating anything with that name as a kid. Or it could be the dinner at my first serious boyfriend's mother's house. She cooked dinner as she explained how important it was for her to have all her fillings out and to have them replaced. But it had to be done at the top of a certain mountain in Colorado due to some strange paranormal superstition. I just did not even know what to say about that. She tried to open my mouth to see if I had fillings and needed this special treatment. Nope. Not happening.

Image credits: GrizeldaLovesCats

#6 Catching A Casserole On Actual Fire

Things happen but I had never seen someone catch a casserole on actual fire until last Thanksgiving. They scraped the burnt top off.

Image credits: Bluemonogi

#7 Burgers With Grill Cleaner Instead Of Oil

My uncle was grilling burgers and hot dogs and sprayed the grill with some “cooking oil/PAM” and also sprayed the tops of the burgers and dogs. . . Well we go to eat and they taste funny, turns out the spray was grill cleaner. . . So far we are all still alive

Image credits: hurtfulproduct

#8 Exploding A Lemon Meringue Pie

Outing myself here: I once exploded a lemon meringue pie.

Looked in the oven to check if the meringue was brown and it was...not on the pie. It was intact, several inches to the right of the crust and filling. The whole meringue layer had lifted up and repositioned itself in the oven like an eggy UFO.

All I can figure is that through some odd science magic involving the temperature of the filling, moisture, steam and/or a curse, pressure built up between filling and meringue and POOF takeoff.

Image credits: neonfuzzball

#9 Probably The Worst Dumplings Ever

One time I was invited to a friend’s home, she said she’s cooking, I was excited since she’s from a different area in China, so the food must be different and good.

However I saw her tossed frozen tofu in a hot pan, then dumped a bunch of sauce, then microwaved some meat, almost cook it, tossed it in the sauce too.

It was kind scary. During dinner time, she said “well you are not a big eater huh”. I mean, how could I be a big eater with that weird overcooked salty food?

I was invited again, to make dumplings together. I brought dumpling skin (from a market, I can’t make them). She said she’s going to make the skin, I was excited, I haven’t had fresh dumpling skin for years.

It turns out she bought a tool on Amazon, thinking that would work, obviously she doesn’t know how to use a rolling pin either. The skin was so thick, also sadly not holding the fillings inside.

I kinda took over and said let’s use the store brought skin, here are the fillings I made. The dumplings turned out pretty great, then she started to invite me over every weekend to “cook together”, took me a little while to find out I became her family’s free weekend cook.

I grew up around men and women that cooked well, maybe that makes me very picky.

Image credits: take7pieces

#10 Praising The Culinary Talents Of A Person Who Turned Out To Be A Terrible Cook

Different players would host the DnD game and we would usually order food. But one day, X really wanted to host, and told us he'd cook us his famous Shepherd's Pie. Another friend of ours, Y, never shut up about how good this dish was whenever the topic of cooking came up, so we were excited.

It was watery, unseasoned mashed potatoes. The ground beef was dry, crunchy-crumbly... And unbelievably salty. No other seasoning. Just salt. Too much salt.

Our friend Y was moaning about how good it was and my partner and I were shook (and hungry).

Turns out X had anosmia. He couldn't taste anything but saltiness, which was why his food was both bland and salty. Y was just an idiot.

Image credits: tomato_songs

#11 Just Throwing Things In The Air Fryer For A Random Time And Temperature

My Mom just throws things in her air fryer for a random time/temp and goes outside while I witness it burn. If I wasn't there, I'm sure by now she would've burned down the house.

Image credits: YukiHase

#12 Something One Could Consider To Be 'Tacos'

A friend of mine invited me over to help on an outside project and said he'd buy lunch and beer. I happily did so and the project ran well beyond lunch. No big deal to me, glad to help out however I can and had no real plans. We decided to have dinner at home and then walk to a nearby pub.

For dinner his then-wife cooked *tacos*. She took raw ground beef, added salt and pepper, folded it into a tortilla and deep-fried it on the stove. I knew better but I decided not to offend and ate some. Probably less than 1 to 1.5oz of meat.

We walked to the pub and I had maybe two beers, home by 10:30pm.

At about 2am, I felt my stomach churning. Texted my wife and told her I'd be leaving as soon as I could get off the toilet long enough to drive home. Left around 7am and the 40 minute drive took nearly 90 minutes because of all the stops.

It took about two days for my body to accept more than fluids.

Image credits: Tobias_Flenders

#13 Maybe The Most Incredible Neglect Of Hygiene

A group reunion with college roommates. She dumped all of the chicken and vegetables for a chicken curry into a dirty sink beside a second sink filled with dirty dishes. She lost a piece of chicken down the garbage disposal and reached in to retrieve it. I looked over at our other old roommate and went, “Girl, we gon die tonight.” We smiled and prayed.

Image credits: anon

#14 Microwaved Frozen Chicken Breasts Until Thawed, Then Cooked Naked On A Sheet Pan

Microwaved frozen chicken breasts until thawed, then cooked naked on a sheet pan and served shredded for tacos. Bonus, they were not seasoned because "that's what the salsa is for!" This was for a dinner we were specifically invited over for. We have not been over since.

Image credits: mulattolovesavocado

#15 Boiled Veggies In Their Own Water

Eating at my ex boyfriend's house...his mom is making soup and sandwiches. Ok great!

One pot of boiling water...she opens up a bag of frozen misc veggies...carrot, cauliflower etc. Tosses it in with pepper and salt.

There's a bunch of white bread with margarine slathered between.

"Hey kids, soup's done!"

It was just the boiled veggies in their own water.

Image credits: Feralcrumpetart

#16 “Stewed Green Beans”

My mother-in-law, bless her heart, makes “stewed green beans.”

Which means she takes canned green beans, dumps them in a saucepan, and cooks them down until they are mush (I think she cooks them 3-4 hours). I believe she puts some kind of margarine in the pan, but no seasonings or anything like that.

Image credits: theredgoldlady

#17 Making "Fried Chicken" By Tossing Chicken In Plain Flour And Baking Them

In my first apartment I had a nice couple, about my age, living right above me. The guy and I had chatted a few times, and at one point we all decided to have dinner together, which turned into a sort of pot-luck.

His fiance made "fried chicken", by tossing chicken in plain flour and baking them.

They came out of the oven with loose, white flour still on them, and every bite threatened to send me into a choking fit due to inhaled flour.

That same night I furiously googled how to bread chicken and learned the process of dredging and breading. Thanks for the learning experience, I guess. XD

Image credits: Zathura2

#18 Sink Pasta

Sink pasta.

When I was little we went over to my grandmas friends house for a party. There were snacks on the kitchen table and I helped myself as a child does lol I make my way over to the stove because I’m a nosy kid and wanted to see what was for dinner. Mashed potatoes, a roast in the oven, pie, cookies, gravy, all these glorious items.

Then I see the sink. On one side of the sink is full of pasta, peas, cheese chunks, red peppers, and a white sauce…and it was just all mixed together in the sink. The other side, uncut fruit and dirty dishes. Now, we came early because my grandma was going to help her friend set everything up. So I run out to where they are and say, “grandma! There’s pasta in the sink! Do you want me to throw it away?!” Her friend says, “no sweetheart, that’s sink pasta, that’s how you make it.”

I looked over at my grandma mortified. Since she raised me and we were always in the kitchen together she drilled into me about cleanliness with cooking and the sink was ALWAYS considered very dirty even if it was clean. A blueberry fell in the sink? It got re-washed, that’s just how grandma was. Sink=dirty. I was always forced to try everything once until that day. I was being watched to make sure I tried it and I just couldn’t get over my kid brain freaking out about how gross the sink is. People seemed to really enjoy it. I spit it out and upset the host but I just told my grandma I could taste the sink and cried. She didn’t make me eat more, in fact, she didn’t even have any! Some of the other guests started asking questions about why I said it tasted like the sink when it was in a bowl (it was transferred to a bowl before guests showed up). So the host had to explain sink pasta and it wasn’t much touched after that lol

TLDR I was little, saw sink pasta, was forced to eat it, and I made a scene, because GROSS lol

Image credits: BabyEatingPanda

#19 Cheese Cake. Made With Swiss Cheese. And Salt

Cheese cake. Made with Swiss cheese. And salt.

Image credits: thrillsbury

#20 Using Nilla Wafers Instead Of Breadcrumbs For Meatballs

Not witnessed, but truth was confirmed by both parties.

He did the majority of the cooking, and used stale bread or crackers as a binder. Whatever was on hand.

She decided to do something nice for him because he'd be coming home late. She made meatballs according to a recipe in a cookbook. She knew about the breadcrumbs/cracker addition, but they didn't have any, so she hunted around for a suitable replacement and came up with ...

Nilla wafers.

Image credits: BitPoet

#21 Watery And Disgusting Chicken With Spaghetti

Oh my goodness I have one of these!

I went to this dinner party that my friend from Brazil had and she served his boiled chicken, still in the water and in a big pot on the table, along with spaghetti that was boiled for probably an hour and that was also served in the big pot of water and just sat on the table!

It was so watery and disgusting and inedible.
This spaghetti just fell apart and she served cold sauce from the jar. The chicken was absolutely disgusting!!

Image credits: chantillylace9

#22 Turning “Beef And Noodles” Into A Soggy Mess

My MIL made her dish of “beef and noodles” for us a day ahead of time (because it was hot or something). Her way of reheating it was literally to dump the pan into a pot of boiling water!!! Then we had to eat the soggy mess…

Image credits: Jewish-Mom-123

#23 Having Everything So Dry And Overcooked On Thanksgiving

1st Thanksgiving with the inlaws. Everything so dry and overcooked. Dry dry dry turkey. Dressing so overbaked it was hard & crusty (not in a good way). Mashed potatoes without enough milk or butter so they were stiff. Gravy very thick and gloppy so it didn't help at all. Over-boiled veggies swimming in grease. Cheap store-bought pies.

Fortunately we left half way through when they started the god-talk/gay bashing. Never went back. F**k 'em.

Image credits: RLS30076

#24 Maybe The Worst Lasagne Ever

Lasagne made with one layer of pasta, with what was basically mini chicken nuggets, carrots, peas and greenbeans. Worse still, pasta was raw. I should've clicked when it was made in about 45mins.

Image credits: IAS316

#25 First Oversalting, Then Overchocolating

My own. I was trying to make a veggie chilli w tempeh, dark chocolate, and a beer. Watched a few videos. Read a few recipes. Felt confident. Accidentally over salted. To compensate, I try to add more chocolate. Wasn't thinking too clearly and added about 10x the recommended chocolate amount. It ended up like a thick chocolate stew.

Image credits: albertogonzalex

#26 Microwaving Brownies For 12-15 Minutes Instead Of Baking

My sister made(tried) brownies she used 1 part sugar 1 part oil and 1/2 part flour and 1 part coco powder. She mistook my words and decided to microwave it 12 15 mins instead of baking it. That s**t was harder than life.

Image credits: rahul1604

#27 Replacing Milk With "Vanilla Silk" For Mashed Potatoes

My ex mother-in-law was a God awful cook. I understand some recipes allow for some creative liberty, I do that all the time, but I've never seen someone replace milk with "Vanilla Silk" so freely for mashed potatoes.

I had a nice couscous salad I used to make them, and again, able to tweak it, but she would "extend" the dish by doing the amount of couscous in it, and nothing else, so it would end up super dry and tasteless.

Also, I've never seen someone who was so skilled at making beef tenderloin tough and dry.

Image credits: bob_but_backwards

#28 Seven Kitchen Crimes Committed At Once

I and some other friends were invited over for an evening with dinner and Eurovision song contest.

We walk through the door and the kitchen is a mess, no counterspace open and sticky floors. For dinner we were supposed to have a sort or curry with chicken, rice and loose toppings, usually delicious.

crimes committed that evening:
- cutting chicken over the dirt sink (no clean counter space).
- cutting onion on the same cutting board as chicken
- making sweet and sour sauce instead of curry by adding the whole can of pineapple including juice
- no salt in sauce or rice
- boiling the loose rice to death by continually adding water because the rice were still hard (she's used to parboiled baggies)
- asking for advice for said rice AFTER
- sticky plates and utensils

only reason none of us got sick was because the had definitely reached above safe cooking temps.

Bonus:
said friend also believes she's better at cooking than everyone else

Image credits: Walnut_Pancake_

#29 Almost Ruining Rosemary, Broccoli And Asparagus For Another Person

An exes mother almost ruined rosemary for me. And my two fave veggies for that matter. On two seperate dinners she prepared broccoli and asparagus the same way. Microwaved in a glass casserole dish, covered in water, with about 8 sprigs of rosemary floating in it. Nothing else. Bloated, soggy, gross veggies that tasted of only rosemary. I could barely stand cooking with the herb for nearly a decade.

Image credits: KRA_squared

#30 Pouring Chicken Marinade On The Finished Chicken To "Give It More Flavor"

Mother in law poured chicken marinade on the finished chicken to "give it more flavor". Granted the marinade was only microwaved for 30 seconds prior. My wife was pregnant at the time which made it even worse.

Image credits: wowwonderful

#31 Preparing Amazing Salads But Really Poor Burgers

My sister can prepare amazing salads and vegetable based dish, but she cant make an edible burger. shes not vegan, she eats meat, but everytime we go to her place in the summer she make burger and they are just the worst thing ever.

1. She make lots of patty in advance and freeze them. I'm pretty sure her patty are just extra lean ground beef pressed together, no other ingredient, which would be fine with top quality ground beef.

2. She put them frozen on a hot grill.

3. She cook them until blackened on both side, pressing them as much as she can multiple time. Every milligram of fat in that extra lean patty will be pressed out of it to make sure its as dry as ground beef can possibly be.

The result is a crispy burnt and tasteless puck of ground beef that shrunk so much , it barely cover 50% of the bun. Its like she looked at a list of all the things not to do when cooking a burger and made it her mission to do them all. I'm so sick of it, whenever i get invited i offer her to bring the burger and cook them, but she always refuse. Luckily her salad and corn on the cob are delicious, but im running out of excuse not to eat her burger. My girl friend is shy and polite, last time we where invited she hid half a burger in her purse because she didnt want to insult our host for not finishing it.

#32 Boiling Everything To Death

My partner, the first time he made me dinner when we just started dating. Sweet gesture, but probably one of the worst meals I've ever had.

Everything was boiled to death. Boiled frozen vegetables, boiled potatoes, and if he didn't pick up the roasted chicken from the local grocery store pre-cooked, I'm sure that would have been boiled too. Nothing was seasoned, and not shockingly when I opened his "spice cupboard" I found an empty salt shaker, some garlic and onion powder that expired 6 years before, along with a bunch of packaged sauces that were all well past their expiry dates.

He ate everything under a thick layer of ketchup and I ate mostly chicken and added a ton of butter to the potatoes and mashed them on my plate. Everything was washed down with a good amount of wine. The vegetables were inedible and just tasted like mushy tap water.

We've been together for 9 years now, and I've been trying to get him into cooking but he has no interest in getting better. He can make a passable grilled cheese, fried egg sandwich, and isn't burning stuff on the grill anymore, but I cook 99% of the time.

Image credits: Eileithia

#33 "I Want To Make This Different!"

My then girlfriend, a few years ago was making a beef tomato spaghetti. Aaand she had a lightbulb moment. "I want to make this different!"

Soo she for reasons only known to her, decided to take at least a 1/4c of cocoa powder and just dump it into the otherwise perfectly reasonable tomato sauce. It was ummm inedible...

Image credits: Utheran

#34 Taking A Brick Of Ground Turkey Straight From The Package And Throwing It On The Grill

I graduated with a culinary degree, and have a couple friends who have degrees in chemistry. Shortly after we all graduated and found jobs my chemist friends invited me over to hang out and make dinner at one of their bosses houses.

I decided I was going to take more of a helper role than taking full control because I really don't like telling people what to do... Until I saw my friend take a brick of ground turkey straight from the package and throw it on the grill. It only got worse from there, so I stepped in and basically ended up doing all the cooking, but I'm glad I did.

Image credits: Radioactivechimi

#35 A Man Whose Mom Was A Brilliant Cook And His Wife Was A Terrible One

In general, my mom and her mom were horrible cooks. The benefit is that I became a pretty good cook as did my younger sister. My mom was inattentive and many times we would walk into a kitchen filled with smoke because she let something burn. She also had no clue about actual taste. She had a shelf filled with spices but never seemed to use any of them. Because of the quality there were always leftovers that she would put on the table the next meal. She would cook meat to a hard chewy consistency the first time and reheat it the following night. I would watch my dad look at what was on the table, his hard earned paycheck used to buy and prepare a steak he would spend days chewing on. What was really bad for him was that his mom was an amazing cook. He went from some of the best home cooked meals to the culinary atrocities that my mom would manifest in the kitchen. My sister and I started cooking for ourselves at a young age and it is something we both enjoy to this day.

Image credits: cocuke

#36 Making The Hamburgers Burnt On The Outside And Raw On The Inside

Went to lunch at a friend's house and his wife was going to make hamburgers. Sounded good. She had a fry pan with about 1/2" of oil and heated it to god knows what temp. Then she put in the beef patties and it was like a hot hot volcano sputtering oil out. The hamburgers were burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. Worst I ever had. But I am polite and ate it.

#37 Knowing How To Fish Doesn't Always Mean Knowing How To Cook It

Visited someone who had moved the countryside-we went out fishing and caught some groundfish so brought them back for dinner.

He steaked them up without cleaning them properly and then deep fried the steaks in a batter made with whole wheat flour-100% stodge.

As an accompaniment we had mashed Parsnips *(where I live Parsnips are animal food)* sour yellow homemade wine and marijuana leaves *(not buds leaves)* to smoke.

He thought the meal was a tour-de-force I never visited again without bringing all my own everything.

Image credits: killer_of_whales

#38 Cooking Borsch And Chopping In A Big Bulb Of Ginger

Ah, my ex was a terrible cook and I have several stories.

He made borsch soup and chopped in a big bulb of ginger because he thought ginger is just like any other root vegetable, similar to beet and carrots. It was unedible.

His attempt at a pureed soup included water, boiled cabbage and texturised soy protein all mixed with a blender. Again unedible, the texture was unlike anything I've ever witnessed.

Once he made some sort of sauce. I tasted it and it was... salty to say the least. I asked what spices he had used and he said: salt, soy sauce and a vegetable stock cube. I asked if he realised that stock cubes and soy sauce are not "spices" but basically salt and he had triple salted the food. He hadn't realised.

His idea of a sandwich was plain cottage cheese on rye bread. Then he would pout and stare at my sandwiches, all jealous that "your sandwiches always look so much more delicious than mine."

This makes him sound like an idiot or a teenager but he was a smart succesful guy in his early 30s. For some reason cooking was his blind spot.

Image credits: lapininku

#39 Adding Too Much Salt In Literally Everything

Knew someone who thought adding to much salt was her quirky personality trait. She use to sort of best about it. "It taste normal to me. That's just who I am. " She would proudly say. She added so much, it was like sand in you food. No one ate anything she made. Hardly a surprise. She was at someone's house, and dumped the whole box of salt in big pot of soup. They went to eat it, and everyone spit out the food. Her friend started screaming at her. "That cost real money you stupid Fing B." She screamed.

#40 Making Dry And Tough Chicken Without Any Seasoning

Invited to a friends house for a BBQ and they said they are doing chicken. Ok, great not my favorite, but a crowd pleaser.

We get there and I ask if I can help get the chicken ready or anything else. Host tells me "no need, the chicken is already on the grill". Mind you the sides have not even been started yet and would take a minimum of 20-30 minutes to prepare. The chicken was probably on the grill for 30 minutes and it was boneless, skinless chicken breast. It was so dry and tough it was basically inedible. There was no seasoning, not even salt and pepper. I actually had to ask for some kind of sauce to eat it with. Ended up eating it with ketchup. It was nasty.

Couldn't believe someone would serve that to guests and feel good about it.

#41 Failing At Just Boiling Potatoes

An ex of mine reached into a boiling pot of water to pick up a single piece of potato and put it in a seive to drain it, not realising he could just tip everything through it.

He literally went 'ow thats hot'and was about to reach in for another one before I stopped him.

#42 Starting Cooking Brisket At About 4pm For A 6pm Party

Went to a BBQ. The guy started cooking brisket at about 4pm for a 6pm party. It was not done in time.

#43 Bake Super Expensive Ribeyes At An Extremely High Temperature Until They Were Legitimately Leather

My sister in law invited us over for dinner. She bought super expensive ribeyes and proceeded to bake them at an extremely high temperature until they were legitimately leather. It was so hard to eat them and be nice.

To be fair, this was years ago and she’s taken a lot of steps to improve her cooking abilities. I don’t know if I would trust her with such an expensive cut of meat again just yet, though.

#44 Completely Ruining The First Thanksgiving Dinner For Two

These comments are making me feel like I'm Jacques Pépin.

Worst mess I've ever had was making thanksgiving dinner for the two of us for the first time. I bought a frozen turkey breast (a whole one was too much for just 2). I thawed it for over a day and it was still frozen in the middle the day of. I just wished for the best and slow baked it. It was still raw in the middle. So I made an emergency decision and carved it up and then put the slices on a baking sheet and back in the oven for 15 min. They came out perfectly and weren't even dry! I felt like an ER doctor who'd saved the patient.

#45 Overcooked To Hell Pasta With Some Jar Sauce And Canned Tuna

Reading this I realize I have been far too lucky, worst home cooking I've had is some overcooked to hell pasta with some jar sauce and canned tuna.

#46 Beans Cooking On The Floor In A Crockpot, And A Freshly Killed Squirrel

Beans cooking on the floor in a crockpot and then the dad arrives home with a freshly killed squirrel. I was poor and hanging with my poor friend in their trailer. I was happy to go home and eat fish sticks for the third time that week.

#47 Serving A Broken Glass In A Meal

Well a friend served me broken glass in meal once. She the kind of person who wouldn't hurt a fly so I'm sure she just broke something while cooking and didn't notice some got in the food. It was in a stuffed pepper and they were served in a way she didn't know which one I'd get so I'm sure it wasn't personal. I've eaten lots of time there since and nothing odd happened again.

#48 Making A Christmas Vacation Turkey With No Gravy

Thanksgiving like 4 years ago. My wife's great aunt made a Christmas Vacation turkey with no gravy. Coincidently, haven't seen her since.
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