What's the worst thing you have ever cooked or been served.

[JustOneLastThing]

I once made a beef pasta thing, it had 20 cloves of garlic! I followed the recipe to the letter, it took hours. I tended to it almost like I tend to the kids. It tasted like feet.

I think I can still taste it, and it was five years ago! There was so much of it, and we tried to eat it in vain. I eventually threw if away after it had festered in the freezer for a few months years.

Student flat where we took turns to cook. I came back from studying in the library late one night looking forward to just having to reheat my meal. Flat mate had made spinach lasagne 🤢 Spinach, tomato sauce and pasta sheets. Tried a couple of mouthfuls but I was gagging 🤢🤢 I've never eaten spinach since. It was grim 😕

Worst was a bowl of tomato soup in a foreign restaurant years ago.

It was a bowl of hot water with a few slices of tomato floating in it

Close runner up was steak and salad from a Berni Inn. My steak was underdone for my taste so they took it back and clearly popped it in the microwave. Unfortunately they'd neglected to remove the salad from the plate first.

I tried to cook mussels once at home. I kid you not the entire house smelt like what I could only ever describe as rotting fanny for a few days. They must have been off.

I made a risotto in the slow cooker and added white wine vinegar instead of white wine. That's usually ok if you cook it off but I didn't, I just put it in the slow cooker with the rice and stock. It tasted obviously like vinegar so I googled how to neutralise too much vinegar and it said use bicarb. You can guess what happened next. Fizzy, bicarb flavoured risotto. It wasn't vinegary any more though...

Dog fish aka huss or rock salmon. My then boyfriend had caught it and asked me to cook it. I retched continuously whilst it cooked. The smell of amonia was horrific. Apparently the disgusting little bastards pee through their skin.

Without a doubt, sea cucumber at a Chinese wedding banquet in Singapore.
A slice of orange jelly-stuff that was utterly vile - not just the taste, but the texture.
None of us on our non-Chinese table could get it down, and we’re not fussy eaters. There was a lot of surreptitious slipping into napkins, etc.

Rest of the food was lovely. Was told later that sea cucumber is traditional - a fertility symbol?? - and that even Chinese people often don’t like it.

@ilkboo - I have a friend who absolutely swears by the Slimming World mushy pea curry! She keeps trying to give me the recipe, but the mere thought makes me gag.

Boyfriends mother made a vegetable soup as a starter..from a packet...she didn't mix ir well so as you were having a spoonful you were treated to the ball of dry soup powder breaking in your mouth...

I made courgette brownies for my children, utterly vile, and they've never let me forget it

Oh - and I once ordered a pancake, in a restaurant, and it arrived in one of those wide, shallow bowls that soup often comes in.

Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say - sadly the pancake was rock hard and rigid, and just sat on the bowl like a lid. It was so tough I couldn’t get the spoon to make even a dent in it.

Meat pie with custard by my late grandparents. It was meant to be apple pie. Bith were homemade and got mixed up in their freezer. I can still see the expression on my Dad's face when he took a large mouthful.

The worst thing I have cooked was an apple crumble using salt instead of sugar. I had guests over at the time and they were too polite to mention it. I didn't try it until they were half way through and felt so guilty.

@Lulooo

I once ventured into a Five guys and asked if they do a veggie burger. Yes, they said. They served me the most miserable soggy version of a burger I'd ever seen in my life. It was a basically a burger bun with some damp lettuce, a few sliced gherkins, some soggy tomato and canned cucumbers. You couldn't even see the veggies with the burger closed and they were just a sorry mess of a few limp veggies passed off as a burger.

Why would you even think of doing that?

My sister once cooked a baked cheesecake... it tasted like feet 😷😷😷

A pumpkin soup. A friend and I spent hours cutting the bloody thing out into cubes and boiled it and followed this American Pumpkin Soup Receipe thing -it took flipping hours and it tasted of nothing absolutely tasteless -eventually gave it to the chickens (who eat anything ) and they wouldn't flipping touch it

I asked for the veggie burger on the menu in a trendy burger bar in Paris and a green salad. They asked if I was vegetarian and how I wanted my burger cooked.

Burger arrived and was a slice of avocado in a bun (neither cooked) and the green salad had lardons through it.

When I moved out of home to live with my boyfriend I decided to make spaghetti Bolognese for the first time. He ate it but I could tell by his face that he wasn't enjoying it. Then we realised that what I thought was a clove of garlic was in fact a bulb, so had put two whole bulbs of garlic in a Bolognese for two!

Plaited meat of some variety in the Czech Rep as a teenager. I think it was veal, but there was this huge lump of it that had literally been made into three strands and plaited before cooking

I made the cream stew. Don't know what possessed me but I didn't have normal mushrooms so I used dried Shiitake mushroom. That was vile.
Also when I was in Paris long ago, went into a lovely tiny restaurant. There was no English menu and we ordered something Boeuf. It was something looked/smelt/tasted vile. The waiter was so worried we left it all, but we had to leave without eating. We paid, but still feel guilty nearly decades ago.

I had a cappuccino in Majorca that was just black coffee with squirty cream on the top. It was awful.

I made Brussels sprout soup on Boxing Day once as we had a lot of leftovers. It was truly disgusting,and I like sprouts. Soneone mentions in every Christmas now and its at least a decade since Sproutgate.

My ex used to claim he was a good cook...
He made a nice risotto, but let the bottom burn on the pan.
Instead of doing what any normal person would do (tip it out of the pan and discard the burnt bit and try it!)
He mixed the burnt stuff in "so he didn't waste any". Even his dog refused it. He did go and buy pizza instead.
Worst I have cooked was probably the first stew I attempted after finding out dd cant eat gluten. We had a choice of oxo or bisto. Both contain wheat.
Oven baked beef and veggies in hot water ?
We went shopping for non wheat gravy the next day

@CodenameVillanelle fizzy risotto! That's genius.

@MrsAvocet

I made Brussels sprout soup on Boxing Day once as we had a lot of leftovers. It was truly disgusting,and I like sprouts. Soneone mentions in every Christmas now and its at least a decade since Sproutgate.

I love sprouts and made a sprout curry. Now it tasted ok - a bit unusual - but oh my god if I ever ate cement this is what I imagine it would feel like.

Worst thing someone made for me was when an old boyfriends mum invited me for tea. He was excitedly telling me we were having mums amazing ribs, I imagined tasty marinated bbq style ribs but when they came they were actually totally grey and pale with no sauce or flavouring of any sort. I was confused and disappointed and it honestly did just look like something died ten years ago on a plate.

Worst thing I've made, very recently a packe sponge cake, I don't know what the heck was wrong with it but it was wet and heavy and soggy and not spongy at all.

I once made a venison and casserole with apricots which was pretty foul. I can't remember what went wrong now, but for some reason it was very undercooked.

The worst thing my mother ever served was hare.