What’s the worst food someone ever gave you when you visited?

[LadyCampanulaTottington]

This week I was invited to friends house. She’s just moved in and wanted me to see the place. She said she would provide lunch and not to bring anything.

So I rock up hungry as it’s already 1:30. We start with a couple of pieces of baguette with some sliced salame and prosciutto, liver pate and some cheese. There is also a small bowl of salad leaves.

I take a small portion of each thing except the pate and my friend has some too. After a while it becomes apparent that this was not the starter but the entire meal. I was debating taking more when my friend started to clean up. I was still hungry!!

So I had to sit there with my stomach rumbling for another half an hour before I could leave and go get something to eat!

I’ve had meals in her house before but this is the first time she’s served such a small meal, she’s usually generous with portions. Does she think I’m fat and is trying to help? 😂

Sounds like a normal lunch to me. Can't see the problem?

Worst meal I can remember anyone else serving me (not that bad, really) was a chicken casserole where the chicken legs had been cooked with the skin on in a sauce, so the skin was very soggy. Trivial in the great scheme of things.

I once had faggots at my brother's house. They were raw and cold in the middle. I hate faggots anyway, but these weren't even cooked. I told him and he never bought them again (I was particularly pissed off as I've always done really nice meals when he's been to my place)

Half a (not fully cooked) baked potato with minced beef. I was a vegetarian at the time.

Spaghetti with just cheese grated on top

My lovely Granddad - Boiled tripe and onions. Honestly the worst thing i've ever put in my mouth.

Family member once served up sausages from a slow cooker that had been completely burnt, some to the point where they were rock hard. Host fished out the least burnt ones for the kids and served the ones that were burnt black to the adults. Looking back we should have just offered to order a takeaway but instead we all sat there trying to eat it.

I didn’t think you could burn something in a slow cooker

How on earth do you burn something in a slow cooker?! 😁

I went to visit and got a courgette lasagne but it was more solid courgette I didn’t know what to say. Served with roasted and boiled courgettes. I still shudder.

Xmas Dinner at a boyfriends grandparent's house back in me yoof.

His mum was a self confessed terrible cook so I was a bit hesitant, but BF assured me his granny made a good roast.

I spent the day at my house, smelling my mum's amazing Xmas dinner cooking, then went to BF grannies at dinner time.

Turkey that appeared to have been boiled. Also BOILED potatoes. Frozen mixed veg (those little cubes) and gravy that was actually chicken stock. Just literally chicken oxo, in a jug.

That was it. I nearly cried.

One slice of pizza. I don’t know how they thought that was enough to fill up an adult. And this was not a friend where you could say something (tbh we aren’t friends now anyway)

My sis-in-laws cheese on toast
she put the cheese on the bread and put it under the grill so only one side cooked
the other side was ‘raw’ bread

my ex once boiled cheap mince-it was like eating soap

same ex-chicken casserole-I have no idea what he did to it but it was like eating slime mixed with tomatoes-my lot eat anything but they all went green trying to eat this

my mothers roasts-burnt meat,cabbage boiled for about 5 hours,bullet style peas,soggy carrots and gravy so thick you could stand a spoon in it-and the whole lot tastes like sprouts for some reason

I've been a vegetarian since I was eight, and could choose that. when ever we would vist my aunt and uncles house for dinner, she would make a normal meal for everyone and give me a bowl of peas- everytime.
She once even made jacket potatoes for everyone else, with bowls of salad, cheese or beans for them to add - I wasn't allowed a potato and still got a bowl of peas.
If they were having sandwiches- I had peas, If they had mashed potatoes and sausages from seperate bowls- I still had just peas
I never said anything but looking back thats weird, I don't know if she decided vegetarian = only eats vegetables.

My sister in law served us a casserole made from chicken, water chestnuts (why?!) and condensed chicken soup.
Apparently it was an American recipe and was supposed to be topped with cornflakes.
However, she hadn't any cornflakes so topped it with bran flakes...
That just made it so much worse, somehow.

And, yes, I have have American tuna noodle casserole made with condensed mushroom soup, which was actually okay.
This chicken abomination though 🤢

The worst thing was that DH was livid with me for asking for seconds (it was early days in our marriage and I was trying to be polite and make up for the fact I really didn't - don't - like her).
Variations on "Now she'll make it again" muttered all the way home.

My first ever boyfriend did me cheese on toast in the same way! So grim!

I don't think the food the OP ate at her friend's house was bad at all. It was lunch, not a banquet, and clearly there was more baguette, meats and salad on the table which she could have eaten if she wasn't sitting there waiting for another course to be brought.

The worst I've been offered was tortellini which should have been boiled but instead were microwaved.

You mean you ate it and asked for more?

A pudding made out of bananas and chocolate. It was beautifully cooked but I absolutely cannot stand bananas. I couldn't bear to hurt the feelings of the person who'd lovingly made it so I managed to force it down

Tongue in France. Not a rolled up, pressed, red tongue but a grey/beige long tongue with taste buds on it

Tongue in France. Not a rolled up, pressed, red tongue but a grey/beige long tongue with taste buds on it

Oh yes - I've been offered this too! They cut slices across it and ate it with great enjoyment.

Oh this is actually like a bad dream.

Not a friends but shortly after the birth of my third baby I met my lovely MIL at a garden centre that does the most amazing big jackets with delicious homemade coleslaw and cheese. They are absolutely mountainous and in my new baby, cluster feeding, sleep deprived hell the thought of that lunch was all that was keeping me going - we were there for a kids circus thing in half term.

She insisted on going to order bless her so I could feed and sit at the table and when the food turned up she had got me a jacket with beans. In my hormonal haze I have to admit I burst into tears I didn't want to tell her what as wrong so just blamed it in hormones as she would have felt bad!

I've had some terrible things happen to me in my life so I do appreciate it was just a baked potato but oh my goodness I was so upset I eventually told her a few years later 🤣

When DH and I were first together 30-odd years ago, eventual MIL went through a Chinese food spell. Some things were OK, but the worst was prawns foo young in a mustard sauce. It was vile and more like watery scrambled egg with prawns in a curdled mustard flavour sauce. So memorable, DH and I still joke about it now!

What sort of animal makes cheese on toast like that!!

The lunch in the OP sounds fine, just not enough if eaten in the expectation of it being a starter.

My worst is everything my MIL makes. She’s unfamiliar with the concept of fresh vegetables, fresh anything. Everything is from a jar or tin, and served with a slice of plastic white bread floating on top like a lid. So you might get a plate of miscellaneous grey something – meat? Fish? Unknown – with some tinned grey vegetables boiled into submission, doused in white sauce from a jar for a special occasion, and our visits are always deemed a special occasion. This all hides beneath the white bread lid. Which at least has the bonus that if you don’t eat it, you can use it to hide everything else you didn’t eat.

We always go for a walk after dinner, which is always served at 5pm, and get secret fish and chips.