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? 😂

Another kidney one. Mum used to make delicious steak and kidney pie, which was mostly steak with just a few small pieces of kidney. So when the mother of a friend asked me if I liked steak and kidney I said "yes please". Her version was all kidney with no steak. 🤮
I shut up and put up though. Which is amazing as I could write a whole thread about school food and my various techniques for not eating it.

A plate of black mould

I agree! Not getting fed is the worst.
Whenever I throw a party/event, I put a ridiculous amount of food on, make sure it's all fresh and there's something to cater to everyone and announce that the buffet is open practically as soon as the party starts.

@antelopevalley too much salt is very bad, but pasta takes in very little salt in boiling and it is really crucial! Also it is almost impossible with our diet, but if a person contrived to eat no salt at all, they would die - a small amount is essential

Are you sure this was a mistake 🧐

I know we need salt, but if you have any processed foods at all, you will have salt.

Early on in our relationship, SIL insisted DH & I had to go to hers for Christmas, but told us we had to arrive on Boxing Day & stay the week. We didn't want to, but SIL went on & on about how she wanted 'a big family Christmas' that year & piled on the emotional blackmail.

DH & I couldn't have a proper Christmas dinner because of setting off early the next day & leaving the place empty for a week, but I consoled myself with the thought that SIL must be making a full Christmas dinner on Boxing Day - big family Christmas & all that, which in my family meant the whole works, beautifully cooked & with more food than anyone could eat. I'd just have to wait an extra day.

On Boxing Day, after driving for 5 hours we arrived at SIL's to find no delicious roasty smell & no sign of any cooking going on in her empty kitchen. Food wasn't mentioned. After a couple of hours we were offered a cup of tea. Still no mention of food. Things were looking bleak.

Finally we were ushered into the dining room where we were each allotted one slice of pre-packed beef or ham, a slice of bread, one lettuce leaf and one tomato. I don't eat tomatoes. SIL smirked, "We don't like roast turkey in this house." There was no dessert.

This meal was repeated for lunch & dinner, day after day for the whole week, until I thought I was going to die. One day BIL announced, "We're having a hot dinner today," which got me excited but turned out to be hot mashed potato, accompanied by a slice of beef or ham, a lettuce leaf & a tomato. They hadn't broken my will: I still wasn't eating tomatoes.

When the sales started in a nearby town, DH & I used them as an excuse to go out on our own. We found a department store with a restaurant & had our first real meal in a week. Fish & chips never tasted better.

We never had Christmas with DH's family again, so some good came of it.

My mother, on an economy drive in the 1970s, merrily bought two fatty hearts from the butchers. I was not sure at all. She boiled them in two tins of tinned tomatoes without anything else. No seasoning (so unhealthy and unnecessary!) Then she served us each our very own boiled heart glistening in tinned tomato gloop, still with veins and arteries protruding. She devoured hers like an effing vampire saying the meat was so full of iron. I just couldn't not even bear to slice into the organ with my knife and fork. She made me sit in front of that heart for hours. 🤢

Years ago a couple invited my now exh and myself for Sunday lunch.

They went on and on about how their roasts were amazing, I would be totally stuffed after etc.

Turned up at theirs, dinner about ready. I thought it was strange as no pans boiling or steamer. I could only smell fat, as if they were frying chips.

they brought to the table a big deep roasting tin. Inside was a lump of beef that was extremely fatty, surrounded by carrots, potatoes and parsnips and a huge amount of cooking oil. I am not joking, tin was over half way full of oil, a good inch and a half at least.

but here is the worst bit, he then got a ladle and scooped up the veg with all the oil and put it on everyone’s plates. Then a slice of fatty meat that was nearly floating in oil!!! It looked more like soup.

i did my best but I hardly ate or I would have thrown up.

next came pudding. Chocolate log. Brilliant, I love chocolate log. He asked if I wanted cream, yes please I replied. I assumed it would be squirty cream. No, single cream! Not even double! And the bowl was full to nearly the top.

🤮🤮🤮

DH & I couldn't have a proper Christmas dinner because of setting off early the next day & leaving the place empty for a week
. Why not? That's the strangest part of your post!

My late mother used to work night shifts so her husband could study at uni, he promised to get a good job and make a better life for us all afterwards. Anyway, he would cook for us 3 kids and every time without fail would dish up cold tinned cream of chicken soup. I couldn't eat it because it made me sick so I was punished by being forced to sit at the table for many many hours with the bowl of gloop in front of me. I would have eaten any other soup (even cold) but he knew I couldn't eat chicken soup 😡

@LadyCampanulaTottington since when is baguette, two types of meat, pate, cheese and green salad not a reasonable meal?? Surely you could make a decent sandwich from that?

Mil and fil have about 30 different condiments in their fridge. Despite being told most are probably way out of date (I'm talking years) they never throw them away. They add them to meals , it bothers me when I eat at theirs wondering if some four year out of date sauce is in there. For context I stayed with them recently and had a look through, I found some relish dated 2013 which was use within 6 weeks!!

We used to have this at school dinners with mashed potato and peas. It wasn’t too bad. Not great. But not too bad either.

Some of these don’t meet the brief! Bowl cake sounds great, mangos and ice cream is great, chocolate log and single cream is great and any pouring cream is superior to squirty cream.

Last year my MiL came to stay and help with the DCs/house after I broke my foot; she made a Chinese curry one evening (I generally like Chinese food but not Chinese curry) and it was basically minced beef and wedges of semi cooked onion in a jar of sauce. I had to pretend I felt unwell due to pain meds as I couldn’t face eating it 🤮🤮

While I agree that mangoes and ice cream sounds great - if these things are the 'worst food someone gave them when they visited', then it fits the brief.

This story doesn't quite fit the brief - but we did have a friend over, so I'll include it.

Quite a few years ago, before smartphones and the internet were a thing, a flatmate of mine decided to invite over and cook for a vegetarian friend. I was also invited. She thought she would make a curry. However she didn't have a recipe, so she came up with a clever idea. She would go to Waterstones and note down a recipe from a book. Smart thinking!

So she cooks up the curry and it smells delicious. She has flatbread and rice and chutney and poppadoms, and it all looks amazing.

We dig in to discover it is inedibly hot (spice, not temperature). She's insists she put in the right level of spices, iirc it was 2 tbsp of garam masala and 1tbsp of chili powder. The next time I'm passing Waterstones, I check. Yup, it was supposed to be 1tsp of chilli powder. 🥵🔥🌶️

My friend posted this on Facebook which really made me laugh.

His spag bol was truly shit. Value mince swimming in oil.

We meet at the pub these days.

I remember a boyfriend years ago made us some "soup" by blending up leftover pasta with sauce. I don't recommend it! 😬

A ‘roast’ dinner cooked entirely in the microwave.

Hostess proudly proclaimed ‘you wouldn’t know this was cooked in the microwave would you?’

We did know. Because it was shit.

Another of MiL’s dishes - that she offered to cook our almost 3 year old twins last week - under boiled pasta shapes with mayonnaise - that’s all; no flavour, protein or anything else🤮🤮 Had to ask DH to tell her boys would prefer a ham sandwich!!

Yikes - I read the whole menu, but managed to miss that bit. What a numpty.

It's possible to make a very good roast in a combi microwave - I did it many times when we were having building work done - but I am guessing that your hosts didn't have a combi!

Been reading this thread and MIL has just gave me toast with marmite spread so thick on it looks like Nutella 🤮.

Hedge had to force it down to be polite!

I love marmite but a little goes a long way!

A ‘roast’ dinner cooked entirely in the microwave.

I had somewhat similar but the whole chicken had been popped in the oven from frozen and all the veg were nuked in the microwave to the point of shriveling up. The gravy was it would seem was half a tub of granules so it had the consistency of tarmac. It was one of those moments where you generally wondered if they could have fucked it up anymore short of serving the meal with the contents of the cat litter tray.

When I very politely pointed out the chicken was largely raw in the middle I was curtly advised that I could eat around the pink bits. I think she thought 'pink' chicken was the same as 'pink' beef. Needless to say I did not eat very much at all or get an invite back.