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? 😂

Sorry @ifIwerenotanandroid , that was crass of me

I'm not understanding the tongue hate. You don't have to eat the skin, it just peels off.

When you buy them to cook in the UK they come with the skin on and you cook them and just pull off the grey/blue skin before pressing if you are going to serve it cold.
It's delicious dense meat, with a similar texture to heart.

I'm fortunate that I've never been served anything I couldn't eat with a smile on my face while visiting friends. Sadly I'm not so sure the same can be said of all of them.
I once made macaroni cheese for the children and one little boy just couldn't eat it. I don't think his Mum baked it and was expecting it to be more 'pasta in runny sauce'.I ended up making him beans on toast as it was the most recognisable thing in the pantry.
Another time we had friends pop in between Christmas and new year and I offered the children hot baked ham with spiced red cabbage and chips. They put lots onto their daughter's plate, which she then promptly spat out again. This was the point at which 2/5 of our own children piped up that they didn't like red cabbage either, but had never said anything. Oops.

@Johnnysgirl Not at all, I was half expecting someone to question that & the sales not being on earlier. It was a different world, as someone else has pointed out - & unlike that poster, SIL had just moved to the outskirts of a town none of knew, so there were no visitors or nice country activities.

Bil remarked out of politeness that the celeriac was nice so mum dumped a frozen lump of it on his plate as seconds

Frozen? What on earth... was he supposed to wait till it defrosted, or eat it like it some random savoury ice cream?

I'm not understanding the tongue hate. You don't have to eat the skin, it just peels off.

I'm veggie now so don't have to even think about eating tongue any more. But I remember it being served at home in my pre-veggie days, during the era of eat-it-or-else. It really turned my stomach, the thought of an animal's tongue in my mouth alongside my own, getting chomped, swallowed and digested. Urrgh.

Oh, I've just remembered a bizarre meal at my mum's care home. Visitors can book in for a meal, and I often used to do this as they previously had an excellent chef. The current one seems to have no clue. One meal was cheese pie, which turned out to be mashed potato with grated cheese on top. In what universe is that a pie?!

Funnily enough we made potato cheese pie in cookery at school back in the 1970s. It was mash with cheese!
DM's care home served beetroot risotto (shocking pink) with mashed potato on the side. Carbs with your carbs, madam?

We did that too, @Nonameoclue! I remember re-creating it at home and realising that mashed potato can absorb an almost infinite amount of cheese. I love cheese and potato together.

That lunch sounds fine but you should have rocked up with some food as well op if my friend offers to do some lunch I'll pick up something to take to share (cake normally!!)

The worst meal I was ever served was when I was a teenager and went to a friends house, they dolloped up a huge portion of some brown sludge onto my plate. I have no idea what it was but I had to really concentrate on not retching, it was awful.

Luckily they had a dog who was not that fussy....

Spaghetti Bolognese and they hadn't dry fried the mince first, greasy orange oil slick on the top 🤮

Grated carrots soaked in vinegar, with toast bread to soak it up with. I managed about half a plate. This was followed by the driest cake I have ever eaten and a cup of "Camp" "coffee", most of which I left. To be fair, the person concerned had numerous mental health issues.

I remember visiting a friend a good 90 minutes bus ride away when I was a teenager and assumed we'd have a butty (or head out to the chippy) for lunch. He didn't offer me anything at first and the 2 chippies I'd spied on the way out were closed when we went for a walk. We went back to his house, and he offered me a Yorkie, which I inhaled. When I asked if there was anything else, he offered me...another Yorkie. He also had enduring mental health issues, as I later found out.

My ex was Moroccan when we we're visiting family I was given what he said was scrambled eggs for breakfast. I was very dubious of the 'grey' colour....I was right it was scrambled up sheep's brains I struggled not to throw up!

About 20 years ago my best mate was seeing a girl from Eastern Europe, don’t recall exact country but something like Latvia or Ukraine

He kept telling us what a fabulous cook she was and how you’d have to come over for dinner so one Saturday we did just that.

He said she’s cooking ‘my favourite’ so we were hoping for good things.

Well she dished up some kind of beef stroganoff dish containing beef that could have been used to make plimsoll soles for a long distance runner in a disgusting sauce that looked like diarrhea. It was served with mashed potato and a salad all of which ran into each other one the plate and it was as appealing as road kill.

The dessert was OK though

Went to a friend's house for dinner where she made a large chicken Kiev.
I noticed it tastes a little odd, so politely mentioned that it tasted different somehow.
She smiled and said it was because it was homemade.

I spent the next 24 hours with my head down the loo

Sounds like okay amount for lunch. Liver patê is a bit of an acquired taste but, otherwise, okay.

Curried eggs - vile

It smells/tastes faintly of shit as well, though they often slather it in mustard to disguise it. I know someone who ordered this is a lovely bistro in Paris and the waiter said "Do you know what andouillette is?", to which she angrily replied "Yes, yes, of course I do" - the waiter returned 2 seconds later with a plate bearing said sausage and wafted it under her nose.

Very quietly but audibly, she said "I'll have the steak frites, medium"

I BOUGHT the thing.. M&S moussaka, just for me, the kids don't like it so no point cooking just for self.
There was a HUGE THICK SLAB of aubergine taking most of the carton up, it just resembled a dead fish.. wasn't thrilled with M&S food before, that was the last thing I ever bought from there..

At my aunt's one Boxing Day. Leftover turkey and leeks in white sauce topped with crisps.

Went round to a friend’s house for a dinner party. The meal, in its entirety, was cheese fondue. I hate cheese.

Worst meal I was given was undercooked Pierogi Dumplings with VERY luke warm mushroom sauce and two lettuce leaves.
Next worst was 2 fishfingers, 3 raw spinach leaves and one cherry tomato. Plus a 1/2 inch cube of cheddar cheese!!!!!

Ahh that’s so great

Raw, sliced garlic on top of a halved beef tomato.

WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS happen to me when I’m with in-laws?!

My partner’s Grandma was absolutely lovely, but the savoury turnover she cooked us was a little tough.
My knife wouldn’t quite go through it and 1 bite in... I realise she hadn’t removed the cardboard before cooking.

I couldn’t bring myself to mention it and like I said, she was adorable... so I think I just got a little extra fibre with that meal 😆

——
My ex boyfriend took me to meet his entire family in rural Poland but had neglected to tell them I was Vegan. I sat down at a table where 2 out of 15 people spoke English (me and my boyfriend) and was served home cooked veal - Veal that they’d just shot on their land. I had the hangover from hell after ploughing my way through homemade alcohol the night before and was holding onto the table for dear life, desperate to eat... just about anything.
I felt all eyes rest on me as I sliced into the flesh on my plate, thinking “I’m not. I can’t. Oh god”... only to find a silver bullet staring up at me from inside the meat. A few seconds later my ex cottoned on and flopped the cut onto his plate. All I had to survive on at that meal and for the rest of the day was a salad leaf, a few pierogi and the icy stare of his very insulted Mother.
——

Oh, and I have another story about a frankly delicious garden soup, albeit peppered with wasp bodies. 😆 Another MIL meal. Why me, God?

Much more than I would have for lunch c

My boyfriend (at the time) invited me for lunch. One tiny chicken leg was put on my plate.