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? 😂

Not at someone's house but my Mum's school packed lunches for me make me retch if I remember some of them.

I don't know what It's called but that sort of, jelly-textured too-soft-to-be rubbery bright pink fleshy horrible jelly-like 'meat' that I think used to come in a round tin with a key to oepn it? In a sandwich. Urgh. I feel sick thinking about it. It fell out of the sandwich as soon as I opened it. Gross.

I was vegetarian from aged 11 (not just because of that) and I remembered going to my Grandmother's house for boxing day once, she rang once she learned I was going to be there (I was about 16' as 'I've nothing for the kid to eat'. My dad had to get me a pot noodle from an 'open every day of the year' corner shop. He looked so embarrassed when he walked out of the shop with it! My Grandmother put it in a bowl as she was not happy at me eating such on boxing day! Not innkeeping with the thread that, though, I love pot noodles even now, and I am a pretty decent cook!

Off topic but, my Mum (who is the most brilliant woman I know in her other, many ways) is notorious even now (and I am in my forties) for forgetting to cook for me at family gatherings. Twice at xmas she's forgotten to put my main course in the oven. Usually a pie or 'meat substitute type thing that would take 40 or so minutes to cook through. I have done a lot of hanging around, while everyone else eats all the veg and potatoes and is almost finished at the table before mine cooks.

Another time the whole family was having fish and chips and I said I'd bring my own food. Everyone was about to sit down and had done so (moments before,mind!) by the time I'd warmed up a vegetarian main I'd cooked in advance. I went to the table and there wasn't even a space for me-they'd not set one. When I asked was there not somewhere for me to sit? (It was obvious in hindsight, but I was a bit shocked!) they all just looked at me. And said nothing at all. I ate mine sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen worktop, until my (then 12 year old)niece who's such an angel even now, said 'Patience, I've nearly finished, go and sit at my place, It's not fair you being in here'.

Joys of being vegetarian in a family full of hardcore meat munchers I suppose.

I'll give a famous chain restaurant rhyming with swanky and rennies a mention.

We all ordered fajitas and the two vegetarians had not much other than onions, to put in theirs. Onion fajitas. I think they'd ran out of veg.

I complained and was given a voucher for a free main course for two people.

We didn't use it.

My university housemate used to regularly eat pasta and milk.

One Christmas day mum decided to cook this little birds for Xmas Dinner, don't know what they were but it was disgusting, none of us ate it, just had roast potatoes etc.
Recently I went to visit parents mum made a cold soup, it was cucumber and pea soup, I liked it, dad didn't like it, mum was going to make it again soon, when they had guests for dinner, I tried not to laugh as I knew mum was experimenting again!!

My in laws were well travelled people, from early 1960’s onwards they travelled extensively, the continent to start with then to more exotic places. They (or FIL did) tried to recreate some of the dishes they’d had abroad with not much success, boiled rice seemed to feature a lot in their meals, tinned spam fried in a pan with curry powder accompanied by boiled rice. Sliced cold spam with rice,
One thing FIL did well was liver and onions, it was delicious, the accompanying veg not so much, boiled watery veg.
He also made mince pies at Christmas which were gorgeous, made with suet pastry, his rough hands made lovely pastry.
I miss the old bugger.

@NanaNelly

How do you use someone as a Hoover?*

Use your imagination 🤣🤣

I'll give a shout to another restaurant chain Famous chef B's brasserie.
My mother had given me vouchers for Christmas. Booked a Sunday lunch, my husband is dairy free, DD1 is vegan. I rang ahead to discuss menu options. DH is fairly easy as he's always happy with simple stuff eg steak and chips or the Sunday roast minus Yorkshire puddings and no butter in the veg. But I wanted DD to have a decent meal.
On the day the ONLY vegan option was Cauliflower Steak. So while we all had plates of beef, loads of veg and roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding for the non dairy free eaters, she got a plate with a slab of charred cauliflower. I think there must have been some sort of red pepper dip or something on the side. I can just see that plate of cauliflower. Honestly I like cauliflower but to just give someone a slab of it and call that a meal is too much.
We complained and they made various bill adjustments but she did not get a decent meal.

I'm inclined not to eat anywhere that has cauliflower steak on the menu as a matter of principle, it is lazy, and shows a deep lack of care and imagination imo as well as outrageous profiteering as it doesn't come cheap either.

I'm loving this thread!!! Haven't gotten to the end yet but thought I'd give my tuppence worth.

The worst one I can remember was on holiday as a kid. We were staying in a villa in Spain and dad popped off to the supermarket to get lunch.

He called us in for some tuna salad sandwiches, and after a morning of playing in the pool my siblings and I were famished!

Turns out dad, who didn't speak Spanish, picked up some cat food rather than tuna 🤢 his reasoning was that it had a fish on the front 🙈

Mum was not best pleased and needless to say our "tuna sandwiches" were swiftly binned and were replaced with a trip to a local restaurant for some human food (possibly an all day breakfast 😆)

not so much horrible food just never enough-my dh family seem to be competitve undereaters

if im staying at fils he doesnt do lunch fine its up to him but you be there all day and come the evening you then get one salmon nicely cooked but on its own no sides

ive started taking snacks and offering to take him out to eat because i just cant survive on one salmon per day

Went to a wedding. The bride and groom knew I am veggie & also rsvp’d saying so. There were 5 other veggies there. Everyone’s food came out. They offered me beef dripping in blood (not exaggerating) even meat eaters were not impressed. Then told that they had forgotten about the veggies, so had a raw aubergine. Just that. Just cut in half. Alone on the plate. The evening was a hog roast with no veggie alternatives nor accompaniments. Wedding was out in the sticks & no deliveroo. Drove home via the takeaway 🤣

Chicken pie with custard.....

Turns out dad, who didn't speak Spanish, picked up some cat food rather than tuna 🤢 his reasoning was that it had a fish on the front

Now I'm wondering about the baby food we fed DD1 on holiday in Portugal. She was about one year old, a good eater of suitable baby food plus breast. We went out for lunch and forgot her food so DH popped into a nearby store and came back with a jar of fishy dinner. It smelt and looked exactly like Kit-e-Kat 🤢, neither of us could bring ourselves to taste it, but she loved it and scoffed the lot.

Oh tripe - yes DH was subjected to that at the funeral of his great Aunty (don’t ask me why tripe was there as well as a very nice traditional buffet).

He swears he can still taste it to this day but he couldn’t exactly say no to the woman insisting people try it “I can’t say no to her we’ve just watched her mother go in the ground” 😆

Why did you give it to her, if it looked and smelled like cat food and you couldn't bear to taste it yourself?!

The OP's lunch sounds fine to me.

There are a couple of disasters that come to mind.

Tomato soup in India - whilst I wasn't expecting Heinz I certainly wasn't expecting s bowl of unflavoured lukewarm water with slices of tomato floating on the top.

The second was DP's Spam Curry. Don't try it folks!

Haha could have been cat food too 😂 sounds like she enjoyed it and it did her no harm 🙈

It sounds like pate made from fish roe (fish eggs) usually cod.

@user1493559472 Could it be pheasant?? Always tastes to me like meat that's gone off!!!

My brother used to shoot pheasants, he had permission from a local farmer to shoot on his land, he’d hand the pheasants to the farmer who sold them to a restaurant and shared the proceeds with bro. One particular year he’d bagged more than previous years, the restaurant didn’t want so many so he brought a few home, he gave two to mum who hung them up in the outhouse where the washing machine was kept.
I didn’t know this and got the shock of my life when I saw them in all of their feathered glory hanging up from a hook. They were there was for however long it takes for the flesh to ‘mature’, until mum declared them ready for plucking and cleaning..Thread in itself.
Anyway plucked, cleaned and dressed, roasted and served with roasted veg, mum was an excellent cook btw, it was cooked to perfection, now pheasant is a strongly, flavoured game bird, but this one was really gamey, I think it threw itself onto dear bro’s shot gun, judging by the number of shotgun pellets still in, it even after mothers diligent cleaning. We could eat it. Never had it since.

• couldn’t eat it.

Various little birds it could be. Quail, pheasant, grouse, partridge, poussin, woodcock, duck. I've had most of those at one point or another but I don't like strong gamey flavours or very rare poultry, and although I'm a fairly intrepid eater I'm really not keen on the idea of having to watch out for shotgun pellets as I eat.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I'm with you on that!!

@TheLoneRager I've never eaten a 'cauliflower steak' but it sounds revolting, and yes It's disgusting that they'll probably charge not far off a meat dish for that. So awful. Glad you complained-so so many lovely and simple vegan options that can be frozen in advance, absolutely no need to feed us that abomination. Vegan/Vegetarian doesn't mean 'no taste buds'!

I can’t believe M&S sell ’cauliflower steak’. Anyone that buys it is a fool.

I think "cauliflower steak" is just a slice of cauliflower isn't it? Which tastes better because it's 10 times the price of an actual cauliflower?

Yes it is. I think they can call it a 'steak' because 'steak' is just the shape, or a cut (hence 'steak cut chips') and I do like cauliflower, in a curry or mashed but serving it as the main component of a dish in a restaurant is just insulting.