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? 😂

Agreed!

My DH does the ships in the air fryer then puts a layer in a bowl, adds a little salt, grated cheese and chilli flakes. Then another layer of the same then into microwave for 30 seconds. It's to die for.

Oh I love warm beetroot sarnies! Food of the gods. 😂

We were staying with friends who asked if we would like Chilli con carne for dinner, DH says "yes, but go easy with the chilli Hazel reacts badly to very hot foods". We were assured that it wouldn't be very hot as they didn't go in for really hot or spicy food.
Well it was so hot that I must have drank about 2 litres of water to get it down, and I spent most of the night in and out of the toilet, my whole body was on fire for 2 days.
I also went to a wedding reception where I was served a very pink chicken breast (which I didn't eat)

I don’t understand why you’d think bread, pate, charcuterie, cheese and salad wasn’t a proper lunch but a first course. It sounds like quite a substantial lunch to me.

I actually make my own, cut a slice off a cauliflower,marinade in Middle Eastern spices and griddle/BBQ. Serve with a yoghurt and cumin dip
Wouldnt pay more than a couple of £ for one while out though

Beetroot sandwiches are amazing - particularly if still warm with a sprinkling of salt

I did this yesterday with DM’s toast - our grill doesn’t work and I was already using the air fryer so I thought it was the easiest option! She came in and asked me how I’d made it, then she said it was nice but tbh I think the fact that she felt the need to ask what I’d done means it probably wasn’t…

I've been fairly lucky with food at other people’s
houses (or I’ve blocked it out) but it always makes me laugh remembering when I went to a friend’s for pre drinks when I was about 20, everyone else had eaten except me and her so she made us frozen burgers each (no buns) frozen mixed veg and chips. Not a very exciting or aesthetically pleasing meal but the sort of convenience meals we’d both grown up eating so I was perfectly happy but our friends were all horrified! Their mums must have been better cooks than ours 😂

Had a friend who was well off but tight! He invited us over for pizza one evening. One Tesco value pizza between 4 of us. And he grilled it because he was too tight to put the oven on. So the base wasn't cooked.

In order to save money, my mum used to use Stork margarine in our sandwiches for our school packed lunch. Tasteless grease. What made it worse was knowing that mum was having proper butter - and lots of it - on her lunchtime sandwiches.

Many years ago , my Mum used to give us Bacon Grill , sliced from a tin and fried .
It was delicious , bacon-ey , salt-ey , slightly sticky and chewey .

But she sometimes fried Spam and told us it was the same ...it wasn't .
One bite of that flabby , tasteless , teeth-go-straight-into pink cotton wool , we were conned .

There were various things like luncheon meat, chopped pork, spam and ham that could also be opened with a key attached to the tin.

My mum, God bless her, was a terrible cook except for cakes. She made a veggie lasagne once with just boiled courgette and mushroom in lasagne and white sauce with a bottle of ketchup on the side. She thought it was a waste of money buying a tin of tomatoes to put in any kind of lasagne when you can just add ketchup.

My sister once served us a roast that was just gross. She served the Yorkshire puddings on the Uncleaned board that she put the raw joint on. The gravy was revolting but we didn't find that out till we'd flooded all the food with it. It tasted like engine oil. She described it as 'a bit rich'!

What's "white condiment"?

It's a bit like a white balsamic vinegar.

😂😂😂 OMG, you win! Sorry about your grandma, but that’s bloody hilarious.

Not sure this counts as it was technically a ‘restaurant’, but was also definitely someone’s house. My bf (now DH) and I were on a Greek island, 30 years ago. There were a lot of proper tavernas, but you’d quite often come across people boosting their income by serving food from their homes in the summer. Usually brilliant, but one place was utterly fucking dreadful.

This old woman with a face like a slapped arse had basically bunged a couple of tin tables in the alleyway behind her house. It’s the only time I’ve ever been served taramasalata that stood up by itself, like a huge block of treacle sponge. It was neon pink, stank, and you had to slice it with a knife. I literally couldn’t finish a mouthful, it was rancid. The whole time she hovered behind the door of her dank kitchen, muttering furiously, while we sat in a fug of motorbike fumes, surrounded by stray cats & stage whispering about whether or not it would be offensive to pay and run (we were very young!).

I’m wondering now if she’s getting mentioned on a parallel Greek Mumsnet thread.

It’s like white vinegar, but the manufacturers can’t call it vinegar, because it isn’t made like vinegar. According to Wikipedia - “Non-brewed condiment is a malt vinegar substitute created with water, acetic acid, flavourings and often caramel colour, sometimes used in fish-and-chip shops in the United Kingdom and Ireland.[1][2] It is also used in salads.

Traditional vinegars are made by fermenting alcohol (wine, in the case of wine vinegar; cider for cider vinegar; and an ale made from malted barley in the case of malt vinegar). The fermentation process takes time, and all the colours in the vinegar occur naturally.

Non-brewed condiment is acetic acid mixed with colourings and flavourings, making its manufacture a much quicker and cheaper process than the production of vinegar. According to Trading Standards in the UK, it cannot be labelled as vinegar or even put in traditional vinegar bottles if it is being sold or put out on counters in fish-and-chip shops.[3]”

I once went to a friend's and they paired pinot noir with chicken in tarragon vinegar sauce. Absolute philistines

The dirty bastards 😂

It was (student) me cooking for DH not long after we'd first met - I decided to serve pizza, something at 18 I'd unbelievably never cooked myself before.

I was so proud of myself till he asked what the melted, plasticky stuff was on the top....I'd not realised you had to remove this!!!

We still laugh about it now...and fortunately I'm much better at cooking these days, lol!

Oh my Mum also made a ghastly 70s starter - grapefruit in creme de menthe.

Someone else mentioned that up thread, it sounds revolting. My mum loved a bit of 70s cookery but I've never heard of such a foul sounding starter

Perfect meal!

Same here. Was staying with my parents and my mum offered bacon sandwich as a breakfast option. Great! Except for some reason she let my dad cook. We got cold, pink, very wet undercooked bacon, and stale sourdough with no butter. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but IME there's nothing quite like bacon sandwich disappointment.

Also his personal hygiene isn't the best, so there's a good chance he would have handled the raw meat and then the bread without washing his hands (and probably hadn't washed his hands since getting up that morning).

Fertilised duck egg. Hard boiled. Think it was duck, anyway. Chinese delicacy. Made me want to vom.

I thought this was such a good idea that it’s on the menu for this week!