To ask what one thing is that ruins a dinner?

[ChloefromSundy]

I'll go first - nothing being crispy and no texture, so slop on a plate.

I wholeheartedly agree, where are the dessert forks? Table manners have gone to the dogs!

Mayo. On or in anything. It's disgusting. Every vegetarian or vegan dish at a restaurant last night had mayo or aoili. Yuck.

At home - my kids. They don't eat anything remotely flavoursome and every meal is met with "ugh what's that!?". I hate mealtimes.

Salted caramel anything. You never see just normal caramel any more it’s always bloody salted. 🤢

A huge salad.

My mum and sister hated pork, its my least favourite and has to be really weel done (much to my husbands annoyance, he likes it "juicy" eww)

What ruins dinner for me is everyone in my house likes different stuff. The only time I can eat what I like is when my husband takes my kids away (only happened once). When my husbands at work me and the 2 oldest have a nice pasta dish but my 3rd child doesn’t like pasta!! Id have pasta or curry everyday but can't

Peas in a recipe. I like them as a side dish can’t stand them in rice/noodles etc

Bad table manners

Starting to eat before everyone is seated

Getting up from the table before everyone is finished (Dad I’m looking at you here)

Using a fork like a stick (SIL looking at you, I can’t even begin to describe how strangely you eat. We actively try to avoid sitting opposite you at the table as it’s so off putting)

Eating with your mouth open, making loud chomping noises, talking with your mouth full. Shudder

A mere drizzle of gravy, only on your meat! WTAF is it with restaurants who do this? Gravy is for ALL of your dinner, not just the meat! Lashings of it in fact…plus an extra jug to add as you get to the ‘underneath’ that didn’t get loaded with it initially 👌🏻

(You can take the girl out of the north…you can’t take the north out of the girl 🤣)

Oh i don't like peas in things either just ruins food, also pea.purees no thank you !

Coriander 🤮🤢🤮

Lots of people have said coriander. I remember being repulsed the first time I tasted it, thinking somebody must have accidentally dropped something inedible into the food. It tasted soapy and -oddly- also dirty. And yet I've grown to love it!

Gravy. Who wants liquid poured over their food?

My MIL does this when cooking at home. She’s an amazing cook but there’s never enough gravy/sauce on the table, there’s always more in the kitchen but no one ever feels like they can get up to get more, because she’d insist on getting up herself to fetch it for them, and she works so hard to create these amazing meals that no one wants to put her out any more by that point…

Re #2 - I seem to remember an episode of Come Dine With Me where the host’s dog got into the room and shat on the floor during dinner. 🤢 And who could ever forget the hostess who brought her pet snake to the table, where it promptly shat on the tablecloth… 🤮 (hope no one’s eating as they read this!)

Non-vegetarians eating specifically ordered/provided vegetarian dishes, before I and other vegetarians have had enough!

reminds me of SATC where Carrie Bradshaw actually tells waiters she is allergic to parsley (she is not she just hates it) and will be very ill if she consumes it, as despite their assurances a little bit always slips in…

A roast absolutely drowned in gravy. I'd like to taste the different items on the plate thanks.

I don't always agree with Carrie Bradshaw by any means, but I think she's correct here.

Oversalting.

Another mayo hater. Weird, I like the ingredients, but together, ew.

Bland food, I like my food spicy.

Chewing with mouth open.

Old grease. I can smell it.

Drowning the salad in dressing.

My mum felt exactly the same as you about gravy, @MimiGC and @Drew79, so I grew up in a completely gravy free household. We had bread sauce with chicken and turkey, apple sauce with pork, mustard or horseradish with beef and parsley sauce with gammon, but no gravy. As a result I enjoy a roast dinner without gravy - I like the different textures and tastes, and don’t find it too dry.

But dh likes gravy, so we’ve always had gravy with roasts, and I will occasionally have a bit - I make my own stock and use that to make gravy for Christmas dinner, and I do enjoy the taste of that. But I’m still not a fan of Bisto gravy.

I make sure there’s plenty of gravy available for the people who like it - but I really would to like it if my dinner arrived doused in gravy that I don’t want - and I don’t understand why people would do that. Why not put a jug - or even a couple of jugs of it on the table so people can decide if and where they want it?

But everyone, including vegetarians, has the full choice on the menu. The vegetarians could choose a meat dish but they've decided not to. Just because vegetarians choose specific dishes doesn't mean it's fair to restrict everyone else and force people to eat meat when they might prefer not to on that occasion.

That's really not how vegetarianism works.

Why not? There is no flaw in the logic of my argument. Vegetarians do, very occasionally, become meat eaters again and nobody would object if they suddenly chose a meat dish from the menu. Why couldn't a meat-eater similarly decide to become a vegetarian? You seem to be saying that because somebody sometimes eats meat and is therefore not a vegetarian, they should sometimes be forced to have a meat dish even if there are vegetarian options.