What's your cooking pet peeves?

[LoftyTurtle]

As the title says - what are your pet peeves when it comes to other people's cooking? Meant to be a lighthearted thread, not a bashing one 😉

Personally, amongst my extended family, I witness the following and it makes me die a little inside:

• Slathering absolutely everything in chilli. I like chilli, but not EVERYTHING needs chilli in it!
• Refusal to use any salt whatsoever so all their cooking just tastes a bit sad and bland. By all means have a low salt diet if you need it for personal or health reasons, fine, but a little salt really isn't the end of the world!
• Refusing to cook anything above 150 degrees because it might burn it. Listen, some things are fabulous slow cooked, but some things just need to be bloody cooked at a high temperature. Don't keep your oven permanently set to 150 and then wonder why your roast potatoes are always a bit soggy and crap
• Careless substitution of ingredients when the person cooking doesn't have the skill/knowledge to substitute well. Had a family member very excited to use a new recipe for beetroot brownies once. The recipe called for fresh beetroot, which you grated and incorporated into the brownie mix bit like a carrot cake. She used jarred pickled beetroot because she figured it was "close enough" 🤢 likewise, same person substituted frozen salmon for fresh salmon but didn't thaw it first (or even change the cooking time) and was quite perplexed the fish wasn't entirely cooked through!
• Cremating all their meat just to make sure they don't accidentally get food poisoning. One family member has been known to be so paranoid about food poisoning that she will cook meat well past being done, and then also microwave it just to be "on the safe side"
• Weird toxic hatred of jarred sauces or similar. My preference is going to be cooking from scratch but sometimes I can't be arsed & serving my family spag bol with a jarred sauce occasionally really isn't the culinary crime a "friend" makes it out to be 🤣

I'm always disappointed when someone serves a meal which has a classic condiment or side but doesn't serve said condiment or side e.g roast beef without horseradish, fajitas without salsa, curry without mango chutney, cheese and crackers without chutney and grapes. I love the condiments!

You'd love it in our house - we have about 6 different condiments with every dinner. I'm the condiment queen.

Oversalting or if it's a dish like curry boiling the shit out of it. These are but two examples, I could write a book really.

Putting too much salt in. I don't add much salt to my own cooking because people can always add extra salt if there's not enough, but you can't undo saltiness once it's served.

Stodgy food combinations - e.g. pastry with a rich filling, served with potatoes, carrots and parsnip. Too many root veg!

Not a cooking one but table manners one, people who cover their plate in extra salt or worse mayonaise or ketchup <<looking at you ds>> without tasting it first.

Another one is eating spaghetti with a knife and fork, using the knife to cut it up into smaller strands. I know it shouldn't matter or bother me, but it reminds me of toddler feeding.

Being served gravy which is just an oxo cub and water yak too runny
People cooking and tasting as they go repeatedly with the same spoon 🤢
Slathering everything in too much cooking oil, roast potatoes being one

Elmlea 🤮

I am particular about vegetables, eg, carrots must not be cut in rounds, they taste wrong. Broccoli does not go with gravy. Peas are the only acceptable vegetable accompaniment to fish pie.

Salt... I am.someone you wouldn't like op. I rarely use salt. I do NOT like the taste of it and eugh it makes me so thirsty. I do put a bit in some things but never more than a knife tip. Dh loves the stuff and it took me years to wean him off it. You can add salt not subtract it after.

We have compromises w pasta and now cook it with a stock cube in the water (well half of one) I can tolerate that but eugh to salty pasta..

I use salt in 2 places 1 in soup and 2 if I make mashed potatoes.

People being offended you don't care for condiments much. What does it matter if I don't stop you using them?

People serving with food swimming In gravy. Use a gravy boat. Let me decide how little I want and don't comment. I'm not making you eat it as I like it. Why can't I have it as I like it? Why can it only be swimming in the stuff.

People insisting on serving food that comes with toast on TOP of the toast. It goes soggy it's horrid that way give it to me on the side. Especially if I order it on the side.

And last cooking peeve is dhs inability to pack the clingfilm away after he had used it. Everything else he packs away but that dispenser he just cant do it

@Usernamewassavedsuccessfully - I am the opposite - carrots have to be in rounds. I can't eat them otherwise, they're just wrong.
I'm lactose intolerant. When I make mash I mash the potatoes then separate them into 2 parts, mash vegan spread into mine and butter into DPs. When DP makes mash he mashes the potatoes, puts mine on my plate and mashes butter into his. It's a sad dollop of dry potatoes without any dairy equivalent.
I went to a gastro-type pub for Sunday lunch once and the chef refused to give gravy with the meal. When we asked the server for some chef came out of the kitchen and said his meal was beautifully cooked and gravy would spoil it. Roast potatoes without gravy = another potato disappointment.

My in laws are lovely people but I’ve never once had a warm meal at their home. I have no idea what it is they do with food but it’s always overcooked and tepid.

They also consider use of condiments as some sort of moral failing so don’t have them or salt and pepper. Now when we go I have a stash of wee sauces for the kids who aren’t yet old enough to just put up with sauce free chips or whatever.

I go to a lot of trouble to make roast spuds very crispy.
I hate it when people smother them in gravy and make them soggy
And putting salt on pepper on my carefully seasoned food before tasting it.

Slightly off topic, but have you tried replacing normal milk with lactose free milk, and lactose free butter (although the amount of lactose in proper butter is actually minimal, due to how it's made)? And/or taking lactase enzyme sometimes if you can't always get a lactose free/vegan alternative if you're out somewhere, for eg. I keep some in my handbag for just in case.
Whole family can have lactose free milk, although as I haven't bought proper milk for very many years I have absolutely no idea how much it costs, but likely less than the lactose free, so could just get for you. Many supermarket own brands I really don't like, and I've tried very many of them. This is my preferred brand - and fresh, not long life. They do skimmed and semi-skimmed as well. Oh and they also make a lactose free cream as well, so could have creamy, butttery mash to your hearts content! 😁

Overcooked AND tepid? Blimey, now that's some skill 😂

If your potatoes are crispy enough then gravy won’t make them soggy- just even more delicious!

My kitchen annoyance is people cutting the tops off strawberries instead of hulling them.

Artificial sauces on stuff, like ketchup and brown sauce.

I know this is very niche....but I hate sweet paired with savoury, so for instance, pork with prunes, lamb with apricot, maple syrup or honey glazed stuff.

Also, for those who think people should taste first, before adding salt and pepper...does it not appear ruder to taste first and then add it, rather than, (knowing you like salt and pepper, possibly more than others) adding it before?
Surely, it is more of a slap in the face, to taste first, deem it not satisfactory, then add it?

Same @Oneearringlost re the sweet / savoury.

I want to control my own level of gravy (bucket on the side will do nicely thanks).

My mil bless her has never served anything decent and she also serves a huge pile onto plates so you are defeated before you even start. I like to let people serve themselves and go back for more if they want it.

Oh, and not cooking enough roast potatoes!

If person knows you don't cook with much salt it is perfectly reasonable to add salt without trying.
If unknown person cook for me I will politely try before adding salt although I am 99% certain I'll add it as I love extremely salty food.
Mayo one is obvious, if dish does not have mayo visible and you like to eat that good withi ir, just help yourself and drench it in mayo. There is zero chance you will taste it and have some sort of discovery that "oh this dish is so perfect it just does not need anything".
People just need to get overthemselves and realise other have different preferences.

I am a good cook so probably a bit of a ponce, I accept that.

Salads. I honestly cannot understand why some people find this so hard. <glares at my sister>. Some chunks of iceberg lettuce, 3 chopped tomatoes and a couple of slices of cucumber, with no dressing, is NOT a salad. A basic side salad can be simply while still being tasty, visually and texturally pleasing.

And because I'm a cow, I am IRRATIONALLY enraged when people are surprised by how nice my salads are. I should be pleased and flattered. But mostly it irritates me because really, you shouldn't be praising me for being able to make a halfway decent salad. It's 'embarrassing that you can't.

My other pet peeve is people who just cannot pull it together at the end. It's hard, I get that. But I've lost count of the number of BBQs I've been to where the meat looks great coming off the grill, but after 20 minutes of sitting in a warming drawer is inedible, or the vegetables have got overcooked AND cold having been prepared 30 minutes before anything else.

Carrots are in circles in our house if they're being boiled or going in a stew, if they're being roasted or in a salad, then it's batons 😆 roast carrot circles would be weird

I only seem to be able to cook enough roast potatoes for a small army

I don't mind tomatoes and cucumber as long as they're not served by themselves, but apart from that, I absolutely loathe salad - and for that reason I would never attempt to make one. I just don't have the "feel" for it, if that makes sense. Maybe your sister is the same, but feels she has to make an attempt at it because her guests like it?

People who cook a turkey overnight on Christmas eve (mil 🙄) . It does not need overnight cooking . Then keep for days and days on work top 😦 .

Tomatoes that have been kept in the fridge.

Pointless use of out of season fruit and veg, but especially raw fruit that is beautiful in season and plentifully grown in this country, such as strawberries or plums.

You mean people put gravy on you plate ?! I would never do that ! Always let people serve themselves .