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 🤣