Favorite Family Food Failures

[Merlot]

Many years ago when we were kids, Mom often made chili for dinner. She always used kidney beans in it, and one time my sister, about age 7 at the time, found a kidney bean with legs... turned out to be a cricket. To this day she won't touch anything with kidney beans in it.
:

Oh my, I wouldn't eat them anymore either! I won't eat cheerios because a fly landed right in the middle of my bowl, grossed me out so much I never touched them again, I was also about 7.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

I've had too many to list so...

So...I guess you'll be entertaining us for a while?

Another "Mom" story, since I just can't remember any of the dozens and dozens of mess-ups I've made over the years. Selective memory and all.

We had my then-boyfriend and his family over for Sunday dinner - roasted chicken, cut into pieces before roasting. I was in the kitchen, along with the two Moms, waiting for mine to start handing me plates of foods to take to the dining room table. When Mom turned to hand off the platter full of chicken pieces to me, she lost her grip before I had taken hold of the platter. All the pieces of chicken slid right past my hands onto...the floor. The three of us look at each other, then his Mom says "you did wash the floor yesterday, right?" Of course Mom did - this was the 1960s and every good Polish housewife washed her kitchen floor every Saturday. It was then that his Mom said "lets pick these up and get them back where they belong before one of the guys walks in". We wiped down the side that hit the floor, and took the food into the dining room. We took a vow of silence and ate dinner. Not one of us got sick.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Many years ago when we were kids, Mom often made chili for dinner. She always used kidney beans in it, and one time my sister, about age 7 at the time, found a kidney bean with legs... turned out to be a cricket. To this day she won't touch anything with kidney beans in it....

Our family had fruit flies in the beef soup. Nana (my great aunt who lived with us) got some of the parsley my Dad had under a cold frame that winter, and Nana didn't notice the flies when she put them into the soup. I had to point out to my Mom that the pepper had wings. Mom made sure she double-checked the parley before Nana used it after that.

 

[Snip 13]

Lol! so many mom stories. Mine is also a mom story but the mother was me and it only happened two weeks ago. I made a big pot of oats for my kids and noticed the oats had a lot more oatbran than normal. Lots of little brown flecks. My eyesight is not all that great. My daughter started eating and paused for a second and said the brown bits have feet! I panicked and said throw it out but she carried on eating and just said all the poot weevils ever ate was oats lol!

 

[GotGarlic]

I can't remember my kitchen disasters - must have blocked them out

OTOH, I remember a DH disaster. He once surprised me by marinating a beef roast in Worcestershire sauce. Yes, just Worcestershire sauce. It was inedibly salty

 

[Kayelle]

My most embarrassing and expensive disaster was many years ago. My late husband had bragged to some of his business associates what a good cook I was, and arranged a dinner party at our house.
Huge shrimp, bell pepper and fresh pineapple kabobs were part of the menu. For more flavor, I poured the fresh pineapple juice over the Kabobs about a half hr before grilling, and all of the beautiful shrimp were ruined, and I mean ruined!! The shrimp turned a hardly describable mushy, (not cooked like with citrus ceviche).
They were really disgusting
Lesson learned. Never use fresh pineapple juice as a marinade.

 

[GotGarlic]

My most embarrassing and expensive disaster was many years ago. My late husband had bragged to some of his business associates what a good cook I was, and arranged a dinner party at our house.
Huge shrimp, bell pepper and fresh pineapple kabobs were part of the menu. For more flavor, I poured the fresh pineapple juice over the Kabobs about a half hr before grilling, and all of the beautiful shrimp were ruined, and I mean ruined!! The shrimp turned a hardly describable mushy, (not cooked like with citrus ceviche).
They were really disgusting
Lesson learned. Never use fresh pineapple juice as a marinade.

Aw, that's a shame. Yes, fresh pineapple juice is a meat tenderizer. It's used in Korean barbecue to tenderize beef for grilling.

 

[goosander]

Here's a couple from my childhood;

-This wasn't a disaster from my perspective but my mom was not impressed and the food didn't getting eaten. Anyway, I was tasked with making dinner one night and it was spaghetti bolognese. I thought it was a bit boring to have the same recipe as normal but also didn't really know how to improvise so I decided to just add blue food coloring to it for a change. Obviously it didn't really change the flavor but my family thought it looked too disgusting to eat

-One time I was cooking popcorn in the microwave (who could mess that up I hear you say?). Well, I put it in for too long somehow and when I opened the microwave it was smoking everywhere so I had the bright idea that I would suck the smoke up with the vacuum cleaner... it did work to some degree but every time we used the vacuum from then after it stank of smoke and eventually had to be thrown out.

 

[Just Cooking]

LOL@ blue food coloring and vacuuming smoke...

Ross

 

[Vinylhanger]

My wife still makes sure to tell me that sloppy joes don't have cinnamon in them. I was sure they did. Nope. This was before the internet. Now my kid makes sure I don't put it in my beans either.

One time. It can follow you a lifetime.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

It sure can follow you, Vinylhanger. I hear about forgetting the sugar in the pumpkin pie every stinkin' time I make pumpkin pie. I think I'll stick with apple...

 

[Vinylhanger]

Hee,hee. Good idea.