Amusing Food Stories

[joesfolk]

Do you have an amusing food story?
I once worked in a retirement village. One elderly woman told me about the first turkey she ever cooked. She got a twenty pound bird at the butcher. Not knowing how to cook it she asked the butcher how much bread she would need to stuff a turkey that size. Jokingly he said about twenty loaves. So, trusting him she bought twenty loaves of bread. Can you imagine making that much stuffing and then discovering that it won't all fit in the bird? Well, I'm not very good at story telling. But I'll bet you are. What is your story?

 

[Hoot]

When I first joined up here, I posted a tale of a duck cooking we had at Rendezvous.
You might find it amusin'.
http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f6/howdy-am-new-here-37816.html
You will have to scroll down a mite. It is along about reply #10.
Wow!!, It sure don't seem like I been reading and posting here since Aug. 2007.

 

[mollyanne]

When I was age 8, I remember being
in San Francisco with my parents and
enjoying seafood at Fisherman's Wharf
which I thought was "Fisherman's Dwarf".

 

[chopper]

I love the duck story. Made me think of another camping story.

While on a camping trip with the boy scouts, we had an amazing thing happen. We were at a campground, which doesn’t happen too often. Usually we were in the wilderness, but this trip was different. This was a “family” campout where we were in a campground at a lake (another thing that didn’t happen too much-here in Colorado we were usually in the mountains). There was a pavilion with a roof that was much too low. Upon entering, you had to duck your head or get a headache! Anyway…one of the dads (yes, a dad, not a scout) just couldn’t get that ducking thing right! He knocked his head a couple of times, but none of us were ready for what ultimately happened.
We had one of those big propane burners that you could place a giant pot of water on and it would boil really quick (even at high altitude). This was a really big hit with the scouts, and the dads for that matter (you know…boys like fire and sharp things). Anyway, we had one of those really big pans of water on there, and it was boiling pretty good. The dad (you know the one-he kept hitting his head) went and got his oven mitts to carry the big pot of BOILING WATER. He picked it up, and proceeded to carry it over to the picnic table UNDER THE LOW ROOF! Well…as you can guess, he ran right into that roof. It knocked him right flat on his back! What happened to the boiling water you ask? Did we need to use our first aid? Did we have to rush him to the hospital (which was at least 75 miles away)?. No…wait for it…This man who couldn’t remember to duck upon entering the pavilion had the quick thinking to pivot that huge pot of BOILING WATER 90 degrees and it landed on his lap. DIDN’T SPILL A DROP! We lifted it quickly off of him, and he wasn’t hurt. He did have a bit of a headache!

Oh I just love a story with a happy ending!

 

[LindaZ]

My first bread making attempt was a total disaster. I was a young military wife with a year old son who sat patiently at the tabel watching Mommie make bread. I followed the recipie - I swear I did - but came the time to knead the dough. I "poured" it out on the table and it immediately began to ooze off the table. Well I yelled for help and between my husband and I, we managed to save most of the dough. He held a bowl under the edge of the table and chased the bread dough as it fell. Not to be defeated - I added even more flour and finally had a kneading consistency dough. I baked it and it came out about as high as a brick, weighed twice as much, but my husband ate it and told me how good it was. Frank threw his piece of bread across the kitchen - it shattered on the wall. Thank goodness for bread machines! (Frank, no turkey stories :p)

 

[jabbur]

Mine involves Thanksgiving pies. It was the first Thanksgiving the whole family would be together after my parents moved. I was tasked with bringing the pies. I made the crusts with Grandpa's recipe. I followed the recipe on the Karo syrup bottle for the pecan pie and the recipe on the can of Libby's pumpkin for the pumpkin pie. I doubled the recipes thinking I'd have 2 of each which should be enough for the crew. Rolled out 4 pie crusts and mixed up the fillings. Poured the fillings in the pies. Had 4 pies but still had a lot of filling left. Made more crusts, bought more pie pans. Ended up with 7 pies out of recipes for 4! It was the year of the never ending pie baking. I still get ribbed about that year! They joke to not let me make the pies or we'll have nothing but pie to eat!

 

[joesfolk]

I thought Hoot's story was cute so I copied it here:




I have an amusing story about my first time cooking a duck at Rendezvous.
I decided that I would try this at the Spring Rendezvous.
Not ever having cooked a duck before I wasn't sure how to go about it,
but I figgered that potatoes, onions and carrots are mighty good with beef, so they oughta go good with duck.
Well, I cut up the taters, onions and carrots and put them into a dutch oven.
I put the duck into the dutch oven and put the lid on.
I spread out some coals from the fire on the ground and put the dutch oven on the coals.
I dug more coals out of the fire pit and put them on the lid of the dutch oven.
well, after 20 or 30 minutes,I said "Hoot (that's what I call myself when I am talking to myself), you best check on that duck"
So I got a hook and lifted the lid just enough to see what was going on in the dutch oven.
Whatintheworld??? There ain't no duck in the pot!!
I put the lid back on and studied a bit.
I lifted the lid again....nope that dang duck ain't in there.
I immediately began to suspect skullduggery was afoot, so I looked around to see if anyone was watching me and laughing.
Nope..now I am puzzled.
I lift the lid again and there ain't nothin in the pot but taters, carrots and onions.
"Where the H*** is my duck???" I said, rather loudly.
My cousin, Marty, who was sittng off to one side, looked over and said.
"Hoot, your duck is stuck to the lid!!" I raised the lid up high enough to see underneath and looked and, sure enough, there was my duck!!!
Well it took me and Marty, a camp fork and a spatula to pry that duck off that lid.
I put the duck back in the dutch oven and after a few more additions of
coals on top and bottom, over the next hour and a half or so, it was done!
And let me tell y'all, it was mighty fine eatin'.
Just goes to show ya that you never get too old to see stuff and learn things you never knew!
We had many a laugh over that.

 

[FrankZ]

(Frank, no turkey stories :p)

There's always meatloaf.

 

[CraigC]

I posted one about a week ago.

http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f21/the-french-misconnection-69901.html

Maybe not amazing, but a lesson learned.

Craig

 

[joesfolk]

Craig, next time French/English dictionary!

 

[Uncle Bob]

In the fall of the year, around noon on the Friday before opening day of deer season a large group of hunters gather and form a convoy of sorts and head out to deer camp. There may be 12 to 15 trucks lined up. They are loaded down with personal stuff plus supplies for the camp....One guy is pulling a big generator...another hauling diesel fuel for the generator,... another propane tanks for the stoves, and a couple of more laying in supplies. They get into camp, fire up the generator, plug in the refrigerators and freezers, and get the milk, eggs, butter, salt pork/bacon, sausage etc cooling, plus finish up any last minute chores that weren't done during one of the work days ~~ .On the way down it's up to the lead truck to set the pace. This can prove to be be painstakingly slow sometimes. It's his job to stop at every road kill...someone has to get out and spray a big orange day-glo circle around the 'possum, rabbit, squirrel, skunk, coon, armadillo,whatever laying in the road before moving on....Later in the afternoon another couple of trucks head down to camp...Along the way they stop and pick up any road kill that does Not have a orange day glo circle around it...This insures fresh meat for the camp that night....

 

[CWS4322]

My mother never enjoyed cooking--her mother was a great cook and I think the cooking gene skips a generation, but I digress (this is the woman who served her children hard cooked eggs, spinach, and saltine crackers as that special meal when she and my father went out). One Thanksgiving, she didn't have any bread for the stuffing. She used bread crumbs. Trust me, you never want to make stuffing with bread crumbs. It was horrible. Then there was the first Christmas after my maternal grandmother passed away. For some reason, my mother decided we had to have lutefisk Christmas Eve (why remains a mystery to this day--my grandmother didn't serve it on Christmas Eve). Fortunately, my father grew up in a family that served fish, ham, and roast beef Christmas Eve. My mother ended up eating most of the lutefisk (and burped lutefisk for until New Year's Eve). I spit my first bite across the table and hit my brother in the eye (you do not want your first taste of lutefisk to be the "jelly" part), and the house reeked of lutefisk for a week. I think the happiest days of my mother's life had to be when my parents owned a restaurant. She'd call home at 4 and ask what to bring us for supper. Fortunately Ann, the head cook, was a much better cook than my mother <g>.

 

[CraigC]

Craig, next time French/English dictionary!

Naw, I'll just find another Italian place!

Craig

 

[LindaZ]

There's always meatloaf.

oops - forgot about the meatloaf -

 

[babetoo]

this is my mother's boo boo, not mine. when i was seven years old my mother married my step-father. up until that time, other people cooked for her. one day she decided to make a cake. don't remember what kind but was baked in a bundt pan. i think she must have read the recipe wrong. the thing was very hard and spongy at the same time. my sis and i rolled the thing back and forth the kitchen floor,and when it hit a cupboard door it would bounce against it and then off it would go. we were laughing hysterically, while my poor mother cried. she did reach a point where she could put a meal on the table. but never was much of a baker. lol

 

[garlicjosh]

the only one I can think of has been told to me a half a million times.
I guess my grandma had my uncle making pudding and was shaking it up (i'm pretty sure it was instant putting) and I guess the lid of the container was not on very well and while my uncle was shaking, the lid came off and chocolate pudding was all over the house. All my grandmother could do was sit down and laugh at the mess.
I however have not done such awesome things in my years..or if I have, i have blocked them out for prides sake. haha

 

[cmarchibald]

When my grandparents health started to decline, my dad undertook the daunting task of saving all his mother's recipes before she was gone. His mother was a fantastic cook and had thousands of recipes, all carefully written on little recipe cards and stuffed into shoeboxes that were all over the house. My dad started going through the boxes to organize them by category and weed out the ones she didn't want to keep. His goal was to have them printed in a cookbook before their 50th wedding anniversary.

His parents lived in Rome, GA and we were living in Huntsville, AL. I was in high school at the time. Since we could only go on weekends between work and school, and this was such a big undertaking, he decided to take the recipes home with him to work on throughout the week. One weekend as we were making our usual Friday afternoon trek to Rome, my brother was driving, I was in the front seat and my parents were in the back of the station wagon still shuffling through a box of recipes.

At one point my dad burst out laughing and said, "I know my mother had some weird recipes, but I have to ask her about this one," and read off a recipe called "Zucchini Ice Cream". We all had a good hearty laugh and couldn't wait to ask grandma what in the world kind of ice cream is made with vegetables.

That evening as we're sitting in the living room enjoying a visit, my dad finally asks her about it.

"Mama, I found this recipe in your box called Zucchini Ice Cream. Is that real? Did you ever make that?"

My grandmother sat up tall and donned a look of deep pride, then she said (with lavish emphasis) "Oh YES....we made that MANY times. It was one of your father's favorites!"

My grandfather, typically irritable elderly Irish man, shot back, "You ain't never made no zucchini ice cream!"

With white hot venom in her voice my grandmother retorted, "Oh YES I have and it was delicious! You ate every bit!"

Two days later, on the drive home, my dad looked at the recipe card again. He burst out laughing even harder this time, and after several moments (when he could breathe again) informed us that he had misread the card....that it said "Zucchinis In Cream".

 

[joesfolk]

I love that story, sounds like Dh and I!

 

[chopper]

Here is another quick one; Grandpa used to love his chocolate milk, and loved it when he had Quick for his milk. On the box it said to stir vigorusly, so he always stirred and stirred. Grandma would always say not to stir the bottom right out of the glass. Well...one time when he was showing off for us kids and stirring, the bottom really did break and come right off. Milk went everywhere, and we laughed and laughed!

 

[Skittle68]

My grandma was never much of a cook- we let her be in charge of mashed potatoes on christmas and thanks giving Anyway, she used to ask my grandpa how dinner was and he would say, "Well, the milk was good..." My dad was never so brave. When my mom tries a new recipe he always says it was good. The true test is when my mom asks, "Should I make it again?" My bf has picked up on this one- I know he really likes if when he says, "You should definitely make this again!"

On a side note, my grandma has been telling me since I was 14: "Honey, you don't need to be a good cook, you just need to be good in bed." I decided to be both . She also used to enjoy scaring away my brothers girlfriends with that one... But now he has a girlfriend who doesn't scare easy. Thanks grandma!