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From school and the office to relationships and even the kitchen, we all make mistakes. Some of them, however, are a tad more embarrassing than others. Like not realizing that coriander and cilantro are the same thing and then not being able to find what you need in the supermarket after you move to another country, like what happened to redditor u/annamagda. Or being me and honestly not understanding how onions, shallots, scallions, and spring onions are any different from one another.
Redditor u/annamagda asked the people browsing r/Cooking to make them feel better after their coriander/cilantro fiasco and share their very own food mix-ups and cooking mistakes. It’s honestly a lot of fun reading what these redditors shared, and we’ve collected the very best responses for you, dear Pandas. Don’t forget to upvote your fave answers and if you’d like to spill the tea about your own supermarket and kitchen sins and blunders, Gordon Ramsay will take your confession in the comment section.
I spoke about (im)perfection in the kitchen and making food-related mistakes with well-known pie artist, food expert, and author Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin. She urged everyone to embrace mistakes because “they are the best teachers!” Scroll down for Bored Panda’s interview with her about developing a growth-oriented mindset and shedding our fears of making blunders.
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#1
When I first moved out and started cooking I decided to get fancy and make a lasagna. The sauce called for 3 cloves of garlic. It was so cheap compared to everything else I assumed it meant 3 heads of garlic. That lasagna was intense.
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#2
One of the funniest memories I have is of grocery shopping with my college roommate. We were waiting in line at the deli counter and behind us was a sign for cheese from the Isle of Man. My roommate, fully serious, scoffed and said, “we can’t even have cheese anymore? That’s gotta be gendered now too?” Through my tears, I explained that the Isle of Man is an actual place off the coast of England, at which point she whispered, “never tell anyone about this.” I promptly told everyone I knew.
#3
Moved to the UK from the US a little over a year ago. We looked around the store for whipped cream for like 20 minutes before asking for help. Apparently, they call it squirty cream here. Sorry. But I'm not calling it "squirty cream".
Alison Duckmanton 2 years ago
Squirty cream is a processed product. It is often just sold at ambient temperatures on the supermarket shelf. You will find whipping cream in cartons in the fridge. If they don't have whipping cream you can also buy 'double cream ' and whip that yourself. Do not use 'single cream ' - the fat content is not high enough to be able to whip it.
According to pie artist and food expert Jessica, we ought to think of mistakes as small opportunities to get better. However, in order for this to happen, we actually have to be able to learn from them.
“We want to make sure we learn and grow from our mistakes, or they can quickly lead to frustration,” she warned Bored Panda, stating that there are, generally, two types of mistakes—good and bad—when it comes to everything related to the kitchen.
#5
This reminds me of the first time I made Lasagna. This was before the internet and I was a teenager. I was working with a poorly translated recipe from a magazine in South Asia. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of red chili powder for the meat sauce. That would be paprika I know now. I only knew of our red chili powder. I used 2 tablespoons of our Indian red chili powder and I kept that up for many more tries to come. It was the first-ever “Italian” recipe for my family and friends, made for fancy occasions only because of how difficult it was to procure the cheese. Everyone ate it with gusto, wiping tears pouring down their face, and commenting on how strangely the heat of the chili complemented the “coolness” of cheese in the dish and that Italians were oh so intelligent for that.
Frannie Kaplan 2 years ago
No chili is not always paprika, and italians don't put paprika in their lasagne
#6
My parents met and married in the States. My dad is from Scotland. They moved to Scotland shortly after getting married, because my dad had been on scholarship and part of the terms was that he had to work for the Church of Scotland for a few years, so off they went.
My mother had wanted to bake something with coconut. She couldn’t find it on her own. She asked my dad. My dad told her that you could not buy coconut in Scotland. It just wasn’t something you could get. My mother, in her naïveté, said to the women at a church group that it was too bad she couldn’t buy coconut in Scotland. Needless to say, the women were quick to tell her that wasn’t true and where she could get it.
My mother went home and tore a strip off my father because he knew full well you could, he just wanted to see how long he could keep it going. They’ll be married 46 years in June. I’m honestly surprised my father lived to their first. It still comes up.
“Good mistakes are the ones that come from intentionally trying something new, just to see what will happen. Bad mistakes are ones born of haste or ones that compromise safety,” the expert explained to me that the intention behind the mistakes that we make matters a whole bunch.
For instance, mistakes born from experimenting with ingredients, recipes, and styles of cooking are generally positive experiences because we can quickly improve our skills as we iron out any errors that we make. However, mistakes made from carelessness aren’t all that positive and we need to be aware that they can happen so that we don’t repeat them.
#7
I just learned three years ago that paprika is just dried ground-up red bell peppers. I'm 44. I felt like the world had betrayed me.
Lousha 2 years ago
Hungarian here and this picture hurts my soul :) What you English speaking people call paprika is indeed dried and ground peppers but of a specific kind. It's actually called "spice pepper" in Hungarian. It is not the giant bell pepper in the picture but a small red thing, most similar to chili peppers in appearance. There are hot and mild versions as well but the main thing is you can't just dry any sort of peppers and call it paprika. And yes, in Hungarian (and a bunch of other languages) every bell pepper is also called paprika, usually with a moniker like stuffing paprika, Californian paprika (that would be the one pictured) etc.
#8
I've lived for about 7-8 years in Germany broken up over 20 years, but from the US. I try to do most of my shopping in the local grocery stores as opposed to the American store. One thing I never buy in the American store was cheese (except sharp cheddar). But I kept thinking how odd it was that the German stores didn't carry Swiss cheese, considering Germany borders Switzerland. Any time I had a recipe that needed it, I'd sub in edamer or emmentaler or titilser or gouda or whatever. It wasn't until like this past fall, after living here and shopping here for years, that I put it together that the Swiss probably don't call it Swiss cheese. I don't exactly know which of the 18,000 varieties of cheese my store carries is what I know as Swiss, but they're all good.
#9
Not so much a mix-up,
But when I first ate asparagus it was the same day I had quit smoking cigarettes. I'm the lucky individual whose pee smells after eating asparagus and can also smell it. I swear to god I thought I was either dying or that stopping smoking had some adverse effect on my pee. It's only when I googled "why does my pee smell..." and googles auto-complete added "after eating asparagus" so I put two and two together and breathed a sigh of relief
Olga Dremina 2 years ago
But wait, there's more! Only about 30% of people can smell this. I just imagine Mother Nature: "this one will have 2020 vision, this one will have perfect hearing... And for you, my dear child, i have the ability of smelling bad scent in your pee after you eat asparagus!"
According to Jessica, some mistakes that we can definitely classify as ‘bad’ include things like not reading all the way through the recipe before you start cooking or not having a proper BC fire extinguisher “handy in the kitchen” in case you need it.
In the food expert’s opinion, a lot of silly mistakes get made because we’re not attentive enough. “To ensure that you have only the ‘good’ type of mistakes and fails, I recommend making your recipes ‘as is’ the first time so you get a feel for what the chef’s intended outcome is before you start tinkering with your own spin and substitutions,” she told me that anyone who is a cooking beginner and isn’t feeling overly confident should follow the rules without making major changes.
Though, this includes knowing the alternate names of food items, too. A simple Google search can help, even if we think we already know what an ingredient is or isn’t.
#10
At 38, I learned that pickles are cucumbers. My wife’s still laughing years later. I feel the pain!
Lousha 2 years ago
I read this lots of times from lots of people and could never understand how you just can't see what they are. Most of the time they are not chopped up in the jar so they just obviously are... cucumbers. But yeah, languages are weird. In mine everything in this family is called uborka, be it small or large.
#11
All my life i thought that curry is a spice on it‘s own but in reality curry is just a mix of many spices
#12
When I started cooking and following recipes, a lot of recipes required scallions. I kept going to the store looking for scallions but they would never have them in stock. They only had green onions. I kept thinking “oh well, I guess I will just use green onions. And once they have scallions in stock, my dinner will be way better”
Jessica added that, in the kitchen, we should always work ‘mis en place,’ “that is, have all of your ingredients and supplies measured out and ready to go before you get started,” so that fewer blunders happen. And you can then focus on the pleasure that is cooking, whether the recipe has coriander/cilantro or not!
#13
I was making a cake at school that called for cream of tartar... I used tartar sauce.. fishy kinda cake it was.
Mad Dragon 2 years ago
Cream of tartar is a dry, powdery, acidic byproduct of fermenting grapes into wine. Its sciency name is potassium bitartrate, aka potassium hydrogen tartrate or tartaric acid. It can be used in baking to stabilize creamy ingredients such as meringue or whipped cream.
#14
I once grabbed cayenne instead of the little jar of "cake spice" (it's a mix of cinnamon & cloves & anise & nutmeg, etc) when making an apple cake. I realized the mistake before mixing it in and was able to scrape most of it out, but there was a distinct bite to that cake! We referred to it as the "apple oops cake" and have occasionally added a dash of cayenne to cakes since.
#15
I kept hearing Americans talk about "arugula" and I just assumed it was something that only grew in North America.
It's just rocket.
#16
Laurel leaf = Bay leaf. The same laurel you see in wreaths and made into head crowns. Also the same as in the phrase "rest your laurels" as well as the term "poet laureate."
Joy Hunter 2 years ago
One does not "rest (one's) laurels," one rests ON one's laurels...as in, "I won the race, so now I get to go lie down."
#17
One day I bought a can of garbanzo beans...on the other side, it said, chickpeas. Mind blown!
#18
Bicarbonate soda/baking soda/baking powder always have me double-checking a recipe before I add them in
#19
From watching American Masterchef I’ve also found out that aubergine, courgette, and swede are called eggplant, zucchini, and rutabaga. Apparently UK English uses the French wording, but the US is more likely to use Spanish or Italian.
Panda Kicki 2 years ago
Sweden here, not sure if I should feel offended about being called a kålrot or not 😂. They taste horrible.
#20
As a Brit, I love blackcurrant squash (for those that don’t know, it’s a type of juice that you add water too and it’s delicious). Imagine my surprise in America when I asked a Walmart worker for help finding it and she took me to the root vegetables
#21
I went to live in the US and went to a restaurant in night 1. I had to ask the waitress where the "main courses" were in the menu. I had no idea that Americans use the term "entree" and had to google the reasoning how you can have a plate of food before your entrance dish.
#23
Way late to the party, but when I lived in Belgium, I got really into hot chocolate—like melting bars of chocolate in milk, kind of hot chocolate. However, the colors of the milk caps were different than the ones I’d normally buy at home in the States. I was blown away by how good the milk tasted by itself and it was even better with chocolate bars melted into it.....and then realized I wasn’t buying 2% milk, but rather full fat. I was essentially melting bars of chocolate in cream and couldn’t figure out why I was gaining so much weight.
#24
Reminds me of my search for zucchini. Moved to a new town, wanted to buy some at the local mart. Far as I could tell, no zucchini. Took a good long while before I learned that the oddly zucchini-like thing labeled "Italian squash" was, indeed, zucchini. I facepalmed so hard at that.
#25
All Purpose Flour and Plain Flour for me. Was searching the shops for months!
Pungent Sauce 2 years ago
Cake flour has a lower protein content than AP, @9% vs 12% making for a ‘softer’ dough. Check out the King Arthur Flour site for way too much info about flour.
#26
It's a different sort of conundrum, but using Ceylon Cinnamon as opposed to the much more common (in the US anyway) Cassia or Saigon Cinnamon confused me for awhile.
I eventually learned the difference, and I do prefer Ceylon Cinnamon - which is more tightly curled and far more brittle.
So a 'stick' of Ceylon Cinnamon will have layers you can see where it's been wrapped around itself to dry, and Cassia Cinnamon is much harder and usually just has a single 'layer' in the stick.
Ceylon you can crumble in your hand, Cassia you have to grate or whatnot.
#27
Learned in a game of Trivial Pursuit with friends that grapefruit and grapes are not the same thing.
Lena Flising 2 years ago
Maybe they have English as a second language? In Swedish, grapes are called "vindruvor" (and wine is called "vin", pretty logical). I know that grapefruit and grapes are two very separate things, but I have mixed the names up a couple of times.
#28
Here’s another one: Chipotle and Jalapeños are the same pepper.
Rob Chapman 2 years ago
Chipotle specifically refers to a smoked and dried jalepeno pepper. All chipotles are jalepenos, but not all jalepenos are chipotles.
#29
I used to think an artichoke was a kind of fish.
#30
I just learned a few weeks ago that green, yellow, and orange bell peppers are all just red bell peppers at different stages of ripeness when harvested.
What do you think ?
Kady LaHaie 2 years ago (edited)
Heres how I got my entire family stoned as a small child. When I was a kid I loved to make spaghetti for my family. I made it all the time. My favorite thing was adding spices to the sauce. One day I was making spaghetti sauce and we were out of oregano. I remembered I had seen my mom and dad putting a green herb in a jar on the highest shelf. I crawled up there, way up on top of the cabinets, and grabbed the jar of herbs and happily added it to our dinner. Years later my mom told me I cooked my dad's weed stash.
Kimi Tomminello 2 years ago
Wish I could upvote this more 😂😂😂 that must've been some pungent spaghetti!! Hopefully your dad found a better place to stash his weed than in the kitchen where kiddos could get to it!!
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Save Bandit 2 years ago
Coriander by any other name, would still taste as gross. - William Shakspeare
g90814 2 years ago
but only if you were genetically disposed to taste it that way. Others (like me) love it lol
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Charlotte A. 2 years ago
I'm reminded of the many years I spent looking for a certain melon that was quite different from any other melon I had ever had. Not too many years ago I suddenly found a pomelo (it's a large citrus fruit) in a store and realised I'd totally misunderstood the name when I first had it (as a child, mind you!)
Johanna 2 years ago
Thats what my children call them always "Po-Melone" Like ass-melon. XD
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Kady LaHaie 2 years ago (edited)
Heres how I got my entire family stoned as a small child. When I was a kid I loved to make spaghetti for my family. I made it all the time. My favorite thing was adding spices to the sauce. One day I was making spaghetti sauce and we were out of oregano. I remembered I had seen my mom and dad putting a green herb in a jar on the highest shelf. I crawled up there, way up on top of the cabinets, and grabbed the jar of herbs and happily added it to our dinner. Years later my mom told me I cooked my dad's weed stash.
Kimi Tomminello 2 years ago
Wish I could upvote this more 😂😂😂 that must've been some pungent spaghetti!! Hopefully your dad found a better place to stash his weed than in the kitchen where kiddos could get to it!!
Load More Replies... Save Bandit 2 years ago
Coriander by any other name, would still taste as gross. - William Shakspeare
g90814 2 years ago
but only if you were genetically disposed to taste it that way. Others (like me) love it lol
Load More Replies... Charlotte A. 2 years ago
I'm reminded of the many years I spent looking for a certain melon that was quite different from any other melon I had ever had. Not too many years ago I suddenly found a pomelo (it's a large citrus fruit) in a store and realised I'd totally misunderstood the name when I first had it (as a child, mind you!)
Johanna 2 years ago
Thats what my children call them always "Po-Melone" Like ass-melon. XD
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