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People Are Cracking Up At These 30 Stories Of People Committing “Kitchen Crimes” Out Of Good Intentions
Eating is kinda, sorta unavoidable in this life of ours. It’s what keeps us alive, quite literally. But if you want a more romantic approach to it, it’s what makes life worth living.
Not only is it the spice of our daily routines, creating pleasurable moments where we can rest or giving us a reason to see a friend whom we haven’t seen in ages — if anything, it’s a way to improve our quality of life.
But some folks love to see the world burn and shove their claws where they don’t belong. That is, friends, family or just randos have the full potential to make a simple sandwich taste like sun-faded plastic.
Yep, folks this week were upset with the dishes their friends and family ruined by tampering with them. It all started with Reddit user u/RioA who shared their unfortunate story of how their mother increased the temperature on their sous vide chicken breast and it ended up tasting like leather. This in turn inspired a slew of people to share their own family mishaps, and it seems food crime is surprisingly common in the world.
In any case, check out our lovely curated list below, and why not vote on the best submissions and share your food horror stories in the comment section below!
More Info: Reddit
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#1
My mother, since I was born, never used any garlic in any recipe. The only thing she ever made with garlic was garlic bread and she put the tiniest amount on it. When I moved out, she gave me a copy of her recipe binder. Every single recipe list garlic as an ingredient, but she has written "(optional)" next to it.
Now, years later, I cook her own recipe, except that I put garlic in it and she started saying how proud she is to have raised a boy that can cook better than her.
20 years I was denied the best vegetable on this planet. If that's not a sin, I don't know what is.
#2
I almost had an aneurysm dealing with both my parents one evening.
We were having family over at their place and my mom asked me to come by 10-15 minutes early "to help with a couple things." I know my mom, and if she's being coy or asking for a little favor, it's normally something she doesn't understand or can pull off; so I go over 30 minutes early.
Turns out she wanted me to chicken alfredo for 12-15 family members. Not a problem in itself, alfredo is super easy and quick. But this woman has nowhere near the correct amount or proportion of ingredients. She has like 1 cup of heavy cream and enough Parmesan to kill a god. And NO F*****G CHICKEN. I send her to the store to get a couple pints of creme, lemon, a few baguettes, and THE F*****G CHICKEN.
I tell my dad to start his gas grill for the chicken. He argues charcoal would be better. I agree, it would, but we don't have time for that. He doubles down, and I have to bring up that every time he's in charge of cooking we eat 90 minutes late. F*****g start the grill. He finally relents.
I've been there for 10 minutes I already am about to pull my hair out with them.
My mother returns with the correct ingredients (this was actually a surprise). Family starts to arrive. Now my mother desperately wants to give our family the impression that we lovingly cook together all the time and we're a well-oiled machine where the opposite is true. All current and former chefs know this frustration. She has no sense of space, does not clean as she cooks, and has a small kitchen. I normally ask her to run food to distract her, but she's not having that today. She's determined to show how she "helps."
Her range is super under-powered. I have put it on max and find her heaviest pan just so I can get enough heat in the pan to warm this mass of creme. I have it on for maybe a minute and she goes over and loudly says, "You have the heat up too high! Let me help you with that!" F*****g turns it down. I explain to everybody why I did that, and told her politely but sternly, "Please do not do that."
My dad enters with the cooked chicken about 15 minutes later. I set up a cutting board at the end of the kitchen area and I start slicing it. My mom want to help so I show her the cuts I want: thin, even, and across the grain. She f*****g butchers it.
My dad wanders into the kitchen, and what does he do? "You have the pan on too hot!" F*****g turns it down. I am visibly frustrated at this point and my Aunts and Uncles can see it. They are starting to laugh because my parents are being comically stupid. Thank God for my dad's cousin Eve. She was able to distract them for long enough for me to get everything portioned and served.
I considered on three occasions of leaving my parents to their fate, and I probably should have.
#3
We used to always bring a bunch of side dishes for Thanksgiving, but we had to keep my mother away from them, because her attitude toward everything is to just cook it as long as possible. That's the reason I grew up hating vegetables - because they were always boiled to mush.
We would always take control of the sides we brought, which offended my mom because we didn't trust her cooking, and she was always trying to grab them and sneak them into the oven or microwave. I remember one Thanksgiving we brought our special green beans in butter, garlic, and rosemary, but not cooked too much, so they'd still have their snap. They just needed about 30-60 seconds in the microwave.
So we're putting everything out on the table, and I realize that the green beans are missing. My mom tells me she put them in the microwave. "How long ago?" "Oh they still have a few minutes to go, they've only been in there about 8 minutes." So there were our beautiful fresh green beans, cooked to flaccidity, ruined.
Then there was the Thanksgiving that I carefully packed up all the leftovers we were taking home, but they weren't in the fridge when it came time to leave. She had moved them to the top of the dryer in the mud room so we wouldn't forget them. They'd been sitting there for about 8 hours, going bad. We just took it all home and threw it out.
Eventually we just started having Thanksgiving at our house so we had total control over it, and she couldn't sabotage it.
#4
One Christmas, my grandfather's second wife sneaked into the kitchen when my mother left the stove for a moment and added a bunch of water to her gumbo because she felt it was "too thick".
My mom cried.
#5
I was making a large amount of loaded potato soup, in an 18qt turkey roaster. My dad would wait until I had left the kitchen so it could simmer and thicken and add seasonings to it without tasting it. More salt here, more pepper there... until he finally decided it wasn't thick enough and added some mashed potato flakes to it. he then had the AUDACITY to complain it was too salty. I very nearly threw my bowl at him I was so [upset]. Never cooked at his house again.
#6
I came back into the kitchen and my sister in law said she checked my stuffed mushrooms and they "looked a little dry" so she added some olive oil to them. Opened the oven to see that they were swimming in oil. Like, a half inch of oil in the baking dish. She ruined the mushrooms and used up the last of an amazing bottle of olive oil a friend brought back from Greece for me.
#7
I was a professional chef so people call me a lot for recipes, etc. One time my dad called and asked me for a salmon recipe. He started the conversation with “I put it in the oven about 30min ago”
”He’s dead, Jim”
#8
Just last night:
Grandma, who always hated cooking, lives with me. For reference, the only seasoning she believes in is salt, and she likes her steaks "well boiled."
I had to go out for an event last night but didn't want her to go hungry, so I made chicken and noodles in the crock pot. Seared the chicken, then threw in to slow cook with onions, garlic, and veggies, whole deal. Just before leaving the house, I added the noodles and appropriate bit of water so they could cook, and told her to give it a good stir in an hour, then dig in.
I got home several hours later and went to put the food away (she's great about turning down the crock pot to a holding temp after getting her own food) and was shocked to discover the noodles were still CRUNCHY! I asked her if something happened, and she said "well, after you left I went to check on things and it looked like you put too much water in there, it would be soupy, so I used a cup to scoop it out. Those noodles weren't very well done by the way."
I love this woman, but how she managed to raise a family on her cooking is beyond me.
#9
Cilantro.... It tastes like soap to me. When my mom lived with me anytime I tried to cook something she would sneak cilantro in it knowing that I wouldn't eat it. More for her. Make a stew that is supposed to last for a week... garbage.
She was awful. Make steaks and sides and think it was 1 for everyone... she would nab 3 of them with her unwashed hands and not eat any sides. Had no shame... what was I gonna do kick her out and make her homeless? I finally did after 3 years of the b******t.
#10
Ulsterman2021 said:
Your wok was all black so I scrubbed it clean for you.
MarshallApplewhiteDo replied:
I had a room mate who did that in college. She scrubbed an entire teflon pan clean with steel wool.
orange9035 replied:
How long did that even take??
MarshallApplewhiteDo relpied:
I shudder to think. A few friends and I got back from class to find her just about done with it. Once we realized what she was doing, we knew it was a lost cause and let her finish. When she left the kitchen, I took the pan out of the drying rack and put it in the trash.
#11
Mom once went to the trouble of making a ham & bean soup complete with ham bone during the cooking process. After we finished dinner my dad drained all the broth down the sink just so it would fit into the Tupperware container he randomly chose to use.
#12
Was baking a pavlova for a cooking competition in a family holiday. And ‘someone’ also turned up the heat to quicken the process. Turned out in a delicious black burned piece of sugar. I’m still mad about it especially since that someone wasn't man enough to admit that they did it.
#13
I was going to make perfect tender and juicy chicken breast with a sous vide stick but my mom decided to overrule me behind my back by turning the temperature up from 65C to 90C "just to be speed it up" (even though they would have been ready right on time for dinner at 19:00 as planned... It now has the consistency of stringy leather and taste like it too.
#14
vincleif said:
My father almost used my handcrafted Japanese cookingknife that I bought in Tokyo to open a beer bottle (not foodcrime pr se but a crime none the less).
PugsterThePug replied:
After explicitly being told to not touch it, my MIL put mine in the dishwasher…TWICE. It’s hidden away now. [Blabbering] idiot.
TylerInHiFi replied:
And here I’ve been annoyed that my MIL will use mine and then just leave it on the counter to be washed later, covered in food debris. And then never actually wash it because she doesn’t ever actually do the dishes.
#15
My mom intentionally blunts knives or throws them away when they're sharp because she's worried about injuring herself on the sharpness of the knife.
#16
I made a gorgeous roast turkey for Thanksgiving one year at my Family's house. Brined it perfectly, assembled an amazing blend of aromatics and roasted to perfection. The pan drippings and juices had the most amazing flavor I've ever had from roasting a bird. Apples, Shallots, fresh sage leaves, celery, carrot, honey crisp apples, cinnamon all came together in perfect harmony. I salivated as I deglazed and strained every last drop of that magic with the intent of making the ultimate gravy.
20 minutes I leave the kitchen for it to cool so I could skim it, and my mother helped herself to a spoonful of it. She agreed that it was amazing, and decided it would be best to pour every last drop of it over HER turkey as a baste....
I cried
#17
I had some leftover Passover wine, and decided to do a thing. I sauteed mushrooms and tomatoes into it, building up a nice sauce for my fancy pasta dish.
Boyfriend goes behind my back and adds AMARETTO COFFEE CREAMER.
Well, his idea was to thicken up the sauce, and I didn't have cream, so he figured being cooked with wine, the amaretto would "compliment"...
The s**t was disgusting. I took only a couple bites. It gave me diarrhea like immediately after.
I'm still mad to this day.
#18
Turning up the heat on my barely simmering Bolognese, because they didn't think it was "simmering enough".
#19
Was making quesadilla's for my parents. I left the kitchen for FIVE MINUTES. I come back, open the kitchen doors, and the air is burning my eyes. Like, onions jacked up times 100. I look at my dad, and ask 'What did you do?'.
He looked at me, very sheepishly, and said 'I only added three...'
A while before, a friend of my mom's had gifted me a jalapeno pepper plant. Dad put three peppers, seeds and all, into the sauce.
We adulterated that sauce with a full container of plain yogurt, with another one on the side, and it was still insanely hot. Mom took the leftovers, put them in ice-cube trays, and used *one* per pot of soup/stew/sauce.
I miss my dad. Good memory.
#20
Just the other day we were bbqing chicken legs. We went to the butcher and got these amazing delicious fat legs. They turned out perfect! Luckily we got to snag one each before my grandma put the rest in the oven because in her opinion they "needed to be cooked more."
What is it with old people wanting dry, chewy, overcooked chicken!? Now no one has touched the leftovers because she ruined them when she could have just cooked *her* portion more rather than all of it!
#21
I was cooking a prime rib. I used the method of blasting it at 500 for 30 minutes and then shutting off the oven and letting it coast without opening the door for a couple of hours. I was very clear not to use the oven, and I put a sign on the oven door to not open.
My son decided that he need to cook a frozen pizza because he was hungry. Turned the oven on at 425 and cooked his pizza for 15 minutes. Took it out and did not shut off the oven.
#22
I was making tacos. My room mate waited for my back to be turned to pour a large can of marinara sauce into the meat because "that's how we make tacos at my house..."
For f**k's sake, man you could have just said that and we would separate some for your weird a*s taste buds.
#23
My first time hosting Thanksgiving after my mom passed, I was boiling turkey guts for the gravy. My mom taught me to always do this to have flavored water to add to the drippings if needed, which was often needed. I took the pot off the heat and set it aside to cool a little and walked away for a few minutes. When I returned, my stepmother gleefully informed me that she strained the turkey guts for me. My partner said my face utterly deflated as I grasped for words. I couldn't even think of something to say other than, "but... I needed that liquid.." Stepmom left the kitchen for the rest of the day. The gravy turned out fine, but there was much less of it to go around.
#24
Well-meaning family member hacked into my perfectly puffed up sweet potato soufflé, turning it like she was tilling a garden, turning my work of art into a plain old stirred up casserole. "I just wanted to make sure the heat was evenly distributed."
#25
“That ‘really heavy black pan’ you have was pretty dirty, had stuff burnt on all over it. so i ran it through the dishwasher for you 😊”
Sorry, not a meal but a mishap related to cooking.
#26
I have a chili recipe that's been passed down for 3 generations. It calls for 8-10 hours in a slow cooker on **low**. Each and every single time I make it my roommate will go and turn it up to high while I'm at work because she wants to eat earlier and doesn't think it makes any difference. *It does, it very much does.* And nothing I can say can convince her not to do it. She does it every single time no matter how much I ask her not to.
#27
Many things were seasoned when they were perfectly good, many times the temperature went up when I wasn't looking and things got burnt...
On a more serious note, once I was taking oil up to temperature to make pancakes, started chatting with my mom and my sister and went away from the stove for awhile to get something from a cabinet, my mom saw the oil smoking and thought the Teflon was smoking, she had the mad idea of shaking the pan to cool it, not realizing there was oil inside, my sisters legs got burned pretty bad (it was a small amount of oil, but it was HOT), I only got a splash on my ankle and that hurt like a m**********r, both my sister AND my mom cried a lot that day.
I know I'm partly to blame for leaving the stove unattended, but I still don't know why she decided to shake a pan without checking what's inside it...
#28
I was making a soup and my GF decided it needed chicken in it. She grabbed skin on chicken thighs and threw them into the mix. I didn't realize it until I was eating it and there were what tasted like snot bubbles in it. It was slimy gross unrendered chicken skin in just about every bite.
#29
My ex-girlfriend's father was something very special in the kitchen. He cooked meatloaf completely covered with water. The 'meatloaf' was wet and soggy. He cuts at least five thin slices out of a normal steak. Not that he wanted to save money. He said the paper-like slices cooked more evenly that way.
Paella had to be cooked from a frozen fish mix. The water that forms in the bag during defrosting was collected and later poured over the individual finished portions. "This is how the original paella taste is created".
#30
eeComing said:
Mother ran out of sugar to make a cake and replaced it with jello crystals. Don’t try it at home.
alukard15 replied:
Kinda reminds me of how my mom keeps spare cans of orange Fanta in the fridge in case of a "cake emergency." I don't really know because I never bake but its just kinda weird to me lol.
What do you think ?
Michelle Gosney 2 years ago
Had a friend stay overnight, and made a full English for breakfast. My friend kindly washed up only she washed the grill pan first. Then washed everything else, crockery, glassware and cutlery in that greasy water. Now I know, bacon fat makes everything taste better, but not my juice in a greasy glass. I have never eaten at her house, just to be on the safe side.
Foxxy (The Original) 2 years ago (edited)
This may not seem like a big deal to most, but to me it is. I have some sensory issues around food and one of them is onion (literally makes me gag). Food tastes better with onion so I dice my onion in small enough pieces (approx 2mm) that it pretty much dissolves into the food. One day I was making meatballs and my brother in law saw how I was cutting my onions. He said there is a quicker way to cut them into smaller pieces. I replied that I am very sensitive to onion so then pieces have to be super tiny. He was adamant he could do it and pretty much shoved me aside and started showing me the quick way of dicing onion. He then threw all the onion pieces into the mince mix. The pieces he cut were too big (approx 4mm) and in the end I couldn't eat the meatballs coz every bite made me gag.
Notyomama 2 years ago
I have the same issue. I have to turn onions and garlic into paste before I use it. Or I will just make them big enough I can pick them out. Depends on what I am making.
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Channo Sagara 2 years ago
Okay most of these are beyond bad cooking, they're psychological or mental health issues. Some people in these stories are desperate for attention, they f**k up other's cooking to get it. Sorry mates, you don't have parents with bad cooking, you have parents with lack of love and confidence. They don't need cooking classes, you guys need to sit down and talk.
Lisa H 2 years ago
Would you say it BOILS down to control issues? (Had to, not really sorry)
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Funhog 2 years ago
I agree. I was expecting some funny stories (“People are cracking up”). Also, too many of the “crimes” were certainly NOT done with “good intentions”!
Load More Replies... Zero 2 years ago
My brother pulled this one on me... Thanksgiving, I had just turned the drippings into awesome gravy and went to work on something else. My brother comes in and decides "let's give it a hint of truffle", which might've been ok if done right. I had given him a black truffle salt grinder awhile back that he loved grinding onto a ton of foodstuffs, so he gets out my truffle salt and adds it. What he didn't pay attention to was that mine wasn't the grinder style but a small jar; it was truffle super concentrate. While the salt level was fine, the truffle flavor/scent was so overpowering it choked us out of the kitchen and became inedible by literally anyone there, including us truffle nuts. We weren't ready to dump it yet so into the fridge it went, covered. Everything in that fridge became permeated with truffle for a long while afterwards.
Alicia GriffonLady 2 years ago
Might have been able to freeze it in cubes and add them to soups? Or was it too much for even that? /..\ (I lived with my deppression-erra grandparents for my first few years, so nothing goes to waste here. XD)
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Awsomemom52 2 years ago
My father's mother lived with us, when I was growing up... and she had the kitchen "under her". My mother was only allowed to also cook there, when we had guests and there was a lot to do. My grandmother was a very simple cook... very few spices were used other than salt and pepper. Also, everything was on the stove/in the oven, for too long... dry meat and mushy vegeatbles The first time I ate really tasty chicken soup, was when my grandmother was ill and my mother cooked... alone. When I was about 14/15, we slowly but surely “ousted” my grandmother out of the kitchen. My mother was an excellent cook, who taught me a lot and she also was always happy, to try out a new recipe with me.
Steven Bennett 2 years ago
When I was a kid, our babysitter decided to make us a chocolate cake from scratch, only she used baking powder instead of baking soda (or maybe it was the other way around--it was 40 years ago, and I'm strictly a boxed mix baker). In either case, it came out of the oven like Vulcanized rubber. We could literally roll up superball sized balls and bounce them off the floor!
Turt_Le 2 years ago
When I was at uni I was making fettuccini carbonara for my SO early on in our relationship. My roommate decided there wasn't enough vegetables in it (I don't know why they cared, they weren't eating with us). While we were setting the table, roommate added barely chopped capsicum, zucchini and carrot then left 👎. Not only was the sauce now filled with raw veg it started separating and the pasta was already aldente. We ended up having just the pasta with oil and Parmesan.
Lara Verne 2 years ago
I was once making schnitzel and 'friend' thought it was a good idea to add horseradish paste, because that's how he make schnitzels at home. Completely ruined it. I was furious.
Zero 2 years ago
My mom reminded me of this one that happened to her ages ago: She was in college at the time and had a roommate (ominous, I know). Her parents had come over and restocked her food supply as parents do. One of those items was a fresh (as in new uncut, not uncooked) ham. They went out and did stuff then she goes home to find that the roommate had cut a neat square in the dead center and eaten the middle of the ham. Ditto the center from half a watermelon! Her argument was that she wasn't hungry for a full slice and that there was plenty left for my mom.
Lisa H 2 years ago
I can't even finish this list, it's making me upset. If someone tried to "help" me in the kitchen without asking me, I would resist the urge to stab them. My #1 rule when I'm cooking is STAY THE FVCK OUT OF MY WAY unless I ask for help, then only do the one thing I ask and do it EXACTLY as I say. Why do people think it's okay to mess with someone else's cooking????? This making me heaping mad. I'm no chef, but I know how to feed people. Stay the fvck out of my kitchen, unless you're getting yourself a drink or something, then do it quickly then get out. If you ask if I need help and I say "no thank you", then that's the polite version of "get the fvck out."
Seedy Vine 2 years ago
The only thing any of us should be doing in someone else's kitchen is listening to their GD instructions!
Izzy Curer 2 years ago (edited)
My dad once threw out my mom's grease pot from the back of the fridge. It didn't go well, as you can imagine. I forewarned my partner about doing this when we first started dating. A lot of people discuss hopes and dreams to make sure their choices allign. We discussed the grease pot. That was the deal, and he was okay with it. Been together nearly 20 years.
Troux 2 years ago
Brother, sister and myself are hungry late at night and have no interest in going out or ordering delivery. The pantry and the fridge are all scraped pretty thin, so we have to improvise. Brainstorming, we know there's pepperoni, cheese and English muffins, so we're only one sauce away from having some makeshift pizza sliders. I had a thought....pizza sauce is a medium-seasoned tomato sauce, so it stands to reason that you could whip up something similar by combining a spicy tomato sauce (salsa) and a sweet one (ketchup). I proposed the idea, and the others agreed it was reasonable and worth a shot, so my brother pulled them out and mixed them together in a bowl while my sister and I got the oven and other ingredients ready. Then we ate. I think the best I can say is that it was tolerable as a form of sustenance; below public school food, but I would accept it in prison vs. starvation. That is, until I took one poorly mixed bite that was just a mouthful of ketchup. Done. Never again.
Hillary Moldovan 2 years ago
This reminds me of when my brother and college roommates decided to try "beer floats" - like just how bad could it be? 40 years ago college beer + butter pecan ice cream = yeah, it can be very bad! 😄
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Scourge McCloud 2 years ago
(backstory: dad was in his 80s and had dementia, but it wasn't so bad yet that we had to place him. rip dad) My poor dad had an incident with sea salt. I was never mad at him despite warning that it doesn't take as much as regular salt, but he still put too much into the pancakes. He apologized when eating them with me and agreed that I was right and he should have listened. I accepted his apology, because i knew his head wasn't cooperating and letting him think clearly. I know it was risky, but i was watching him. I didn't want him during that period feeling like he was helpless and not capable of doing things.
BakedKahuna 2 years ago
That's the reason, why I often cook two different meals. There's mine which is often a south-east asian dish in that I put a lot of love, time and effort in and which would last me two to three days. And then something western and quick, which my SO can butcher, microwave to death and drown in ketchup as much as he likes. No touchy to my food and pans. Otherwise no touchy ever again because chopped off hands.
Kayla Albert 2 years ago
So im no chef, heck I'm barely a cook but when I do cook I follow a very strict recipe! I love cooking by myself so I can listen to music and just take my time! My bf always wants to help me and I often let him! So frustrating!!! I'll tell him what to do!! Specifically repeating said step in recipe numerous times only for him to do one part of it and then ask what's next! Haven't ruined a recipe yet but man it's f*****g annoying!
Jennifer Germain 2 years ago
my mom is notoriously bad at cooking and she hates doing it. Literally uses tomato juice in her spaghetti. Funny how she hated to cook but didn't like being shown up. Made the family salmon, butter dill sauce, she kept telling me her husband wouldn't like it and I didn't cook it long enough. He had 2 large helpings and took leftovers for his lunch.
Irene Carlyle 2 years ago
I stopped reading atg #16 because i was getting angry --how rude, inconsidererate and plain stupid some people can be--and they were PARENTS too!! (many of them)no excuse.
Agent 8433599 2 years ago
These infuriate me. NEVER mess with someone else's dish! And if someone sucks at cooking and they repeatedly ruin food, then tell them they suck at cooking!!
Alana Voeks 2 years ago
Sometimes we mess up our own dishes too! I made turkey for Thanksgiving one year and the recipe I looked up said to use a turkey that HADN'T been in a brine. Totally forgot to check that, and dry brined it along with it originally being wet brined too. Turkey turned out fantastic, but that gravy though lmao
Virtually Fabulous 2 years ago
I don't really cook or understand the majority of these so it's kinda funny to see how people get so upset. I did go "what the f**k??" about those assholes who ruined the dishes.
Izzy Curer 2 years ago
If you don't cook, just imagine something else you do for other people that takes time and a lot of work. And then imagine someone coming along and ruining it by thinking they know better.
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Ivy at Eve 1 year ago
My grandmother would make 500gr spaghetti for a family of 8 and have leftovers. When my parents were dating, my dad went to her house (still living at home) to wait until mum finished work. He saw the dish, knew my mum would be hungry and made spaghetti. He made double what my grandmother used too and had to make a new batch for mum as her siblings devoured it. Why do you asked? Well, spaghetti was relatively new at the time ('60s), and being a substitute for potatoes, my grandmother boiled it for 20 minutes. In her defense, apart for a lacking talent for cooking, she was forced to leave school at a young age (rural community, being a girl, a sickly mother and free labour conspired despite mandatory school untl 14) and she could barely read. My mum lucky for us, was a great cook.
Shay Tracy 2 years ago
for me, it's my in-laws. Lovely, wonderful people that think green beans and asparagus need to be slightly black to be fully cooked. My husband likes to cook and has turned into a great cook, but he's still got an ugly case of, "that's not the way my mom does it." Thankfully it usually only takes one attempt of him cooking some childhood memory to understand that maybe.....JUST maybe....the way his family cooked it might not have been the tastiest. He still doesn't do any baking though, and can't wrap his mind around how an oven should be fully heated before putting xyz inside. And that it's not a good idea to put the thing in while the oven is cold and They're all so damn nice, and we just bring food along to every family event so that we know there are a couple guaranteed edible things :D
Cynthia M. 2 years ago
Don't ever touch someone else's cooking or dish unless asked to. Then, only then, do exactly as told. No more, no less. You're not helping, you're potentially destroying a beautiful dish and wasting food. And you're not gonna get fed or probably ever invited again.
Wonderful 2 years ago
Simple appetizer at thanksgiving while family sit around waiting to eat dinner at 2:30 for some reason. Jalapeños cut in half, emptied, filled with herb cream cheese, wrap bacon, cook, fight for them when they are ready. They are soooooo gooood. I was starting to make them. Aunt in law decided she would make them and shooed me from kitchen, no biggie, I really don't mind, more time to hang out and talk with awesome grandpa in law. 30 min later she puts them on the counter next to the empty plate of deviled eggs we already fought over and devoured. Something's not right.. they smell and look really weird. She offhandedly mentions she couldn't find the cream cheese so she "improvised". I look at the counter where I was making them and there's the cream cheese under other cooking stuff. She used cottage cheese. Also, she didn't want them to not have any "spice" so she added the jalapeño pepper seeds and paprika to the cottage cheese. We still talk about them 15 years later.
Michael ONeale 2 years ago
Try it using smoked cream cheese...I know it sounds weird, but it's a thing. Made it for Easter and now I have to make it for everything(not gonna happen)
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Polina Dimentbarg 2 years ago
My boyfriend's grandma recently boiled a perfect looking cut of A5 wagyu steak
Manuela Langer 2 years ago
Reminds me of my mother in her later years. My mom was a trained chef, had her own restaurant back in the 1970s. In her twilight years, I did the cooking for holidays and family events - but mom hovered over me so closely I could not slice an onion for fear of ramming my elbow into her stomach. Of course, she also insisted on tasting every single dish and adding salt when none was needed; her sense of taste was not what it used to be in her old age. And the portion - oh dear me, the portions! At some point she lost all sense of how large a portion of anything in a 5-course-meal should be and insisted on every single course to be completely filling. Like, instead of a small 50-g-piece of salmon for the fish course, it had to be a 200-g-piece. She somehow forgot that the salmon, the second course, was followed by a soup which was followed by a large roast with at least 3 sides which was followed by dessert. And of course she would nag everyone to eat up. Nobody was able to finish.
Michelle Gosney 2 years ago
Had a friend stay overnight, and made a full English for breakfast. My friend kindly washed up only she washed the grill pan first. Then washed everything else, crockery, glassware and cutlery in that greasy water. Now I know, bacon fat makes everything taste better, but not my juice in a greasy glass. I have never eaten at her house, just to be on the safe side.
Foxxy (The Original) 2 years ago (edited)
This may not seem like a big deal to most, but to me it is. I have some sensory issues around food and one of them is onion (literally makes me gag). Food tastes better with onion so I dice my onion in small enough pieces (approx 2mm) that it pretty much dissolves into the food. One day I was making meatballs and my brother in law saw how I was cutting my onions. He said there is a quicker way to cut them into smaller pieces. I replied that I am very sensitive to onion so then pieces have to be super tiny. He was adamant he could do it and pretty much shoved me aside and started showing me the quick way of dicing onion. He then threw all the onion pieces into the mince mix. The pieces he cut were too big (approx 4mm) and in the end I couldn't eat the meatballs coz every bite made me gag.
Notyomama 2 years ago
I have the same issue. I have to turn onions and garlic into paste before I use it. Or I will just make them big enough I can pick them out. Depends on what I am making.
Load More Replies... Channo Sagara 2 years ago
Okay most of these are beyond bad cooking, they're psychological or mental health issues. Some people in these stories are desperate for attention, they f**k up other's cooking to get it. Sorry mates, you don't have parents with bad cooking, you have parents with lack of love and confidence. They don't need cooking classes, you guys need to sit down and talk.
Lisa H 2 years ago
Would you say it BOILS down to control issues? (Had to, not really sorry)
Load More Replies... Funhog 2 years ago
I agree. I was expecting some funny stories (“People are cracking up”). Also, too many of the “crimes” were certainly NOT done with “good intentions”!
Load More Replies... Zero 2 years ago
My brother pulled this one on me... Thanksgiving, I had just turned the drippings into awesome gravy and went to work on something else. My brother comes in and decides "let's give it a hint of truffle", which might've been ok if done right. I had given him a black truffle salt grinder awhile back that he loved grinding onto a ton of foodstuffs, so he gets out my truffle salt and adds it. What he didn't pay attention to was that mine wasn't the grinder style but a small jar; it was truffle super concentrate. While the salt level was fine, the truffle flavor/scent was so overpowering it choked us out of the kitchen and became inedible by literally anyone there, including us truffle nuts. We weren't ready to dump it yet so into the fridge it went, covered. Everything in that fridge became permeated with truffle for a long while afterwards.
Alicia GriffonLady 2 years ago
Might have been able to freeze it in cubes and add them to soups? Or was it too much for even that? /..\ (I lived with my deppression-erra grandparents for my first few years, so nothing goes to waste here. XD)
Load More Replies... Awsomemom52 2 years ago
My father's mother lived with us, when I was growing up... and she had the kitchen "under her". My mother was only allowed to also cook there, when we had guests and there was a lot to do. My grandmother was a very simple cook... very few spices were used other than salt and pepper. Also, everything was on the stove/in the oven, for too long... dry meat and mushy vegeatbles The first time I ate really tasty chicken soup, was when my grandmother was ill and my mother cooked... alone. When I was about 14/15, we slowly but surely “ousted” my grandmother out of the kitchen. My mother was an excellent cook, who taught me a lot and she also was always happy, to try out a new recipe with me.
Steven Bennett 2 years ago
When I was a kid, our babysitter decided to make us a chocolate cake from scratch, only she used baking powder instead of baking soda (or maybe it was the other way around--it was 40 years ago, and I'm strictly a boxed mix baker). In either case, it came out of the oven like Vulcanized rubber. We could literally roll up superball sized balls and bounce them off the floor!
Turt_Le 2 years ago
When I was at uni I was making fettuccini carbonara for my SO early on in our relationship. My roommate decided there wasn't enough vegetables in it (I don't know why they cared, they weren't eating with us). While we were setting the table, roommate added barely chopped capsicum, zucchini and carrot then left 👎. Not only was the sauce now filled with raw veg it started separating and the pasta was already aldente. We ended up having just the pasta with oil and Parmesan.
Lara Verne 2 years ago
I was once making schnitzel and 'friend' thought it was a good idea to add horseradish paste, because that's how he make schnitzels at home. Completely ruined it. I was furious.
Zero 2 years ago
My mom reminded me of this one that happened to her ages ago: She was in college at the time and had a roommate (ominous, I know). Her parents had come over and restocked her food supply as parents do. One of those items was a fresh (as in new uncut, not uncooked) ham. They went out and did stuff then she goes home to find that the roommate had cut a neat square in the dead center and eaten the middle of the ham. Ditto the center from half a watermelon! Her argument was that she wasn't hungry for a full slice and that there was plenty left for my mom.
Lisa H 2 years ago
I can't even finish this list, it's making me upset. If someone tried to "help" me in the kitchen without asking me, I would resist the urge to stab them. My #1 rule when I'm cooking is STAY THE FVCK OUT OF MY WAY unless I ask for help, then only do the one thing I ask and do it EXACTLY as I say. Why do people think it's okay to mess with someone else's cooking????? This making me heaping mad. I'm no chef, but I know how to feed people. Stay the fvck out of my kitchen, unless you're getting yourself a drink or something, then do it quickly then get out. If you ask if I need help and I say "no thank you", then that's the polite version of "get the fvck out."
Seedy Vine 2 years ago
The only thing any of us should be doing in someone else's kitchen is listening to their GD instructions!
Izzy Curer 2 years ago (edited)
My dad once threw out my mom's grease pot from the back of the fridge. It didn't go well, as you can imagine. I forewarned my partner about doing this when we first started dating. A lot of people discuss hopes and dreams to make sure their choices allign. We discussed the grease pot. That was the deal, and he was okay with it. Been together nearly 20 years.
Troux 2 years ago
Brother, sister and myself are hungry late at night and have no interest in going out or ordering delivery. The pantry and the fridge are all scraped pretty thin, so we have to improvise. Brainstorming, we know there's pepperoni, cheese and English muffins, so we're only one sauce away from having some makeshift pizza sliders. I had a thought....pizza sauce is a medium-seasoned tomato sauce, so it stands to reason that you could whip up something similar by combining a spicy tomato sauce (salsa) and a sweet one (ketchup). I proposed the idea, and the others agreed it was reasonable and worth a shot, so my brother pulled them out and mixed them together in a bowl while my sister and I got the oven and other ingredients ready. Then we ate. I think the best I can say is that it was tolerable as a form of sustenance; below public school food, but I would accept it in prison vs. starvation. That is, until I took one poorly mixed bite that was just a mouthful of ketchup. Done. Never again.
Hillary Moldovan 2 years ago
This reminds me of when my brother and college roommates decided to try "beer floats" - like just how bad could it be? 40 years ago college beer + butter pecan ice cream = yeah, it can be very bad! 😄
Load More Replies... Scourge McCloud 2 years ago
(backstory: dad was in his 80s and had dementia, but it wasn't so bad yet that we had to place him. rip dad) My poor dad had an incident with sea salt. I was never mad at him despite warning that it doesn't take as much as regular salt, but he still put too much into the pancakes. He apologized when eating them with me and agreed that I was right and he should have listened. I accepted his apology, because i knew his head wasn't cooperating and letting him think clearly. I know it was risky, but i was watching him. I didn't want him during that period feeling like he was helpless and not capable of doing things.
BakedKahuna 2 years ago
That's the reason, why I often cook two different meals. There's mine which is often a south-east asian dish in that I put a lot of love, time and effort in and which would last me two to three days. And then something western and quick, which my SO can butcher, microwave to death and drown in ketchup as much as he likes. No touchy to my food and pans. Otherwise no touchy ever again because chopped off hands.
Kayla Albert 2 years ago
So im no chef, heck I'm barely a cook but when I do cook I follow a very strict recipe! I love cooking by myself so I can listen to music and just take my time! My bf always wants to help me and I often let him! So frustrating!!! I'll tell him what to do!! Specifically repeating said step in recipe numerous times only for him to do one part of it and then ask what's next! Haven't ruined a recipe yet but man it's f*****g annoying!
Jennifer Germain 2 years ago
my mom is notoriously bad at cooking and she hates doing it. Literally uses tomato juice in her spaghetti. Funny how she hated to cook but didn't like being shown up. Made the family salmon, butter dill sauce, she kept telling me her husband wouldn't like it and I didn't cook it long enough. He had 2 large helpings and took leftovers for his lunch.
Irene Carlyle 2 years ago
I stopped reading atg #16 because i was getting angry --how rude, inconsidererate and plain stupid some people can be--and they were PARENTS too!! (many of them)no excuse.
Agent 8433599 2 years ago
These infuriate me. NEVER mess with someone else's dish! And if someone sucks at cooking and they repeatedly ruin food, then tell them they suck at cooking!!
Alana Voeks 2 years ago
Sometimes we mess up our own dishes too! I made turkey for Thanksgiving one year and the recipe I looked up said to use a turkey that HADN'T been in a brine. Totally forgot to check that, and dry brined it along with it originally being wet brined too. Turkey turned out fantastic, but that gravy though lmao
Virtually Fabulous 2 years ago
I don't really cook or understand the majority of these so it's kinda funny to see how people get so upset. I did go "what the f**k??" about those assholes who ruined the dishes.
Izzy Curer 2 years ago
If you don't cook, just imagine something else you do for other people that takes time and a lot of work. And then imagine someone coming along and ruining it by thinking they know better.
Load More Replies... Ivy at Eve 1 year ago
My grandmother would make 500gr spaghetti for a family of 8 and have leftovers. When my parents were dating, my dad went to her house (still living at home) to wait until mum finished work. He saw the dish, knew my mum would be hungry and made spaghetti. He made double what my grandmother used too and had to make a new batch for mum as her siblings devoured it. Why do you asked? Well, spaghetti was relatively new at the time ('60s), and being a substitute for potatoes, my grandmother boiled it for 20 minutes. In her defense, apart for a lacking talent for cooking, she was forced to leave school at a young age (rural community, being a girl, a sickly mother and free labour conspired despite mandatory school untl 14) and she could barely read. My mum lucky for us, was a great cook.
Shay Tracy 2 years ago
for me, it's my in-laws. Lovely, wonderful people that think green beans and asparagus need to be slightly black to be fully cooked. My husband likes to cook and has turned into a great cook, but he's still got an ugly case of, "that's not the way my mom does it." Thankfully it usually only takes one attempt of him cooking some childhood memory to understand that maybe.....JUST maybe....the way his family cooked it might not have been the tastiest. He still doesn't do any baking though, and can't wrap his mind around how an oven should be fully heated before putting xyz inside. And that it's not a good idea to put the thing in while the oven is cold and They're all so damn nice, and we just bring food along to every family event so that we know there are a couple guaranteed edible things :D
Cynthia M. 2 years ago
Don't ever touch someone else's cooking or dish unless asked to. Then, only then, do exactly as told. No more, no less. You're not helping, you're potentially destroying a beautiful dish and wasting food. And you're not gonna get fed or probably ever invited again.
Wonderful 2 years ago
Simple appetizer at thanksgiving while family sit around waiting to eat dinner at 2:30 for some reason. Jalapeños cut in half, emptied, filled with herb cream cheese, wrap bacon, cook, fight for them when they are ready. They are soooooo gooood. I was starting to make them. Aunt in law decided she would make them and shooed me from kitchen, no biggie, I really don't mind, more time to hang out and talk with awesome grandpa in law. 30 min later she puts them on the counter next to the empty plate of deviled eggs we already fought over and devoured. Something's not right.. they smell and look really weird. She offhandedly mentions she couldn't find the cream cheese so she "improvised". I look at the counter where I was making them and there's the cream cheese under other cooking stuff. She used cottage cheese. Also, she didn't want them to not have any "spice" so she added the jalapeño pepper seeds and paprika to the cottage cheese. We still talk about them 15 years later.
Michael ONeale 2 years ago
Try it using smoked cream cheese...I know it sounds weird, but it's a thing. Made it for Easter and now I have to make it for everything(not gonna happen)
Load More Replies... Polina Dimentbarg 2 years ago
My boyfriend's grandma recently boiled a perfect looking cut of A5 wagyu steak
Manuela Langer 2 years ago
Reminds me of my mother in her later years. My mom was a trained chef, had her own restaurant back in the 1970s. In her twilight years, I did the cooking for holidays and family events - but mom hovered over me so closely I could not slice an onion for fear of ramming my elbow into her stomach. Of course, she also insisted on tasting every single dish and adding salt when none was needed; her sense of taste was not what it used to be in her old age. And the portion - oh dear me, the portions! At some point she lost all sense of how large a portion of anything in a 5-course-meal should be and insisted on every single course to be completely filling. Like, instead of a small 50-g-piece of salmon for the fish course, it had to be a 200-g-piece. She somehow forgot that the salmon, the second course, was followed by a soup which was followed by a large roast with at least 3 sides which was followed by dessert. And of course she would nag everyone to eat up. Nobody was able to finish.
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