As the old saying goes, "There's no accounting for taste." But on the other hand... yes there is. There are some combinations of ingredients, some abuses of condiments, some ways of preparing dishes that are objectively wrong. And there are some that might even be described as disgusting.
Pancakes and ranch dressing don't mix. Bacon shouldn't be cooked in a microwave. And Ketchup... don't get me started on all the ways people have found to misuse Ketchup.
Recently, people from around the world took to the internet to share the worst food faux pas they've ever seen. Bon appetit!
70. Sticking Up For The Sprinkles
69. What Town Is This?!
68. Your Wife Is Fake News
Back when my wife and I were first living with each other, she told me she was going to make chili that Saturday. I had never had her chili before this so, I was excited. Everyone makes chili a little different, and the possibilities were interesting.
I went to work that Saturday and I bragged to coworkers about this pot of chili my girlfriend was making back at home.
I rushed home and what met me when I opened the door was not the smell of chili. It was the smell of barbecue.
"Hey, Dear! I thought you said you were making Chili today?"
"I am! I just need to put the noodles in and it'll be done!"
"Wut."
I walked into the kitchen to see a pot of beans with tomato paste boiled in, a second pot with rotini noodles boiling, and my girlfriend holding a bottle of KC Masterpiece upside down over the pot of "chili", swirling it around in order to spread that bbq sauce goodness around the beans.
She mixed all that up and we ate it. Turns out, this is how her family made chili. She thought everyone made it this way.
I mean, it's good, but it ain't chili.
67. Just Put Cinnamon On It
Roomie wanted to cook for us to celebrate us all getting our first apartment together. He made cinnamon covered chicken breast. We tried our best but couldn't handle it.
He put cinnamon in again when he made Mac and cheese. When we admitted we didn't care for it he insisted it was because we were used to eating tv dinners and crap and had never experienced gourmet cooking before.
Which admittedly, we hadn't, but if that's gourmet cooking, I'm happy to be ignorant.
66. Soupy Cake
65. That Poor Hungry Dog
64. Burned Offerings
63. At Least You Know It's Clean
62. "It Tasted Like Death"
61. This One Is Actually Heartwarming
60. That's How You Avoid Having To Host Thanksgiving
59. Cloudy With A Chance Of Hot Dogs
58. You Call That Mac And Cheese?
57. Vampire Soup
56. "Cream" Spinach
55. The Mayo Clinic
54. Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope
53. "It Tasted Like Burnt"
52. Personality - 10 Cooking - 3
51. Breakfast Of Champions
50. I Don't Know How People Do This
My media teacher freshman year and I were talking about cereal for some odd reason and he brought up that he eats Raisin Bran with orange juice instead of milk every morning. Thinking I misheard him I asked to clarify and he straight up said he pours the OJ into the bowl of cereal.
49. What Is It With People And Ranch?
My roommate's girlfriend was over one time and made a pot of ramen. She then strained out all the broth, put the noodles in a ziploc bag, poured ranch into the bag, shook it up, and ate out of the bag with a fork while I just stood there questioning reality.
48. Some Mothers Have Them
My brother is a psychopath. Maple syrup on lasagna. Ghost pepper sauce on garlic bread. Ranch dressing with eggs. I like to pretend he's adopted.
47. Everything Is Trail Mix
When I was in grade school I went over to this kid's house to play, then ended up staying for dinner. We had spaghetti, some vegetables, maybe salad and something else. His entire family would mix everything together before eating it. His dad seemed to be the ringleader/mastermind behind this scheme. I remember someone cheerfully saying, "Well, it all goes to the same place!" And then the rest of them agreeing with this truism as if it were some serious folk wisdom. That's some serial killer stuff right there.
46. That's Gotta Hurt
My preteen cousin likes his scrambled eggs "crunchy" and adds broken up eggs shells to them.
45. Red On Red
My sister used to put ketchup on strawberries.
44. The Carbs!
A former friend of mine once poured a can of Coors into a bowl of Cheerios. He called it Beerios.
43. I Don't Even Know How That Works
A watermelon and ketchup sandwich. I call it a sadwich because it makes me sad.
42. Cheese Is Made Of Milk...
Saw a dude eat spaghetti in milk one time. One very dark time.
41. Red Hot Chilli Peppers
I work at a pub/restaurant waiting tables. This couple walks in who I've never seen but are apparently regulars. The bartender sees them, shoots me a glance, and goes to grab something from the kitchen. Before even taking their order, he's filled the crushed red pepper shaker and told me to take it over to them.
The woman orders a small cup of French onion soup and proceeds to unscrew the cap of this shaker and dump the entirety of it onto her soup, an inch high off the top of her bowl. She's eating this spicy red pepper like cereal and didn't even ask for a drink refill.
40. This Is Real
Well, I just saw that Heinz mayonnaise has come out with a Cadbury eggs mayonnaise and I'm really concerned for the people who eat that abomination.
39. Looks Can Be Deceiving
I had a friend who went through a period where cake decorating was her hobby. She made some amazing looking cakes that all tasted horrible because of the bizarre flavor combinations. It was always a bit funny because people would compliment the look of them and then have to figure out how to throw their pieces away without being rude about it.
The worst one was a Christmas cake with an immaculate-looking fondant Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It was an orange spice cake covered in mint icing. It was like brushing your teeth and rinsing with orange juice in cake form.
38. Brown Eggs And Ham
Fried eggs with chocolate melted on the yolk.
Runny yolk and melted chocolate should not be friends. Not in my book. What should a fried runny egg be friends with? Well, you to can eat it on a burger, I've tried it on a pizza. You can have a semi hard boiled egg in Bibimbop. I'm sure there are other uses... Just not. Chocolate. And especially not dark chocolate. Blugh.
For the record, my worst food sin is probably the spaghetti omelette. You start making an omelette, fill it with spaghetti. I tried it just the once because I was bored. Wasn't that bad, but I've never repeated it.
37. Not Worth It
Peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich. Someone told me it was because the mayonnaise prevented the peanut butter from sticking to the roof of your mouth. But at what cost?!
36. That's Child Abuse
When I visited my aunt’s family as a kid, she served a “purple cow” -- milk mixed with grape juice -- for breakfast. If you haven’t tasted that, take my word for it -- it’s not a great concoction.
35. Playing Ketchup
I've been at a sushi place and heard the people in the booth behind me ask for ketchup.
I can only hope it was for something else and not the sushi itself.
34. Too Much Green
My dad's girlfriend puts cucumber in any hot dish she can. Green chili, chicken soup, taco meat - sky's the limit.
She also doesn't believe in draining noodles and will let them sit in hot water until each strand of bloated spaghetti is as thick as a bloody shoelace.
I don't eat there anymore.
33. Go Suck An Egg
Dude in my dining hall had a plate of sunny side up eggs. Scooped under an egg with his fork, brought it up to his mouth, and only touched his lips to the yolk. Proceeded to suck all the yolk, and then slurped the rest of the egg in. It was like a car crash: I couldn't look away but I was horrified.
32. Puttin' On The Ritz
My sister would make Ritz cracker sandwiches, except the thing that went between the two Ritz cracker “buns” was another Ritz cracker, except chewed up and spit out. It was disgusting.
31. From A To F
I used to be obsessed with A1 steak sauce. I would put it on everything possible because I loved it so much. One day I put it on Jello. I no longer enjoy A1.
30. Shrimp Wimp
I watched a guy pour Sprite into a nice $50 bottle of vino because he didn't like the flavor.
My Asian relatives eat shrimp with all the legs and stuff still on. I know you can eat the head and legs on fried shrimp, and that's fine, but my family eats the entire thing -- poop vein, tail, head, shell, legs -- regardless of cooking method or type of shrimp and it sounds like hot wet toenails fighting in their mouths and I hate it. Thank you for listening.
29. It Ain't Easy Being Cheesy
A couple of years ago, when my best friend and I were still in college, she stayed over at my place a few times. It was then that I learned that she liked dipping cheese into hot chocolate. Like, full on dunking it in, waiting for it to partially melt, swirling it around and then eating it. I love her to bits, she's like my kid sister... but I still haven't entirely recovered.
28. People Don't Know How To Use Ketchup
Went to college with this one girl who would get a chef salad, slice up banana and put it on said chef salad, then use ketchup as dressing. I kid you not this person ate that on a regular basis.
I was maybe gonna be okay with just bananas on a salad -- putting fruit, especially stuff like strawberries on a salad is fine. But ketchup? Way over the line.
27. Follow Your Gut
My baby sister used to eat pancakes and ranch. My mom just accepted it because she was such a picky eater and this was something she just thoroughly enjoyed.
We’re pretty sure it’s cuz my mom craved both when she was pregnant with her. Or maybe it's the other way around? Maybe my sister was just conceived with an inherent desire for pancakes and ranch?
26. Colonel Mustard
Mustard on cheesecake. For real.
It wasn’t me, it was a friend. It was yellow mustard. Any kind of cheesecake.
You can’t compare it to mustard on a sandwich containing cheese — the flavour profiles of both are completely different. On top of that, cheesecake is a sweet (yes and somewhat tangy) dessert, whereas normal cheese is just tangy (and all the other cheesy flavour profiles).
Apparently this is normal in the Netherlands. I don't know, man.
25. That Should Be Illegal
A Ketchup brownie. My cousin, this son of a b.
24. Hands-On Approach
My friend was eating salad with his hands at a restaurant. He’s not my friend anymore.
This may be hard to believe but this same friend also eats spaghetti with his hands one by one without any sauce or cheese. I’ve never been to an Italian restaurant with him so I don't know if he does this in public.
23. It's All Greek
This happened to me! I took my friend out to a greek restaurant because she was going to be going to Greece the following week. The waitress brought us salad...and no cutlery. We decided it must be some Greek tradition to eat salad with your hands. The waitress came back to check on us and we asked about cutlery. She saw the little divots we had put in our salads, turned on her heel, and made a bee line to get the cutlery she forgot.
22. This Guy Does It Right
One of my co-workers will smear mayo (not mayonnaise) on a banana then dump peanut crumbles on it.
He also wears socks with sandals in the winter. In the snow. In the midwest.
21. Who Hurt You?
My mom puts peanut butter on cold pizza. It is the closest flavor to vomit that is not vomit.
20. Soda Bread
When I was a server, I had a customer dip her bread in a glass of Coke. She finished her whole bread basket and Coke and asked for another basket and another refill of Coke, and went to town again for round two. She didn't give a crap how she looked and ate that bread like it was the best thing on Earth. You kind of have to respect that.
19. Ketchup Seems To Be The Root Of All Food Evil
Mixing ketchup with soda.
Granted we were trying to gross each other out, but still.
It was an act of culinary violence unlike anything else I've ever seen.
18. Oh, You Thought We Were Done With Ketchup?!
I went on a double date to a fancy restaurant with a friend once. His gf got a $60 pork chop, and asked for ketchup. The staff weren't even sure they had any, but found some in the back that they save for the kid's meals.
She only ate half of the chop, because she wouldn't eat any of the pieces with "char" on them. She dumped ketchup all over the whole thing, even the parts she wouldn't eat. So what he took home was soaked in ketchup.
Dude broke up with her shortly after.
17. SAY KETCHUP AGAIN
I used to eat blueberries with ketchup on them because I liked the texture.
My whole sibling group eats tomatoes and peeled oranges/clementines like a normal person would eat an apple, but the worst I've ever seen is a guy in my class take a cheese and sauce filled roll type thing, rip a hole in the bottom and suck it dry. In a restaurant with other people.
Another time, my little sister (she was a tiny kid at the time) got gulab jamun at an Indian buffet (they're like milky doughnut holes soaked in watery sugary syrup). She leaned over the table and vacuumed them up off the plate so she didn't get her hands sticky.
16. Liz Lemon
This is my own confession. I really love to eat lemons. Not in wedges or squeezed on things, but in the way you would eat an orange or a clementine, by peeling it and eating the whole thing. For some reason sourness is just the best to me.
I’m a person of many weird food preferences but this is the one that causes witnesses to cringe the most.
15. I'm Bleeping It Out
As a kid, we heard about cheeseburger pizza: pizza but with k*****p and mustard instead of tomato sauce, American cheese instead of mozzarella, and hamburger meat on top. So, we tried it.
you wouldn't think it would be that different; the ingredients are the same as an actual hamburger... Except pizza dough is actually very different from the bread of a hamburger bun. It's kind of sweeter and fluffier, and really soaks in the k*****p and mustard to an absolutely disgusting degree. It was awful.
14. That Is... Disgusting
I wasn't going to tell this story, but here I am. As a kid I would eat a whole bag of Doritos without swallowing, and then I'd spit out the pulverized chip dust and saliva mixture and roll it into a ball with my hands and then let it harden a bit in my desk at school between first and second break. Then I would eat it again during lunch when the outside was a bit crunchy again but the inside was still moist and the consistency of a chocolate truffle.
13. A True Gourmet
I'm not sure if this counts, but there is a guy at my university who eats all his meals on his laptop keyboard. He sets his food on the keyboard and eats off of it. Makes me so uncomfortable.
12. Ogres Are Like Sandwiches
My roommate’s mom eats peanut butter and onion sandwiches.
11. This Isn't A Pepsi vs. Coke Thing
One year, for Christmas, I bought a friend a bottle of 12-year-old single malt because he'd mentioned that he wanted to learn to appreciate fine liquor. Dude took a sip, didn't like it, and drank the rest of the bottle with coke.
When I recoiled in horror, he was quick to point out that, no, it was okay -- it wasn't Pepsi.
10. It Runs In The Family
My wife likes crunchy peanut butter and bologna sandwiches with cheese. Her mom also adds mayo. I just can’t bring myself to try it -- literally start retching at the thought of the flavor.
9. Handmade
A friend of mine once ate peanut butter with his hands out of the jar in the back seat of my car on a 10 hour drive.
I also saw him make a "salad" by peeling off a head of lettuce he had pulled from his backpack and hand tearing red peppers up (while standing next to a knife rack) then eating it without any dressing.
He's basically a NYC caveman.
8. It Should Bother You
My mom's boyfriend crushed cheez-it crackers into his coffee. That day he also ate waffles covered in spinach and fish sticks drizzled with syrup. All the while, he was LOUDLY smacking his lips, saying, "Ugh so goooood."
Mom says don't let it bother me. It bothers me.
7. Tart Popped
This one guy I knew took humus and DIPPED HIS FREAKING POPTART IN IT AND ATE IT.
6. Instant Karma
My cousin put salt in her cereal one time. She puked like 5 minutes after.
5. That's Not As Bad As Some
People ridicule me for committing the "sin" of microwaving bacon... I don't give a crap, you throw 3 slices in a folded paper towel on a microwave-safe plate and 45 seconds later you have an awesome treat to throw on a turkey sandwich with minimal cleanup.
Several of my friends like to bust my balls about this whenever the conversation allows, and at the most unfortunate times (work functions, after-bar meals with groups of friends-of-friends, meeting new people, etc.) and I've had literally no one back me up... ever.
4. Creamify The Meat
A kid I used to know in school would rip open his milk carton and dip his burrito into the chocolate milk. Sometimes he'd even goes so far as to rip open the burrito and pour his milk onto the beef and eggs too. In his own words, he liked to "creamify the meat." I don't know man, but the word 'creamify' is just... ugh.
3. This Girl Needs To Be In Food Jail
I live with someone who lives to eat food sins. Do you really think water with cereal is bad? Get a load of this girl.
The thing I would consider the least of her eating sins would be when she microwaved a freaking pickle with cheese on it, then dipped it in freaking ice cream! I can't stand to sit in the kitchen when she's in there because she turns the whole place into some kind of evil laboratory.
She pulled a slice of pizza out of the trash, put cough syrup on it, and topped it off with a MOLDY grape.
Once she he soaked a slice of bread with grape soda, froze it, then ate it AFTER it fell into cigarette askes.
Another time, she ate a brownie dipped in nacho cheese.
She made a peanut butter and jam sandwich with American cheese, saltine crackers, and grapes (she for some reason really likes old grapes).
I know there's more, but I'm afraid people will think I'm making this stuff up if I share anything worse.
2. High Steaks
I worked in a restaurant that served authentic imported Kobe beef from Japan. I had someone order a 16 oz Kobe filet mignon, WELL DONE. The chef nearly cried and definitely threw things. If I recall correctly, he ended up having to put that $200 steak into the microwave to get it to cook all the way through to well done without burning the outside to charcoal. The guest was pleased, but his date looked horrified.
Part of me thinks the chef should be allowed to refuse the customer request in a case like this, but I don't know.
On the one hand, if I'm the one paying for it, then I should be able to have it prepared how I want it. I feel anyone would assert the same if it was their money, and their preferences, on the line.
On the other hand, if you know that's how you prefer your steak cooked then why would you order that particular meat? You can achieve a similar result, and save yourself some money, with a "lesser" variety of beef without ruining something that is so prized (when cooked to a more traditional doneness).
1. Peanut Butter Is The New Ketchup
In college I would sometimes drain the water out of my Shrimp Cup 'O Noodles and mix in a big spoonful of peanut butter.
I honestly don't know what to tell you other than I did it once out of boredom, it wasn't terrible, and it made my life interesting.