BS: Epic culinary failures

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 19 Sep 14 - 08:42 AM

well, next time you'll know, Janie... :D

I find it's more likely to happen when cooking down a chicken or turkey carcass... loads of cartilage waiting to be rendered.

I don't recall it happening with beef, probably because so little cartilage available except in really cheap cuts.

when making stock you can place your selection of vegetables in a large roasting pan and place the bones or seasoned meat on top and then roast in a medium heat oven for an hour or so... add enough water to keep from burning and cover with foil or lid. When the meat is done, deglaze the pan and add the contents of the pan along with the bones and cooked vegetables to a large stock pot... now you are ready to make a rich stock. The roasted meat is ready for the table - but you can take any trimmings and add them to the stock pot. Waste not, want not.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Janie
Date: 19 Sep 14 - 07:37 AM

I didn't realize that, sciencegeek! I thought it was ruined and tossed it. Should have realized that with reheating and dilution it would turn back into broth.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 08:54 PM

Loughborough University in my day was mostly Science - about 10 men to every woman, and she was a librarian in the making.
So the cookery was scientific. An example was the recipe for icecream.

1. Ingredients: 1 pint milk, one packet of icecream powder.
2. Equipment: 1 teapot, 1 power drill, 1 pair of scissors, 1 freezer
3. Empty the milk into the teapot. Cut the top off the packet of icecream mix, and add it.
4. Put the scissors point-forwards into the chuck of the power drill and secure. Put the handle into the teapot and wisk slowly. Except slow on a power drill is a relative concept.
5. Put it in the freezer overnight and suck it out through the spout.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Bert
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 03:16 PM

X cups of 'rice' = X³ cups of *RICE*

Trouble is Bill, that the formula doesn't work too well when X=1. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 10:38 AM

the hubby has decided he likes to make soup... but he does not get the fact that the broth needs to have the excess fat removed. Having to dive below the floating oil to ladle out a bowl doesn't work... and if i want a bowl, I end up taking a portion and putting in the fridge long enough to harden the fat & remove it myself.

ugh... greasy food is not my thing...

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 09:19 AM

Janie... you did OK, just cooked it long enough to get everything out of it.

"Sometimes when I make chicken stock it gets gelatinous. Does that mean it has gone bad?"

No, in fact the opposite is probably true! You have likely made wonderfully flavorful stock. Properly made stock becomes gelatinous from the collagen in the bones. The gelled texture has nothing to do with fat content, as many people erroneously believe. A well-skimmed stock can be just as (or even more) gelled than one which contains fat. Fat will thicken the stock, but it will not cause it to gel.

I take a portion of the gelled stock and dilute it enough to cook whatever vegetables, etc. I plan to add to the soup. Or freeze it in small batches for use later on.

Or give the pets a real treat with their meals.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Janie
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 11:54 PM

Loving the tales - good to know I am not terminally unique.

The first (and perhaps the last) time I decided to make a meat stock to make a scrumptious soup or something from leftovers, I ended up with a gelatinous mass in a large pot.

We all have psychological defenses and mine come into play here - I think, but am not certain, it was a lovely, free range turkey carcass and was at the tail-end of failing enthusiasm for cooking from scratch and being frugal after a marathon and stressful Thanksgiving with too many in-laws I was trying to impress.

I think we ended up having pizza delivered on a Friday night.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 01:53 PM

LOL... many years ago, I had a copy of "Impoverished Student's Book of Cookery, Drinkery and Housekeepery by Jay F. Rosenberg." published by Reed College.

In it, they had cheap things to do with rice... preceded by an explanation that X cups of 'rice' = X³ cups of *RICE*

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Bert
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 01:16 PM

It was in the Members kitchen at High Roding Youth Hostel, way back in the fifties.

The girls had cooked dinner and I wanted some rice pudding for dessert. Ya know, rice, milk, sugar, and raisins.

So I gets me a small pot and a can of milk. Opened the one pound bag of rice and dumped that in. It soon got solid so I added more milk, then I had to get a bigger saucepan, then another saucepan... Finished up with enough to feed the whole Hostel, and then some.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 11:33 AM

Yeah, turns out equipment is very reliant on science.

Playing with my new NutriBullet mixer, I first violated the maximum limit, then forgot that pancake batter WILL expand. The friend I'd invited over for pancakes that morning walked in just as it exploded and sprayed certainly 50 times more volume than what I'd put in there.

She endeared herself to me forever by immediately grabbing chairs and rags to begin the kitchen scrub-down.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 11:13 AM

ah equipment failures...

the mental picture of chocolate decorating the kitchen brought back two memories...

my aged grandmother, who was losing her eyesight to glaucoma, attempting to surprise my mom with potato dumplings... she left dried out potato mixture on the handle of every cabinet door, flat surface, etc. at the end of the process. Mom was surprised alright and was cleaning that up for some time afterwards.

then there was my dad's great snail stampede... he and mom loved escargot and he picked up a paper bag full of the little darlings... and then left them on the table overnight. Amazing how far those little guys can travel in that amount of time... snails on the floor, counters you name it... we even found a few dried out specimens on the back of the refrigerator months later...

At least when you bring home clams or mussels they stay put! LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 10:34 AM

Mind you, it does run in the family - skipped a generaton to me, but I do recall the day my gran was on the phone in utter hysterics. Now, she was a belly-laugher naturally, but this time she was peeing herself. It turned out my uncle had bought her a food processor, she'd loaded it with the ingredients for a chocolate sponge, and switched it on. How the lid came off we'll never know, but the effect was that instead of being smashed against the sides of the hopper by the blades, going up the sides and the lid dropping it back onto the blades, the absence of a lid meant it climbed out in a pillar of dark brown you name it, spreading out until it not only hit the ceiling, but the walls and floor of the kitchen as well. Whence the hysterical nan...

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 10:17 AM

I remember that very early in my first marriage, Valerie left an egg boiling on the stove & forgot it. Ultimately, the pan having boiled dry & the heat maintained, it exploded. The ceiling of the kitchen of the upstairs flat at 9 Hayes Crescent, off Finchley Road at Temple Fortune, London NW11, was stained with dried egg yolk until we left 18 months later. Still is, 53 years later, for aught I know of the matter.

& we had to buy a new egg saucepan. The one I am still using, I believe!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:18 AM

brilliant.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 06:18 AM

It's odd how parts of one's career can be perfect echoes one of the other.
The first individual task i was given on joining a major food supplier was to sort out the fate of a consignment of canned orange juice on a ship which had lost its steering in the Med, and was salvaged. All goods on such a ship share the same fate, falling into the hands of the salvager, and so I attempted to contact them, only to be told the matter was in the hands of a Spanish Court, who would let us know. Orange juice being perishable, I told them not to bother, by the time that was sorted out it would be unusable, and sent the thing off to the insurance. End of story, or so I thought.
Years went by, and I prepared to move to a new job. As I put the last thing on my desk in the box, the phone rang, it was the harbourmaster of the port the ship was brought back into, complaining that he had a load of tins marked with the company's name on the end of a pier and they were going bang. Ten gallons of orange juice left in the Spanish sun for a couple of years ferments most magnificently, and there were thousands of the things. I explained they were almost certainly the lost consignment, and nothing to do with us - but what can we do, pleaded the poor sob. You probably can't move them, so the only remaining option is to bulldoze them over the edge into the dock - which occasionally gurgles evilly to this day, I am told.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 05:48 AM

brilliant!

recently I noticed a small can of tomato paste about 4 years past it's use-by date had left a thin trail of yucky black sludge round the top & down the cupboard wall. I didn't investigate exactly where the sludge came from & just threw out the can & contents.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 10:17 PM

Hee hee another memory from long ago - I heard my mom yell and went running into the kitchen and thought she had accidentally somehow slit her throat with the can opener she was brandishing in one hand, there was what I thought was blood not only in huge swaths across her throat but in great jets across and into cupboards and the walls and everything, and I had just time enough to realize nothing was dripping when she burst out laughing and, holding a rounded can of tomato paste in the other, said Never try to open a spherical can that used to be cylindrical! The gas from the spoiling paste had distended the can but she didn't realize that opening it under pressure would cause jets of it to erupt, startling her (thus the yell) and spraying tomato paste upward under her chin, and then everywhere else when she jumped...

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 07:46 AM

Many, many years ago, when on a new job, in a new city, I invited a few new co-workers over for a dinner party, featuring the Famed Charleston 13-Bean Soup.

Can you tell I went to the Bootstrap College of Culinary Arts?

No one told me you needed to SOAK beans BEFORE cooking.

After a few hours of beers, waiting for the pebbly beans to do ANYTHING, we ordered in pizza : )

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 08:27 AM

And then there was the sad fate of a rather fine bottle of limoncello I bought, had one drink from, and then it disappeared.
I later discovered my daughter had snaffled it for a sleepover with some of her girlfriends (aged 16), who helped themselves to a wineglassfull each...most of which went down the sink, followed by the rest of the bottle.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Janie
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 11:48 PM

Ouch!

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 10:48 PM

Ah.. I am reminded of my German teacher in college! He told of spending a couple years in Germany as an exchange professor. Came the holidays, they wondered if they could find a turkey to remind them of home. Went to the local butcher shop.
"Yes," said the butcher, "we don't get many requests, but I can special order you a turkey.. if you don't mind if it's frozen."
Fine, they said, so 3 days before Christmas they went to the shop to get their turkey. It was frozen, just as promised.... not cleaned and plucked... just frozen after it's head was removed.

   If I remember correctly, turkey dinner was a couple days late as they worked out how to defrost the bird, scald it, pluck it, clean it and finally cook it.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 12:56 PM

Ah, reminds me of the Christmas turkey not long after I moved home, turkey bags still in an unidentified box, and none available anywhere. So I begged one off a major quality UK supermarket, who swore it was fine.
Except it wasn't, we had the most excellent bird, none of the juices escaped because the plastic shrank to fuse with the skin...

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: LadyJean
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 08:01 PM

My sister and I were told to cook a turkey for a large Thanksgiving dinner. Which meant I cooked the turkey. I fixed stuffing, pulled the plastic bag full of turkey innards out of the front end of the bird. Put in the stuffing. Wrapped the bird in foil, and put it in the oven. A few minutes later my sister's partner stopped in and asked if I'd taken the bag of turkey innards out of the BACK of the turkey.

In my defense, I'd cooked turkeys before, but they only had one bag of innards, in the front! And my sister spent the whole time watching a Woody Allen movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 03:50 AM

Way back in the 70's my colleague decided she wanted a piece (or maybe 2) of toasty cheese so got out the old office toaster something like this with sides that open out toasted the first side, covered the other side with cheese, then popped it in to the toaster.

Unfortunately the cheese did not stay in place (DUH!) & the office was filled with the smell of burning cheese.

Some decades later with new technology, all staff received a very terse email from Office Operations forbidding microwaved popcorn. The note also reminded everyone that the fee for a false-alarm fire brigade call-out was $600, & that staff members who cause such alarms will pay it in future. And finally all users of the microwave had to watch it the whole time it was operating.

sandra (wondering what a false-alarm callout costs now)

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 03:16 AM

My pressure cooker exploded and embedded green beans in the kitchen ceilling.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 12:50 AM

There once was a gourme from Crediton
Took som pate d foie gras and spread it on
A chocolate biscuit
And murmured "I'll risk it"
His grave bears the date that he said it on.

Epic enough?

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 05:29 PM

Well, there was the boy scout who put a can of spaghetti in the camp fire - without piercing it. The bang was heard in the next town and the entire campsite covered in worms.

Or me bruvva who was a custard addict - so was challenged to make something different with it. Two drops of blue food ccolour did it, ever tried eating green custard? Peculiarly unappetising.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 10:42 AM

LOL... the original blackened dishes...

my mom would fall asleep and burn the tea kettle...

I've had mine own disasters that way... too sad, but I've even burned soup... sigh

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 10:22 AM

Culinary failure snobbery:

When I was young, I was over at a friend's house when we heard fire trucks on the next block where another friend lived. Of course we ran over to see...there was a blackened pot sitting in the driveway, and the embarrassed family apologizing to the firemen. It was not a big city, so the fire 'report' made the "daily happenings" column in the newspaper.

"Burned pot roast causes small fire"... something like that.

I had looked in the pot... it was a dozen hot dogs that had boiled dry. (The father was a well-known captain on the police force.)

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 06:09 AM

Well, I'll work up to the exploding glass by telling you about First Duck. Meant to impress Father-in-Law, and I was very excited about the possibilities of that rotisserie thingy on the grill.

Do you have ANY idea how much flippin' fat is on even the skinniest looking duck?? I do now, but didn't then, until the fire trucks showed up.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 04:27 AM

Very early in my first marriage, way back in Spring 1959, Valerie, who was finding her nurturing-wife feet, came across two recipes submitted to the Fleet St women's magazine she was sub-editor of, and had the bright idea of combining elements of White-Fish-In-Cider and Cod's-Roes-With-Something-or-other-else.

The resulting concoction was so spectacularly, horribly inedible, that, thenceforward, right throughout our ½-century marriage, "Cod's Roes In Cider" became our eternal all-purpose private-language phrase for, or denunciation of, any particularly spectacular booboo or flopperoo...

I'd call that "epic"!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: JennieG
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 03:58 AM

I still have nasty memories of The Exploding Pressure Cooker way back in 1975 when I was expecting Number One Son.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Janie
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 12:13 AM

Is this where I confess that I am one of those weirdos who really likes somewhat burnt popcorn? Especially if burnt in butter? (Honest, though, that is not what I was trying to achieve on that particular occasion.)

Interesting to note from doing a brief and non-discriminatory google search re: gladiolus that some species are used as food in Africa, as well as for medicinal purposes. I'm a wild foods buff, so was curious when from reports above, it was clear that they at least are not significantly toxic -well- no one is reported to have died:>)

Really like the idea of using a wide-mouthed jar to store olive oil in the frig. Thanks. Living alone, I rarely cook these days. That last batch of olive oil was stored in a dark cupboard, in a tin and was towards the end of the tin, but was probably close to a year old from when the tin was opened. I do use olive oil often to spritz salads (I love my 'misto') but rarely cook. Tossed what was left in the tin and bought more olive oil today, in a very small bottle - but will probably take 6-12 months before I go through that even.

From the bonafide chefs among us - vulcanic eggs and hints of stories of exploding pyrex?! Tell more.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:25 PM

Somebody at work once torched the toaster with an incendiary Pop-tart. I have a hard time thinking that a flaming toaster-with-p-tart is worse than the smell of burnt popcorn, though. Even when you cook microwave popcorn right, it smells burnt.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Janie
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:54 PM

Microwave popcorn anyone? During what was supposed to be an afternoon break at work I put a bag in and turned it on - receptionist called and needed me to go up front for some reason. I forgot all about it. Suddenly she says "I smell something burning." Me. "Oh no, the popcorn!" I dash back to the kitchenette where there is some smoke seeping out around the door of the microwave, but no flames. I open the door to remove the charred bag. The smoke billows out and sets off the fire alarm. 150 people working or visiting 5 county agencies housed in the building and two fire trucks responding to the alarm.

Talk about embarrassed!

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Janie
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:05 PM

For big holiday meals my mother and both usually don't try to make bread or rolls from scratch and buy frozen, heat-and-serve french or sourdough rolls. I learned most of my cooking from her, including popping the rolls in the oven at the last minute then forgetting they are in there in the rush to get the meal laid out on the table - The smoke alarm has served as the dinner gong more than once.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Janie
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:55 PM

Well....a good bit of the salt was dealt with by the potatoes absorbing it overnight. Not enough of it, but it no longer tasted like the sea. It did not all get eaten. (did I mention I went outside and forgot to watch the pot, so overcooked the potatoes?) So it wasn't a visually attractive dish either.   3 people who were brave enough to try it did come by my office door and asked for the recipe. I could still taste the bitterness and the lack of robust oregano - but these folks had never eaten it before....And I kept my mouth shut and passed along the recipe. They will be pleasantly surprised when they fix it with good ingredients. Regarding the recipe - I simply said "add salt to suit your taste."

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 06:35 PM

Janie? What happened to that potato salad? I think some of it can be found in another thread. (Grin.)

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 05:12 PM

My mother never had the opportunity to learn serious cooking, as our family was 'on the road' the 1st 8-9 years of her marriage. She did basic stuff, and managed pretty well.....

except for meatloaf.

Meatloaf was a fairly cheap thing to fix in the 1940s & 1950s, and there are many easy ways to do it... but Mom always managed to make it into a dense, hard to chew mass. I used to tell people that one could take a 1/4" slice and slap an enemy across the face with it.

Her secret? She never 'quite' believed her recipe on how many bread crumbs to add. She'd mix things up, look at it, and decide "it needs a little bit more". It came out pretty bland and tough. My brother & I would douse it with ketchup and manage to eat it... ketchup made lots of stuff palatable for kids.

When I left home, my wife suggested meatloaf, and I decided to wing it! I did some basic stuff in some recipe and went light on additives, and voilà! decent meatloaf!

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 04:14 PM

With four kids to raise, my mother was always looking for new recipes that called for inexpensive ingredients. She visited the county agriculture extension agent for recipes one time and came home with a couple of lulus - the "liver and kidney teriyaki" was awful - and we kids renamed it "liver and kidney harikari" - so she got the hint and didn't make it again. Another recipe she tried only once was the concord grape flavored tapioca pudding. The recipe made enough for a small army and she didn't think to reduce it for the first time. We threw away a lot of pudding.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Morticia
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 01:32 PM

Didn't have tinned tomatoes last night to put in the spag bol. Used Passata instead, they are both tomato type product, should be no difference, right? Wrong.....one of the most disgusting dinners I have ever made, ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 01:21 PM

too many fiascos - but here is one that's not too painful to recall... lol

We enjoy a nice sauerbraten every now and again, so I marinated the meat... but things got busy that week so it marinated way longer than usual. Well it was tender alright... the darn thing melted when I cooked it. Think pulled beef "braten"... Mike called it the best gravy I ever made... we poured it over the boiled potatoes. sigh...

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:35 AM

My brother--- 3 years younger-- used to like mustard a lot. He tried it on baloney, hamburgers, hot dogs, on plain bread... almost anything. He then decided mustard was good on anything

Then he tried it on ice cream.

He 'revised' his theory..... nothing like experimental science to advance culinary knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:55 AM

Well, there was the time we found a big unlabeled can of something in the street. One night my mother couldn't think of anything for dinner so she opened the of...roofing tar.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: sciencegeek
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 06:49 AM

"Toffee made with salt in place of caster sugar doesn't work and, as far as I can tell, is without remedy. You may know better."

and is part of the legend of "salt water taffy" from Atlantic City, NJ LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 06:30 AM

Toffee made with salt in place of caster sugar doesn't work and, as far as I can tell, is without remedy. You may know better.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 06:16 AM

Am loving this thread, and realizing I've caused enough of these to keep it going all year : )

Chapter One: leaving the sugar completely out of the Thanksgiving coconut custard pie. Which everyone wanted more than anything. First bites, polite stares, then PFLOOY around the table.

.... I'll work my way up to the exploding Pyrex sagas. With an 's'.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Ed T
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 06:40 PM

""Learn the difference between a garlic clove and a garlic bulb!""

I expect his new wife learned that lesson the hard way:)

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 02:58 PM

when my brother married a second time, they housed as many family members as they could at their house. So he made a huge pot of tomato sauce and had boxes of pasta to feed everyone. Well, after three days of reheating, the Italian sausage links had every bit of fat sucked out of them. As hubby said for years after, "I never knew you could snap a sausage link in two."

I was just happy that my brother didn't meltdown dealing with his future in-laws.

Subject: RE: BS: Epic culinary failures
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 02:30 PM

"Learn the difference between a garlic clove and a garlic bulb!"

Ummm... right. 55 years ago, found a recipe for Turkey dressing. Bought garlic...(it did seem like a lot)

Picture 4 adults spending an hour or so picking garlic bits out of cooked dressing with tweezers AFTER Mom explained the difference. It was still not too bad...