BS: Disasters, Culinary

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Peg
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 01:32 PM

Mmario;

I hope by saying that you don't mean you have eaten frozen foods that have been around for five years or longer...that's disgusting.
Then again, if you didn't know for sure, how could one tell?
I do know that turkey was said to have tasted pretty awful...

Now I am paranoid.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Allan C.
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 01:35 PM

Sorry, Mario, gotta call you on this one. The National Turkey Federation has a very different opinion as does the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: MMario
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 01:36 PM

actually - as part of various college courses in food preparation and processing I have eaten foods including meat and poultry that have been frozen as long as twenty years.

what is disgusting about it? it's been FROZEN! virtually no chemical activity - no biological activity. The biggest hazard is that if it wasn't properly wrapped and stored the water will leach out and it will be freeze dried. Next to no loss of nutritive value -(more is lost in cooking) no hazard.

face it - compared to eating eggs - that's nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: MMario
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 01:42 PM

Allan - granted - I fudged on it. A year would be the recommended keeping a frozen turkey "as is" purchased. Two years would probably be about max before you could really tell .

However - if repackaged PROPERLY for long term storage (and long term is usually done at -20 rather then 0 degree.)_ blind taste tests have shown no difference at 5, 10, 15 and 20 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 07:25 PM

Everytime you open the freezer door the temperature changes. Amazing that the turkey didn't walk into the oven on its own. Yucch!

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Allan C.
Date: 16 Apr 03 - 07:45 PM

A friend once served some guests a fresh tossed salad with the supper she had prepared. One of the guests took a big bite of the salad. Then, with a look of total shock on his face and with his mouth still quite full, he asked, "Did thomone put thoap in the thalad?" It turned out that he had never tasted avocados before.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 12:47 AM

Okay, I've been resisting, but the rest of you have all been so honest that I have to take my turn.

New bride, married 3 weeks. New husband loves lemon meringue pie, and she has never made one, but how hard can it be?

She makes up her big batch of pastry dough, rolls out enough for the pie plate, pricks it, chills it 30 minutes, re-pricks it, pops in the oven. Ten minutes later the pastry has shrunk to a tiny blob in the middle of the pie plate.

So she rolls out another batch, pricks it, chills it 1 hour, re-pricks it, into the oven. Ten minutes later, pastry is a small blob in the middle of the pie plate.

Using the last of the pastry, she rolls it out a final time, pricks it, chills it 1 hour, re-pricks it, and in a rage of tears, SCOTCH TAPES THE EDGES OF THE PASTRY TO THE PIE PAN and pops it in the oven. Ten minutes later, the pastry has torn away from the scotch tape, the tape has melted, and . . . the pastry has shrunk to a tiny blob in the middle of the pie plate.

That night we had the pie filling as pudding for dinner. I learned later that the pastry recipe I used does not make a pre-baked pie shell, and that if you try . . . see above.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: GUEST,Elfcall
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 05:36 AM

Thank you one and all for sharing your disasters. Some of the stories have made me laugh out loud and that does not happen too often!

Most of my kitchen disasters are limited to self mutilation of digits with knives recklessly opening food packages or using a particularly stupidly designed knife sharpener. (Even after two accidents I still have not replaced it and can think of no good reason why not!!)

My worst culinary disaster is with lava bread a (south?) Welsh delicacy which is essentially seaweed boiled to a sticky green consistency. My family recipe is for it to be rolled in oatmeal(or at a push flour) and then fried as small patties in bacon fat. Very tasty I assure you and mine would have been too if only I could have removed them from the pan!! The combined look of 'raw' lava bread, burnt lava bread, and uncooked flour which was eventually scraped from the pan was consigned to the bin. Back to Mum for more instruction!!

Thanks again

Elfcall

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 07:03 AM

I agree with MMario about frozen meats: properly prepared, packaged and frozen they can keep for a looooooooooooooooong time. I have commercially processed, packaged and frozen venison that is consumed safely, tastely, and happily six years after the deer was taken.

Mind you, I wouldn't do this with stuff that was done up at home -- home freezers just don't freeze things fast enough, and you can't (usually) package or butcher as well as professionals.

Speaking of which.... My youngest brother shot a deer and took it home to butcher. He did a good job of it, and when the meat was all wrapped and in his freezer he took the bones and so forth down to the city's parking lot for garbage trucks (the city recommended this). It was well after dark, and as he was loading the stuff into a truck for disposal, a leg bone fell out of the package. Just a a police car hit him and his load with a spotlight. To a rookie cop a deer's leg bone looks just like a human leg bone...and where better to hide the evidence of a gruesome murder than in with parts of a former deer? Fortunately for my bro, the rookie's partner was our Uncle, who thought the whole thing was funny as all git out.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 09:26 AM

I've just had one.

I saw a tin of tuna in one of the top shelves and decided I quite fancied a tuna sandwich. Anyway, I reached up for the tuna but knocked a tin of custard powder off the shelf. I managed to catch the falling tin but whoever had last used the tin had not put the lid on tight. I ended up covered from head to toe in custard powder.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: MMario
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 09:28 AM

There was the year my B-I-L decided to have a goose for Easter Dinner - I *think* I finally managed to get all the grease cleaned up within a month.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Alba
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 09:42 AM

I don't know if this counts as a "Culinary disaster" but just after my Mother had painted our dining room in a lovely rich cream colour. I shook the Heinz Ketchup Bottle, the lid came off in the process and sprayed the wall with a substansial amount of the contents. I was popular that day! The place looked like a crime scene!
A:>)

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: GUEST,Diva
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 02:06 PM

Many and various but my fav is not mine but my mums!!!!! Before pizza's were all the rage,she cooked me one with the plastic still attached. Still its been a valuable learning curve.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 03:45 PM

In my first year at uni I lived in Halls of Residence. Well the lads on the ground floor decided they were going to cook dinner for the lasses on the first floor and they thought that pizza would be the ideal food....*riased eyebrows all round*!!!

So in the MICROWAVE they put a pepperoni pizza STILL in the PLASTIC CELLOPHENE on a PLASTIC plate for 15 minutes. We are all sat in the lounge area having a few beers while the pizza cooks when the fire alarm and sprinkler systems are set off! So 5 lasses and 6 lads stagger outside in a drunken mass to find the other 200 students who lived in Halls shivering on the grass. 3 fire engines plus an engine with the long extending ladders/crane turned up. Yes they had managed to set fire to the microwave!!!

The lads were sent on a 6 week cookery course as punishment and us lasses got a good look and those gorgeous fire men in their uniforms!!!

We all still laugh about it now!

Cat

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Beccy
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 04:46 PM

I just remembered a doozy. This last year was a landmark birthday for my Mum. My Mum has a very adventurous spirit that extends to food. One of my sisters and I were shopping for party food at our local uber-market. We saw some really strange looking, found, spikey looking fruits called Durian (if you've tried these, you know what's coming). They looked like a large version of the business end of a mace (and I DO mean the medieval weapon.) We were intrigued and knew Mum would be too. She LOVES odd fruits.
(For my 5th birthday party, she served a platter with ugli fruits, kiwis, star fruits, kumquats, persimmons, pomegranates, and more- quite exotic back then!!!)

We carefully picked up the ominous looking fruit and took it to the checkout with our other goodies (ingredients for hummus, chicken barbecue, etc...) and laid out the $9.00 the behemoth fruit cost.
At home, I miraculously found a gift bag that was both large enough and sturdy enough to hold this Durian. Jess (my sister) held onto the bag while we sat outside giving Mum her presents. I glanced over at Jess and she was wrinkling her nose in a most unpleasant way. She walked past me and said- "You hold this for a minute"... and walked away. It was my turn to give Mum her present, so I passed it over. Mum squealed with delight when she saw the bizarre fare and sent me to the kitchen for a butcher knife and a cutting board (again, if you have tried these, you know what's coming.) To fast forward- we ended up hacking into the thing with a hatchet. Boy howdy- the STINK that came from that thing.

Feeling full of the birthday adventure spirit, I suggested that maybe it was like limburgher cheese and smelled horrid but tasted great. Jess, her husband and my husband all backed away. Mum, my baby sister (10 years old- Yes- I'm 20 years older than my youngest sister) and I lined up to try some of the stuff. Baby sis licked it and promptly started gagging. Mum and I simultaneously swallowed the stuff and then ran to brush our teeth. It tasted the way a sheep smells.

Upon researching this thing later, we discovered that it is sometimes referred to as "dead flesh fruit"... there are also legions of devotees to this awful thing. Doubt me?


Durian website


Argh- If I think about it too much, I can actually still taste that rancid stuff in my mouth. Airlia (baby sis), Mum and I all attest to the fact that we burped the flavor for at least a week.

Traumatic food incident, to be sure!.

Beccy

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Beccy
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 07:51 AM

My husband just told me his ultimate culinary disaster. At age 10, he was on his own when he got home from school, so he would make his own snacks- usually with great success. As he was the youngest of 4, food was sometimes in short supply in their home.

One day he decided to make cornbread. He couldn't find any in the kitchen, but remembered seeing a container of cornmeal in the bathroom. He went into the bathroom closet and found the aforementioned full container of cornmeal and took it to the kitchen.

He carefully measured, popped the pan into the oven, and waited the allotted time. He pulled a "perfect looking, golden, puffy cornbread" from the oven and sliced a big chunk off of it. He eagerly took a huge bite and realized there was something wrong. It tasted like soap. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the cornmeal container was full of his Mom's own special bath soak. She kept it in the cornmeal container in the bathroom.

Moral of the story? Never cook with cornmeal you find in the bathroom.

Beccy

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Mr Happy
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:05 AM

during my youth i was a member of the tavr [territorial army volunteer reserve]

it was necessary on some weekends to go off to some remote location out in the country or up in the hills to practice radio communications[it was a signals regiment]

each radio relay detachment comprised 4/5 soldiers & while way on these w/e exercises were expected to survive on tinned army rations familiarly known as 'compo'; but we usually took along some fresh food as well.

the contents of these tins was stamped on the outside of the tins, rather than them having paper labels, but sometimes the stamped names could rub off or become obscured.

one morning we were preparing to cook breakfast.

we had fresh eggs & some bacon and opened up some tins, baked beans, tomatoes, & margarine.

the margarine was for frying the breakfast.

the marg was put in the frying pan & we waited for it to melt & start sizzling. well it melted a bit & some bacon was added.

dave, who was acting as cook turned to me & said 'there's something funny happening with the margarine'.

i looked & there seemed to be a strange 'rising' in the pan. bits of marg were popping & sizzling themselves into hard yellow curly things with little bubbly holes in them.

i remarked they looked just like 'quavers'.

subsequent examination of the tin of compo marg revealed that it was in fact processed cheese!

and that's how we discovered how to make fried bacon & quavers/prawn crackers for breakfast!!

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Gurney
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:39 AM

Advice: Go back and read 'Spaw's post near the top. Chili is dangerous! I tried to dry a pot of damp chili powder (Chili powder is hygroscopic, it absorbs dampness)in the microwave, and set it on fire.

You CANNOT breathe chili smoke , nor any part thereof. Your lungs stop working. If you have mobility problems, you will likely die if you set it on fire on an ordinary stove.
It is easy to laugh now, but I'm glad it was a microwave, because of the timer.

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: GUEST,The O'Meara
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 12:47 PM

There are excellent French restaurants, Italian restaurants, Chinese, Greek, Thai, etc. restaurants. There are exceedingly few Irish restaurants. Pubs yes, restaurants, no. There is good reason for this. Family legend has it that Granny Mary, in her first years in "Amerikay," often prepared the traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. According to my father and his sister, you just don't understand Irish cooking until you've been served a boiled turkey.
    As a lad of about 13, I decided to whip up a desert treat for the family. Figured marble cake with vanilla icing would be just the ticket. In those days, most everything was made from scratch, but I thought I'd modernize things and bought cake mix from the grocery, one white cake, one devil's food cake and a package of Vanilla icing mix. I'd need 3 large bowls and a cake pan, and just add water. How hard could it be?
    The folks were out for the evening, and with my younger brother looking on, I mixed up the cakes and the icing in separate bowls and poured the white cake batter into the pan. I discovered that I had about 4 times more devil's food batter than I needed. Couldn't stand to waste it so I carefully poured 4 large dollops into the pan. It didn't mix, and I figured if I tried to swirl it the whole thing would turn a sort of diarrea brown, so I left it the way it was and popped it into the oven.
    After a while the cake was done and I turned to the icing which looked really thin. Seems I'd poured in way too much water. But I'm not so easily put off, and I put the stuff into a saucepan on the stove so I could boil off the excess water. (Clever!) It worked. When it got to the proper thickness, I smeared it onto the cake although it seemed to have changed color a bit. My brother wandered over and looked at the result. "You know what that looks like?" he asked.
   As my folks walked into the kitchen he said "It looks like four belly buttons covered with vaseline."
    Went down in family lore as "Jimmy's Notorious Navel Cake." And I swear, it didn't taste bad at all, as long as you kept your eyes shut.

O'Meara

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Ely
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:39 PM

My mom used to pack lunches for me every once in awhile when I was in school if I was pressed for time in the morning. One morning, we were paricularly behind schedule, so she gave me the sandwich my father had forgotten to take to work (my father is a notorious "garbage disposal"; he will literally eat nearly anything).
This landed me a peanut butter and liverwurst sandwich.

On another occasion, she thought she would be nice and make me a ham and cheese sandwich (I normally ate peanut butter and something; jelly, cheese, or dill pickles). We were both very tired that morning, and when lunchtime came around I discovered that she had lost track of things and given me ham, cheese, and peanut butter (and the plastic was still on the ham).

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: GUEST,Clareling
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:44 PM

This has always been a bit of a family joke, years after it happend of corse....

My oldest brother had come home from football practice one day, and sence noone else was home, he decided to make some frenchfries.
After putting the greese on the stove to heat up, he decided to take a quick shower while it warmed up (our stove was a bit slow).
But the shower went a bit longer than he had suspected, and he jumped out of the shower at the sound of the fire alarm.
Now the day before, my mother had bought a 50 pound bag of sugar, and my brother grabed that, it being the first thing he saw...
Living out in the country, we had 2 neighbors down the road, so unable to quickly yell for help, he ran outside to get a water hose and put out the fire.
He then called my mother:
M for mom, G for Greg--
M-hello?
G-uh...hey mom
M-I know that voice...what did you do?
G-um...whats the deductible on our house insurance?
M-.....600, why?!
G-well, im sure we met that.
*click* and a speedy call to the fire dep. by my mom
60,000 to be precise.
But the real kicker was the black stalactites hanging from the celing....
But what really got my mom was that she thought she could at least save her skillets from the black mass that was onece a stove because they were under a large metal bowl. As she dug through(with a hammer) the black cotton candy, she found one of her best towls charred on the mess...when asked what it was doing there, my brother simply replied "its all i had on at the time!"

Clare

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 12:54 AM

Will someone with some measure of authroity around here please see to it that these are all featured prominently in the Mudcat Cookbook now in preparation? A whole special section! :~)

Thank you,

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Schantieman
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 02:17 PM

...and then there was the time I served up spaghetti bolognaise as part of my Advanced Scout Standard 'cook a meal' test, (aged 14).

White tablecloth, best cutlery, family and examiner seated round the table, tender spaghetti (this was before the days of 'al dente') tasty, rich sauce. I served it up with a flourish and deposited the whole lot in the examiner's lap!

Amazingly, I passed!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Mr Happy
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 04:20 AM

and on another occasion, also in the army, we were in the canteen queuing up for breakfast & were served with fried egg, bacon, sausage, & 'tomatoes'- these turned out to be tinned peaches!!

tasted ok though- first time i had a 'sweet & sour' breakfast!

Subject: RE: BS: Disasters, Culinary
From: Schantieman
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 11:14 AM

My Dad told me (and this may be apochryphal) that when he was in the army in WWII they got served up their main course and pud in the same mess tin. Had to hold it dead level to keep the custard and gravy from mixing too much!

S