Vinegar, lots and lots of vinegar.
Many years ago, when I was a teenage prodigy, I was studying chemistry in school. I didn't particularly enjoy the subject, but there was no internet back then and it seemed the simplest way to learn how to blow things up.
As part of the Leaving Cert curriculum we wasted a huge amount of time doing titrations. Several of these involved using precise amounts of vinegar.
In order to measure this we used a suction pipette, a glass tube with a bulge in the middle. You would lower your face over a bowl of vinegar, place one end of the tube in your mouth, and suck.
This of course resulted in the inhalation of vinegar fumes, and occassionaly a mouthful of the stuff.
That much vinegar on a regular basis resulted in me hating the stuff for about a decade. I've grown to like it again, but for years even the slightest hint of a vinegar smell would make me retch.
You'd all be a lot more impressed if I claimed this had happened in Japan.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Tue 31 May 2011, 8:41, Reply)

Kanimiso (bad food, not good)
I lived in Osaka for about half a year and managed to some pretty fantastic food occasionally. That part of Japan is known for okonomiyaki, which is probably best described as a savory pancake filled with meat and cabbage, then covered in mayonnaise, flakes of dried fish, and mysterious brown sauce. Excellent.

I did manage to have some pretty terrible stuff, too. At a conveyer belt sushi place I decided to get crazy, but not so crazy as to eat any raw mammals, so I picked one thing I'd never heard of before. I like miso (paste, soup, whatever) so I chose Kanimiso. It was a serious error to assume that because the name contained 'miso', the food would also contain miso. After nearly vomiting, I found out that kanemiso refers to crab brains. I have eaten many components of many creatures, but this is absolutely the worst taste I can think of.
( the prick of misery pierced my foot on a spiiiike on, Tue 31 May 2011, 3:47, 1 reply)

Music Festival Mealtime Roulette
This game I play gets the worst and best food results.

It also saves money and adds interest to meal times.
I always take my own food and drink to festivals to save on money and queing.


Basicly :
1. Buy lots of tinned food. Get a mixture of good, bad and odd stuff. Try to make sure there is no print on the actuall can (on the top usually).

2. Come home and remove all the labels and chuck in a bag.

3. Go to festival

4. When breakfast, lunch or dinner comes pick a can and cook up and eat.

Additional rules
1. No shaking of the tins
2. Additional tins can be opened to “improve” the meal, but must be combined together.

The worst is opening a can for breakfast hungover to find pulped onion staring back at you.
Took 2 more cans to sort that into a meal.

Going to be trying again next month down Worthy farm. Licking my lips already.

Goooooo on give it a go
(Lord Potato, Tue 31 May 2011, 3:28, 1 reply)

Cheap wine in China?
Grape juice and white spirit. Really.
(McChinaman banned, Tue 31 May 2011, 2:29, Reply)

A year in America
has allowed me a chance to try many things I normally wouldn't have. Only thing is, I would have CHOSEN not to.



It tasted like sour milk and vinegar.
(bobman500 enjoys a grope as much as the next fella, Tue 31 May 2011, 2:09, 5 replies)

Paying attention to the note from the Mod
Minge


Aplogies for lack of funnehs
(nobbyd is wanking furiously to industrial grade porn on, Tue 31 May 2011, 1:03, Reply)

Good and baaaaaaaaaaaaaad
The best - freshly squeezed sugar cane juice, iced. In blazing sun on a dusty Cairo back street.
The worst - Mum's boiled to buggery broad beans. Leathery and loathesome, the wheezy 'pop' of the slimy skin released a puff of noxious vapour into the back of the throat. Made me gag EVERY SINGLE TIME! Still can't touch them...
(Bergamot B , has not been to the office since, Tue 31 May 2011, 0:24, Reply)

Halva
I don't remember what it was meant to taste like or what it was made of but it had the texture and flavour of window putty.
(Woodlouse say it with flowers. Send her a Triffid, Tue 31 May 2011, 0:08, 5 replies)

Drank
petrol. Siphoning out the carb of my first car. It tastes quite spectacular.

I looooove the smell, I could smell it for days. But the taste... yuk. Strangely, diesel tastes a lot better but doesn't smell anywhere near as good.
(Ed Quarters has moved house!, Mon 30 May 2011, 22:50, Reply)

Weird Chinese supermarket fare
Not funny, but informative...

If any of you happen to find yourself at the SeeWoo chinese supermarket near Greenwich:

Look past the withered orange duck bodies and pig's uterus, and you should find the 'chicken curry buns'. It's basically a sweet sugar-covered doughnut filled with chicken curry. Sounds so wrong, but they're goooooooood.
(Supermonkey, Mon 30 May 2011, 21:21, 7 replies)

Chocolate-covered dried shredded squid
Is one of the worst things I've ever eaten in Japan.

Shredded, dried squid is pretty good snack food, it's like a yummy, fishy teriyaki jerky. And while chocolate-covered bacon = heaven, giving dried squid the same treatment yields much stranger results.

If you're currently over there and curious, Japan has a chain of stores called Village Vanguard which carries this odd confection in various chocolate-covered flavors, including butter-garlic, kimchi, and hot curry.

Tastes (and smells) better than natto, at least.
(Ainadae, Mon 30 May 2011, 21:14, 2 replies)

Bedsitland, 3 days before giroday:
A few slices of bread and enough money for a bag of chips.

Day 1: Third of a portion of chips and a piece of bread.

Day 2: About half of the remaining chips squeezed between 2 slices of stale bread and 'cooked' in a sandwich toaster, resulting in burned bread surrounding cold lumpy potato and congealed lard.

Day 3: Nothing to eat.
( 4Q just lurking, Mon 30 May 2011, 19:39, 8 replies)

Turkey - except it was chicken
Mooching round southern Turkey for a month many years ago we encountered a pack of young americans - all very nice, and as a bonus most of them female. However, someone, somewhere really didn't like them (or maybe they really hated the guidebook writer); every single recommended sight, hostel, bar and restaurant was the most revolting, surly, overrun or unhygenic location in the known universe. However, the crowning glory was chicken feet and noodle soup in some scummy cafe in the midst of industrial Izmir after an overnight boat-train journey from Istanbul. Tasted only of the cooking fat used - seen in great, heavy globules in the watery broth populated by upside down chicken feet with dirty claws. How we actually survived the experience remains a mystery to me.

Best meal: hopefully in about an hour - in a pub where the food is so delicious that last time I ate here I was literally crying becuase I thought I wouldn't be back for three years. Huzzah! It's only three months later!
(baldybeardy, Mon 30 May 2011, 19:32, Reply)

I like to experiment
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Brussels sprouts in chocolate sauce - interesting, but ultimately unsatisfactory.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 30 May 2011, 17:45, 2 replies)

Baklava
Layers of sugar and butter and pastry that melt in the mouth. And they're only tiny so you end up eating loads of them before you know it nomnomnom

Also, the first Greggs sausage roll when I've been out of the UK for months on end. Always have to buy the 3 pack and always end up feeling like a sausage roll once I'm part way through the third one.

Worst thing? Mussels - they smell so nice but then they look like fannies and their evil little beards tickle my tonuge when I try to eat them...cringe. As my boyfriend pointed out, how can the Belgians call a bowl of fannies and a bucket servced with chips "cuisine"?
(placenta pug life, Mon 30 May 2011, 17:30, 6 replies)

Whole Chicken in a can?
No, this is worse!

gizmodo.com/5361955/welcome-to-the-meat-museum-where-sheeps-head-in-a-can-is-just-the-beginning
( Vambo, Mon 30 May 2011, 16:52, 1 reply)

Eggs
Female chickens, also known as hens, produce objects which are not dissimilar to prolate spheroids which tend to have one end larger than the other. This object usually has cylindrical symmetry along the long axis. The object is surrounded by a thin, hard shell; inside a yellow-coloured ‘vitellus’ is suspended in a white ‘albumen’ a spiral band of tissue known as chalazae. This object is commonly known as an ‘egg’. In many cases, these ‘eggs’ are edible.

Now, it has been scientifically proven that eggs are fucking brilliant, and I for one welcomed the conclusion and announcement of this research. I’ve been experimenting with these so-called ‘eggs’ and have found the following to be pleasant ways to prepare them for consumption:

Method 1
Fill a saucepan with water – enough to cover the egg. You will be immersing the egg into the water - but not just yet! Heat the water until it boils. Then add the egg to the boiling water. Leave it for approximately four minutes then remove from the cauldron so to speak. Place the egg into a small egg-sized cup, then use a small spoon – preferably one used for stirring tea (a stirring spoon I believe they are colloquially known as) to crack and remove a significant portion of the outer shell in order to access the albumen, or ‘white’. Once done, the ‘white’ can be consumed until the vitellus is arrived at. Also known as the ‘yolk’ this will be yellowy-orange in appearance and runny in texture. It will have a richer flavour than the ‘albumen’ (or ‘white’) and its flavour may be enhanced by the addition of salt. Some like to ‘dip’ lengths of toasted bread into the ‘yolk’. This practice is particularly prevalent in the British Armed Forces, especially amongst the ranks the land component of said military force.

Method 2
This requires a slightly longer preparation time, but requires the cracking of an egg or two into a glass bowl. Be sure not to allow any bits of shell to make their way into said bowl! Connoisseurs amongst you may wish to experiment with cracking the eggs only using one hand. Add a little milk to the egg mixture, season well – salt, pepper, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, et al can be added depending on the audacity of one’s palate. The mixture of said assortments should then be ‘whisked’ to combine the ingredients into a smoothish gelatinous ooze. This ‘ooze’, when added to a pan with a little oil should slowly start to solidify. Using a spatula-type instrument, break the newly-solidifying the egg-based until it takes on a ‘scrambled’ appearance. I quite like to serve the outcome of this so-called ‘scrambled’ egg on hot buttered toast. It can also accompany the various components of a Great British Breakfast-based repast, replete with various fried accoutrements.

There you have it – two ways to prepare ‘eggs’. I’m sure there are many more. I leave it to you to determine whether there are other means to enjoy one of Mother Nature’s greatest gifts...

Also, some interesting egg facts, pop-pickers:
• There is a band called The Lovely Eggs. I wonder what their favourite food is!
• Order Love Eggs at a restaurant and you’d get a funny look from the waiter! That’s because Love Eggs are a sex toy that you insert into the naughty bits (front or back) of your partner!
(SonoraAeroClub "OH SWEET HELEN OF BALLS!", Mon 30 May 2011, 16:32, 4 replies)

Burgers in a can
Back when I'd just moved to into the city at the age of 19, flat broke, the acquisition of food was a daily struggle. On a particularly flush day, with maybe £3 in my pocket, I stopped into a very unusual store that sold a wide range of foods that, to this day, I have never seen sold anywhere else. The prize I left with was a 1Kg tin of burgers.

I can't say that I know exactly what they had used to make these burgers, but I am a big fan of the lowest end of the meat spectrum (if it's mechanically reclaimed, then I'll devour it and ask for more), and even I struggled to consume but one of this heinous bastards. Pre-cooked, covered in jelly, with the texture of rubberised hamster food. There must have been about 20 of these things in the can. I attempted to eat about 3 and gave up. There was probably more nutrition in the label.
(mofoitk Vulcanising the whoopie stick in the ham wallet, Mon 30 May 2011, 16:26, 5 replies)

When we were little, my sister got a little battery-operated Kenwood-like mixer for her birthday.
It intrigued me, and so while she was out, I proceeded to go through the contents in the cupboard, and, well - mix them.

Orange juice, vinegar, salt, sugar, gelatin, tea, green food colouring - all of them and more went in. Quite the budding chef I was.

And obviously now I must taste my concoction.

Dear gods.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 30 May 2011, 15:54, 2 replies)

Mother in Law
We went round my in-laws' for Christmas dinner...

She roasted the turkey the day before (until it was dessicated) and left it in the lukewarm oven overnight.
She boiled the sprouts for over an hour until they went brown.
She cooked the stuffing balls and potatoes for two hours so they resembled geodes.
She baked the parsnips until they looked like bits of driftwood.

All elements were served cold or lukewarm, drowned in a pint of thin gravy. I personally don't like gravy, so I gagged through the main course. I looked forward to dessert because she was always talking about her wonderful Christmas puddings.

It was black, crunchy and chewy, and tasted both sour and bitter. She added some squirty cream which flattened to a thin puddle as soon as it touched the hot pudding. Everyone else seemed to think this was all fine, so I just went along with it.

I had the squits until the day after boxing day.
(Supermonkey, Mon 30 May 2011, 15:42, Reply)

Twas only a month or so ago
Me and a few of the boys loaded the car with pc's and went our annual road trip from ireland to Reading to a friends house for drinking and nerding (I believe it may be technically known as a LAN Party). We got to Reading, unloaded, setup and made for the pub. Massive drinking, kebabs and gaming later we all passed out. Next morning I had a right banging head on me so I got up and went into the kitchen. Got a couple of painkillers and grabbed a carton of orange juice from the fridge to wash them down. Due to excessive tongue fur, i was on my third gulp of orange juice before I realised something had gone horribly wrong.

I spat what i hadn't swallowed (shhhhh, don't do it people, you're bigger than this) and looked at the carton. I had just consumed several mouthfuls of raw 'Liquid Scrambled Egg'.

Who the f*ck buys Liquid Scrambled Egg?? I mean scambled egg isn't exactly Heston Blumenthal showing off. It's egg...scrambled.

To make matters worse when I looked up from the carton, liquid egg drooling from my lips, one of the other guys in the group was stood in the doorway of the kitchen. He'd watched the disaster unfold. He was literally twitching with mirth the rest of the morning waiting for the others to get up so he could relay the story.

I accept that some people claim a raw egg is good for a hangover. It isn't good especially if you're originally expecting orange juice. For the record, a big fry and loads of beers later in the afternoon cured it much better!
( sneep used to date Freddie Starr's hamster, Mon 30 May 2011, 15:36, Reply)

Japan
Some of the best and worst food I've had was discovered while on holiday in Japan.

The best: Melon bread, iced green tea and red bean mochi. The worst: Some odd white goop served in a glass with breakfast. It looked just like greek yogurt, and it had an amber syrup drizzled over the top. I guessed that it was yogurt and honey, and took a big spoonful. It wasn't. It was some sort of savoury liquidised bean curd with sour jellied gravy on top. Bleeeeuuuurrgh.

I had a lucky escape though - having sushi one lunch time I saved the nicest looking piece for my husband. He was eager at first, but then gagged. He choked it down so as not to cause a scene. He later told me it was like eating hundreds of tiny chewy capsules filled with rancid pus. I think it was sea urchin. o_O
(Supermonkey, Mon 30 May 2011, 15:24, 4 replies)

Worst "pizza" ever
Being of Scottish origin I don't get surprised by unexpected local delicacies but this one absolutely caught me off-guard.

Instructions for making pizza
1) combine ingredients for base, form dough, cover and leave to prove
2) using fingertips gently form dough into a 12" round using a floured surface
3) gently simmer tomatoes, Italian herbs, red onion, to form a sauce according to traditional recipe
4) spread over base, scatter over mozzarella and other tasty ingredients
5) slide onto pizza stone and bake

Instructions for making pizza in the chip shop on the high street, Elgin
1) acquire Iceland's finest cheese and tomato pizza. Should resemble stained red bread for best results
2) fold in half
3) throw in deep fat fryer

Seriously, trying to peel apart the soggy, oily result looked, felt and smelt like peeling apart a teenage boy's discarded socks. Guess which one I'd rather put in my mouth...
( AWPS, Mon 30 May 2011, 15:18, 11 replies)

Back when I was about ten
I was lucky enough to go on a football training camp in France with a couple of mates and assorted kids from all over northern France. What could be better than spending a week kicking a footie around and generally mucking about away from parents' eyes? Well one thing that could have been better would have been not having boiled tongue served up for dinner. I have nothing against (insert obvious jokes here) tongue done well but this was a slab of grey brown furry Gallic hate on a plate with nothing but a glass of lukewarm 'orange' squash for company. In a room of about a hundred kids I didn't see one person do anything with the tongue except stroke the bristle back and forth with their knives.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Mon 30 May 2011, 15:14, 2 replies)

Fish tank water
In the days before efficient water siphons were cheaply available in home aquarist shops, it was normal to put a tube into the water and briefly suck the end to start the flow. Misjudging the timing by a fraction of a second would lead to a mouthful of faeces-filled stagnant water.

It doesn't taste even half as nice as it sounds...
(Supermonkey, Mon 30 May 2011, 15:02, 3 replies)

The best fish and chips
In the world is from a place called Zanres in Peterhead. The town is a complete shithole, populated by malevolent flocks of neds like shitspattering seagulls, squawking and mewling and trying to steal stuff, and cursed with a concrete monstrosity of a town square. But it is the biggest white fish port in Europe, and Zanres treats the fish with love. Great big fillets, big fat hunks of pearly white flesh, delicious batter, expertly fried chips, chunks of lemon, tangy malt vinegar. Magnificent!
(McChinaman banned, Mon 30 May 2011, 14:01, 9 replies)

Chilli non Carne
My brother invited me and my then Mrs over for a meal at his girlfriend's place.

His girlfriend was not exactly vegetarian, but didn't eat much meat and so he cooked a chilli without meat. The chilli was simply masses of onions, beans, water and tomato paste with a bit of chilli powder. No salt at all mean that the tomato paste was sticky, cloying and supremely bland even when in a chilli sauce.

We were hungry and ate some of the chilli and rice, but it was so horrible we couldn't stomach much.

All the onions and beans started work immediately and we were farting before we reached the bus stop! We slept very badly as we kept waking each other up with deafening trumps!
( Vambo, Mon 30 May 2011, 13:58, Reply)

Neither me nor eaten, but...
...my medium clever flatmate took the biscuit for a special drink back in the 90s.

On some warm, beautiful day in june he bought a pack of grapefruit juice. He even drank a glass of it. Yuck! The very thought makes me cringe.


The really nasty part was yet to come. After drinking a glass full of that acid, he put the container not into the fridge but on top of it.

The next day he threw away all his food except for the juice, grabbed all his few brains and his girlfriend and mounted a plane to australia. We had a particularly hot summer for 6 weeks and all was very peaceful. We enjoyed ourselves as never before since that dick was as far away as possible.
Even the juice on top of the fridge relaxed in the heat; certainly somebody would have thrown it away if it had moved or spoken to us. Which it didn't.

He returned on one of the last hot days of august. When entering the flat, he was very busy bragging about his heavy luggage, the heat and his thirst. Oh yeah damn, he had thrown away all his food instead of offering it to his flatmates.
But wait! What's that on top of the fridge? "Oh right! MY GRAPEFRUIT JUICE!" exclaimed he and took it from the fridge.
So he remembered it. He couldn't seriously think about drinking it? He could. Directly from the container. He lifted it to his dried-up lips awaiting refreshment - but it didn't pour. What was he thinking when the "juice" refused to leave its tetrapak home?
Apparently nothing. Some evil demon in him told him NOT TO SURRENDER SO CLOSE TO HIS AIM.

So he pushed the container. Still no juice. Still with the nozzle on his lips, he pushed harder until THE SUBSTANCE came out. It wasn't really liquid any more; this could clearly be seen when he spat it on the kitchen floor, surrounded by a cloud of mould. That taught him!
(timbolator successfully hiding from the authorities on, Mon 30 May 2011, 13:43, Reply)

I'm currently in Japan,
I think the worst thing I have found so far is fish flavoured cheese strings.
( Bamboo Steamer, Mon 30 May 2011, 13:33, 4 replies)

Drugs and animal cruelty
We were young and someone had a parent free house for a weekend . We were also exploring the wonderful world of hashish and were making pipes out of coke cans , doing hot knives , buckets etc . All fine until some plank decides to give the family dog a few blowbacks ' just to see what happens ' . Well what happens is the dog looks a bit confused and goes to sleep , then wakes up with the munchies after we've all passed out , manages to get the door open and eat the entire contents of the fridge and then vomit and shit all over the kitchen and living room . A lesson learnt , no breakfast and a sharp exit for us wee stoners
( horace wimp needs more than 49 characters to fully express hi, Mon 30 May 2011, 13:31, Reply)