This story is from a flatmateso it's probably made up. Funny though. Here we go.
When I was a first year student, I was in a hall of residence with one kitchen per floor. Ours had a nice formica tabletop with a large pan shaped burn mark on one part. I asked someone who had been there the previous year where the mark came from, and this is the story he told.
For some reason, a group of them had bought some fish fillets and planned to cook and eat them. They all hated fish on its own, and they didn't have any oil to fry it with, so they decided to breadcrumb it.
Now breadcrumbs might sound like a simple thing to make, but not for these guys. They tried chopping up slices of bread into tiny pieces, then sticking the bits onto the fish with butter. It just looked like a slab of greasy lard with fluff on it. They put a slice of bread in the food processor, but that just manufactured huge chunks. They tried trimming the crusts, then balling up the soft bit into a solid chunk, then putting that in the food processor. That just made small, extra dense, chunks. Some bright spark hit on the idea of the bread needing to be dry before cutting it up.
Out came the toaster. They put a couple of slices of bread in, but to make the toast really crunchy and brittle, they had to pretty much burn it. They smashed up a slice of diamond hard toast, scraped off the fluff bread from the fish fillets, reapplied some more butter, then sprinkled them on. The bits were still too big, so they were just about to scrape them off again when someone suggested they use the bits from the crumb tray of the toaster! What a genius!
The toaster crumb tray was just a trough that slid out freely whenever you wanted to empty it, but since this was a communal kitchen, nobody ever did. There were at least 8 months of toast crumbs in there, which should still be fresh 'since food doesn't rot if there's no water in it', they reasoned. More than enough. They shook off the fillets, added some more butter, and sprinkled toast crumbs on to their hearts content.
Meanwhile, other people had been entering the kitchen to attend to their meals. The cooker was big (6 hobs), so there were already 2 saucepans from other residents. Our heroes put the fillets in the oven and went into the adjoining common room for a rest. After not long, they were hungry, so they took the fish out and stuck it on plates. One of them tried a mouthful to see if it was cooked. We'll probably never know if it was, or even what it tasted like, since at that moment, a guy standing at the stove said: 'Er, did you clean out the toaster?'
'Mmm-mmmm' said the fish tester.
'Oh, that's good, 'cause I was using the ash tray bit last night.'
The fish tester paused and held totally still. One of the three fish cookers said something like 'You used the crumb tray as an ash tray? And put it back?'
Response: 'Yeah, they don't put any ash trays in here. I was going to clean it out, but the bins were full and the sink was a mess. I just put it back in the toaster. I was going to clean it out myself. Sorry.'
He picked up his saucepan of pasta and moved it off the flame. At that instant, the fish tester explosively spat out the fish and immediately vomited; half over the smoker's arm, half over the naked flame of the burner, and another half down the front of the (still open) cooker. The smoker dropped his saucepan on the table (this, btw, was the cause of the burn mark) and started screaming. Everybody in the common room peered in and burst out laughing at the sick-covered people and equipment, the guy panting on the floor, and the smell of cooking vomit.
The weekly cleaners had visited that very day, and nobody wanted to clean up the mess, so the kitchen stayed like that, rotting fish-ash-hurl everywhere, for at least 7 days. The hall was catered during the week, so people just ate out at the weekend. Everyone on the floor was made to pay £5 when the regular cleaners refused to touch it and they had to call in external people.
(,
Wed 8 Oct 2003, 19:01,
archived)
When I was a first year student, I was in a hall of residence with one kitchen per floor. Ours had a nice formica tabletop with a large pan shaped burn mark on one part. I asked someone who had been there the previous year where the mark came from, and this is the story he told.
For some reason, a group of them had bought some fish fillets and planned to cook and eat them. They all hated fish on its own, and they didn't have any oil to fry it with, so they decided to breadcrumb it.
Now breadcrumbs might sound like a simple thing to make, but not for these guys. They tried chopping up slices of bread into tiny pieces, then sticking the bits onto the fish with butter. It just looked like a slab of greasy lard with fluff on it. They put a slice of bread in the food processor, but that just manufactured huge chunks. They tried trimming the crusts, then balling up the soft bit into a solid chunk, then putting that in the food processor. That just made small, extra dense, chunks. Some bright spark hit on the idea of the bread needing to be dry before cutting it up.
Out came the toaster. They put a couple of slices of bread in, but to make the toast really crunchy and brittle, they had to pretty much burn it. They smashed up a slice of diamond hard toast, scraped off the fluff bread from the fish fillets, reapplied some more butter, then sprinkled them on. The bits were still too big, so they were just about to scrape them off again when someone suggested they use the bits from the crumb tray of the toaster! What a genius!
The toaster crumb tray was just a trough that slid out freely whenever you wanted to empty it, but since this was a communal kitchen, nobody ever did. There were at least 8 months of toast crumbs in there, which should still be fresh 'since food doesn't rot if there's no water in it', they reasoned. More than enough. They shook off the fillets, added some more butter, and sprinkled toast crumbs on to their hearts content.
Meanwhile, other people had been entering the kitchen to attend to their meals. The cooker was big (6 hobs), so there were already 2 saucepans from other residents. Our heroes put the fillets in the oven and went into the adjoining common room for a rest. After not long, they were hungry, so they took the fish out and stuck it on plates. One of them tried a mouthful to see if it was cooked. We'll probably never know if it was, or even what it tasted like, since at that moment, a guy standing at the stove said: 'Er, did you clean out the toaster?'
'Mmm-mmmm' said the fish tester.
'Oh, that's good, 'cause I was using the ash tray bit last night.'
The fish tester paused and held totally still. One of the three fish cookers said something like 'You used the crumb tray as an ash tray? And put it back?'
Response: 'Yeah, they don't put any ash trays in here. I was going to clean it out, but the bins were full and the sink was a mess. I just put it back in the toaster. I was going to clean it out myself. Sorry.'
He picked up his saucepan of pasta and moved it off the flame. At that instant, the fish tester explosively spat out the fish and immediately vomited; half over the smoker's arm, half over the naked flame of the burner, and another half down the front of the (still open) cooker. The smoker dropped his saucepan on the table (this, btw, was the cause of the burn mark) and started screaming. Everybody in the common room peered in and burst out laughing at the sick-covered people and equipment, the guy panting on the floor, and the smell of cooking vomit.
The weekly cleaners had visited that very day, and nobody wanted to clean up the mess, so the kitchen stayed like that, rotting fish-ash-hurl everywhere, for at least 7 days. The hall was catered during the week, so people just ate out at the weekend. Everyone on the floor was made to pay £5 when the regular cleaners refused to touch it and they had to call in external people.
