Bacon.
Since I got released from my anorexia class, I've been eating 1lb bacon every few days. Bacon butties, chicken wrapped in bacon, bacon cheeseburgers.

BACON! Oh, and SmashMonkey gave me the best recipe for bacon n peanut butter sandwiches!
(nolongernuts, Thu 2 Jun 2011, 1:08, 11 replies)

I remember my best and worst to have been at roughly the same time.
Work had taken me off to a quirky (at least in my eyes) town in the North-West; in fact my time there would fill a QOTW but I'll stick to the subject of food for this one.

Having travelled a lot I have eaten at all manner of restaurants and sampled local delicacy but this place was something else. Comfort foods were their specialty and they knew how to do it. I had perfect breakfasts kicking off the day with bacon super crispy and a turkey sandwich with mayo for lunch. The real killer though were their desserts, sublime fruit pies which were like you would nostalgically imagine mother used to make.

The worst thing I tasted there was a cup of coffee given to my colleague and I whilst visiting the numpty foreman of a local factory. No sooner had we each taken a gulp than he rushed in shouting "Don't drink that coffee! You'd never guess. There was a fish... in the percolator!"
( Pig Bodine., Thu 2 Jun 2011, 0:24, 5 replies)

I'm liking how my name & Ring Of Fire's
are coming into their own for some of this weeks tales. :o
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Wed 1 Jun 2011, 23:58, Reply)

The best.
Black pudding and ricotta pizza, many years ago after a Squarepusher gig. Then many years later I done a victory fist-pump, after seeing the very same combination in a local pizzeria/bier hall.

Pineapple cheese smothered oatcake and chicken tikka samosa 'sandwich'. Well, they were the same shape and size and fucking hell they were good.

The first time I tried pistachios, coming down off shrooms, unbelievable. I had to be lured away from the packet with olives.

Fish finger sandwiches, the food of kings. Lots of vinegar, butter and tomato sauce. Cheap, filling and tasty...what else can you ask of a snack?
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 23:32, 3 replies)

My parents love one of my food stories
Apparently when I was 5 I worked my way around my school chums' lunchboxes, including one containing a tuna mayo sandwich that belonged to a child that had been on holiday for a few days already.

No, no, I didn't get food poisoning. I shat myself. Don't you feel silly now?
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 23:07, 1 reply)

its gotta be
Spare ribs in sauce. Ketchup, brown sauce, aubergine, onion, green pepper, red pepper, a good few tablespoons encona hot pepper sauce. marinade the night before slow cooking for 4 - 5 hours and grill the top, serve with rice and sweetcorn.

I had this dish religiously every fortnight as a kid with my parents adding more and more pepper sauce whilst denying they had.... No its not hot - yes it was you fuckers. Loved it anyways.

Worst thing I have ever eaten - stem ginger - I instantly puked, how on earth anyone can eat that?
( sutit only the crumbliest, flakiest posts, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 22:11, 1 reply)

Orecchiette alla crudaiola di rucola
La signoratumbleweed makes a mean one of these. Pasta shaped like little ears (hence the name), little toms, rocket (works with basil, too), raw garlic, buffalo mozzarella, olive oil.

I remain partial to a good steak, and the most memorable one was at Ulladulla RSL in 1986, mainly because my father had ordered scampi and wasn't expecting the whole fucking animal and a fingerbowl.

A proper Cornish pasty is hard to beat.

Worst thing? There was once a pork spare rib my mum cooked in 1980. I put it in my mouth, but stopped, thinking it was too big for good table manners. As I pulled it out again, an approximate shitload of maggots came wriggling out of it. The fuckers had survived freezing and cooking. We had a pizza delivered about half an hour later. (OK, I didn't actually eat it, so this prize must go to KLM for their "western vegetarian" option.)
(barbedwiretumbleweed Fast 'n' Bulbous!, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 21:50, 1 reply)

Worst food I have ever eaten.
Tripe. It smells as bad as it tastes.
(Woofie, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 21:39, Reply)

Raw chicken
During a three month business trip to Japan I managed to get down the following:

1) Raw chicken. Really hard to make yourself put it in your mouth, but the texture is quite nice.

2) Eel heads on a stick. You crunch them up and swallow the gooey brains and other juicy bits. When you’re left with nothing but bone you spit the leftovers into a drain on the floor. Taste isn’t too bad, but it’s tough to display civilised table manners.

3) Cod sperm sushi. Easily the worst. You have a small bit of rice, held together with a bit of seaweed, topped with 5-10 individual sacks of sushi-chef-hand-warmed cod sperm sacks. God knows how this can be classed as food; quite likely it is something that is reserved for drunken Johnny foreigners. Still, at least I know for a fact that even if I wanted to I couldn’t be in the gayers.

Also, I’m assuming that everyone else is posting on their second favourite foods?
Surely chicken and mushroom Pukka pies are the best food stuff ever invented.
(Digstar fu#king loves biscuits, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 20:34, 2 replies)

Sausages and Cheese
My favourites are mostly sausage based (oo-er, etc.). Sausages with runny egg yolk are delicious, but my Mum's toad-in-the-hole has to be one of the best things ever.

Cheese, on the other hand, is evil. Except for cheese that doesn't actually smell of cheese (melted mozzarella, for example), cheese is the work of Beelzebub himself and all his little wizards, and should be sealed in stainless steel barrels, encased in concrete, and entombed at the bottom of a mineshaft somewhere in Arizona.

Oh, and whelks.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 20:08, 5 replies)

The Munchy Box
Yes, I wrote that blog post about The Munchy Box. It doesn't count as the worst thing I've ever eaten, but it's inevitable that it will get a mention here. Don't believe anyone that says they're terrible as they're just guessing; Anyone that has eaten one will attest to its majesty.

Yum!
(jaredearle There is no spork., Wed 1 Jun 2011, 19:13, 3 replies)

Calamari
I was in Croatia last week and sat down in the hotel restaurant for one of their set lunch time meals.
What they brought out could only be described as aborted fetus on a plate.

I've tried battered Calamari before and it was lovely. I'm not a fussy eater by a long shot nor do I get queazy easily. Normally I'll scarf down anything that's put in front of me. This abomination of a meal made me wretch though.
It smelt like soil, was boiled, looked hideous and really made me want to vomit looking at it. It's the first time I've ever had to cover up a meal with my napkin just so it stopped looking at me. The fairly hot Serbian girl I was eating with became increasingly unattractive as she guzzled down each mouthful.

In true English style, I skipped out and went to McDonalds instead.

EDIT: For best, I'd have to say Venison. I tried it for the first time last month. Freshly killed and cooked. Why have I wasted my life on other meats?
( Terry_Tibbs Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 18:50, 2 replies)

Meat
How can you eat your pudding if you waont eat your meat?
(kitescreech still here, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 18:41, 6 replies)

Maybe not the worst, but the stupidest.
At a bus stop in Hungary, starving hungry, I opened the tub of cream cheese I'd just bought, drew up a MASSIVE blob of it onto a cracker and stuffed the lot in my mouth, followed quickly by another helping.

A couple of nearby Magyars gave me curious glances as I gulped down my al fresco snack. They had noticed before I did that what I was actually scarfing was not delicious cream cheese but margarine.

Think I went a bit green. Certainly didn't enjoy the bus journey, what with the retching and the sniggering Hungarians.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 17:42, Reply)

Dunno about the best thing I've ever eaten
but I do know what one of the best things is that I make: puerco pibil.

youtu.be/gO8EiScBEjA
www.imcooked.com/view_video.php?viewkey=513edcf5533cf006dfea

(in case one link doesn't work)

I have changed his recipe slightly- I reduced the temperature to 275F, put in about a cup of tequila and use chipotle instead of habaneros, which gives it a smokier flavor. Also I prefer to use pork loin over pork butt as it's leaner- if you use pork butt make sure that you siphon off the layer of fat from the top before serving it. I got about two cups of fat out that way the last time I did this.

The first time I made this was on a Saturday when I was bored. I wrote out the recipe, went out shopping for the ingredients, put it together as directed and let it cook. When my wife came home she sniffed and said, "What the hell is that? It smells amazing!"

"Puerco pibil," I replied. "I just took it out of the oven. I have no idea how it's supposed to taste, so be forewarned."

She opened up the pan, speared out a chunk, popped it in her mouth and her eyes lit up. "Oh my god, this may be the best thing you've ever fed me!"

When my sons discovered it, the remaining four pounds or so of it vanished overnight.

Rodriguez is kinda hit-or-miss on his films, but he's one hell of a cook.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 1 Jun 2011, 17:41, 8 replies)

Beetroot patties.
Grated beetroot and grated Emmentaler mixed to a dough and fried in hell. Some tzatziki with it and i've had my monthly amount of fat and yummy in half an hour! I was told this was british? True or not?

The day after having this for the first time, on the bog, i was sure i was dying. Internal bleeding and stuff...
(timbolator successfully hiding from the authorities on, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 17:41, Reply)

The best....
My Dad's Yorkshire puddings were the finest in the land. They rose up so high we had to warn RAF Brize Norton not to do any low level flying that day. And they all had that perfect little hole in the top where the gravy could get in.

His gravy. I honestly think his Roast Beef gravy was amazing. Miss you, Dad. Especially on Sundays.

Some little lamb chops from a restaurant called Le Petit Nice in Marseille (part of their 10 course taster menu) were the tenderest morsels of exquisitely sweet young lamb you could possibly imagine. They had the world's best cheeseboard too. Every single cheese you could ever want on a trolley that had four fucking tiers of cheese..

A veal chop in a backstreet place in Milan at the time Beef on the bone was still banned in the UK.

A Gyros pitta from the Schnellimbiss opposite the Claas factory in Harsewinkel. Bears no relation to a UK Kebab but tastes awesome. Likewise a Bratwurst eaten hot with Senf at a Schutzenfest in Gutersloh.

My shepherd's pie is better than the Ivy's. FACT.

Poulet de Bresse eaten at a motorway services in Northern France. How the fuck the French do such fabulous motorway food I don't know.

The worst..
Haggis drier than a sawdust-packed minge at a Burns' Night the RAF ran in Germany. Is it supposed to have no gravy?

Sprouts. The Devil's work. I had a flatmate who would eat a whole bowl full covered in Mayonnaise. Fucks sake.

Whale blubber in Tokyo. Like eating a pencil eraser crossed with a blob of lard and impossible to swallow.

Paternal Grandma's ANYTHING she cooked. She was like the Mum from Butterflies.. fucks sake. Cabbage and potatoes put on for the Sunday dinner before going to church. Yorkshires that sucked the water from the cabbage up and resembled uncooked dumplings. Miss you, Ivy, but I hope Granddad's second wife is cooking for him up in Heaven as your cuisine belongs somewhere far hotter.

I would never eat anything made from something rotten so can't comment on Swedish fayre..
( Sallyrsm, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 17:12, 3 replies)

bananas
the previous fruit-themed stories have reinded me of something quite horrible. this is probably a pea, but my memory is terrible at times.

many years ago, a much younger Smash went on a school outing to chester zoo. i had my little packed lunch, but i couldn't tell you what was in it. there is actually very little i remember from that day, except for about 20 minutes that have burned themselves into my memory forever.

walking around, looking at the animals(as one does in a zoo), with my mate jamie and his mum, who was there as a parent supervisor. we stopped to look at the monkeys, who were in the middle of eating their lunch.
the monkeys didn't like being watched.
one particularly evil little bastard reached a paw up to its mouth and extracted a large lump of slimy, viscous, half-chewed banana, which it then threw at us.
it hit me right in the face. some of it went into my mouth.
after 5 minutes of vomiting and a further 10 minutes of retching, i was led to a bench, where i sat sobbing my little heart out. it truly was horrific.
this is why, even now, the mere smell of bananas makes me nauseous.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 16:39, 5 replies)

Massive baps
I went surfing with some friends. I say surfing, they surfed, I on the other hand had several near death drowning experiences accompanied by a surf board. But all in all fun was had and we returned to the car, changed, and went in search of food and by a consensus of opinion a bacon & egg roll was the only thing we desired.

We found a sandwich bar with a sign proclaiming "Local free range bacon". So two surfer dudes and one near drowned fatty entered the nice little shop and ordered 3 bacon & egg rolls. Just after he took the order the chap behind the counter took a call cradled the phone to his ear and proceeded to load shed loads of thick rashers of bacon onto the hot plate. We assumed that the call must be for another bacon order because normally 3 slices of bacon at best is what you expect. But we were wrong, the bacon crisped up without shrinking (always a good sign) and about 6 rashers each were loaded into massive baps topped by a perfectly cooked egg and the sauces of our choice.

I have eaten at 2& 3 star Michelin restaurants but the combination of being ravenously hungry after some exercise, sea air, and bloody good fried pig make it hands down the finest thing I have ever eaten
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 16:39, Reply)

My post below has got me thinking about white bread
Stuff what is magic on cheapo, white bread:
sausage and black pudding, with red and brown sauce
pot noodle - preferably curry flavour
Asda beans and mini-sausages, with a good teaspoon of hot curry powder chucked in
ham, mustard and salt and vinegar crisps
spaghetti bolognaise
chips from the chippy, preferabbly with curry sauce
sausage and onion gravy
fish fingers and salad cream

You can keep your fois gras, give me a loaf of white bread and a selection of unhealthy fillings...
(ScousersPet, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 16:04, 3 replies)

Today
I am having my first go at making pasta from raw ingredients - this could prove to be the worst or the best.....
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 16:03, 10 replies)

Ice cream
One hungover morning, I opened the fridge to see before me the most delicious looking lemon sorbet you've ever seen; a whole ice cream tub of it, full to the brim! I rummaged in the cupboard to find a very old packet of ice cream cones, grabbed the ice cream scoop, and salivating profusely, scooped up two big scoops of sorbet, sticking them on top of the cone. It was a sculpture of glory; a glistening tower of divine ice cream medicine which would surely cure my aweful hangover.

It was only as I took my first, huge bite of the ice cream that a terrible realisation struck me.

Ice cream belongs in a freezer, not a fridge.

Two words: Goose, fat.
(onelegout, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 16:02, Reply)

Butter
When I was younger, a good mate of mine lived with his slightly demented nan. When i'd go over to play on his C64, she'd always insist on making us food, no matter what time of day it was. What she would normally make was ham butties and I only ever ate them once. The butties in question would consist of one, thin slice of ham, two slices of thin white bread and enough butter to more than double the thickness of the sandwhich.

like I said, i once and once only ate one and I couldn't face butter on bread for about 20 years afterwards. Have only just started pputting the merest scraping of it on my bread these days...
(ScousersPet, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 15:54, Reply)

The English Channel
The full English breakfast I had was average. The scuba dive in choppy water was excellent. After the dive, waiting for the boat to pick us up I was chatting to my buddy when a wave washed over my head. Swallowing a large mouthful of sea water was not pleasant.
Breakfast stayed down for about 2.5 seconds.
Retching to the point of trying to puke up a testicle after 30 minutes of being sick still didn't take the taste of seawater out of my mouth.
Next morning’s breakfast was left untouched. It might have been the best thing I'd ever tasted, it could have been the worst, we'll never know for sure.
( TitanLX, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 15:32, 2 replies)

My gran's cooking.
From what I've been told by my mum, my gran was a great cook when she was younger, and I have no reason to doubt that. However, in the 8 short years that I was around before she died (I guess about 4-5 of those I remember), she managed to cook up some horrendous things.

Usually this was just down to over-salting. A combination of heavy smoking dulling the palette, and increasing forgetfulness saw the salt ratio of almost everything increase. The most notable were the roast potatoes, which had so much salt on them they'd developed crystals in the oven.

But that was nothing compared to the monstrosity she cooked my dad one day when we went round for food. On learning that he liked steak and kidney pudding, she decided to make him a special dinner. Now, I'm not sure exactly what she did wrong, but either the kidneys weren't washed properly or were getting a little old or something, but dear God...you have not smelt the depths of Hell until you catch a whiff of that pie. She lifted the lid of the pan where it had been steaming for a few hours, and some kind of putrid ammonia compound was released from the untreated piss filters, filling the house. It smelt like nothing I'd ever smelt before...like a thousand nappies thrown on a bonfire or a singed dog.

Thankfully, no-one had to eat it...which doesn't really answer the question...but meh.
( guffguff fuckes your gradeds balls!, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 15:19, 1 reply)

Fish
Not fishcakes, as they're mainly mashed potato, I mean actual whole, dead fish. They stink. Their cold, dead eyes stare at you. They are full of food poisoning bacteria that fridges don't slow down, on account of being cold blooded.

Walking past fish stalls at markets makes me retch. The stink. Oh, the stink.
(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 15:12, 5 replies)

Yesterday's jalepeños.
They were good in the fajitas last night but the mayo took the edge off them.

Today they are the worst thing I've eaten. There's a reason the jar says "hot" all over it and the lid. Holy fucking shit on a stick they're hot.
(ThatNiceMan thought he was being funny, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 15:04, 18 replies)

I've just reminded myself...
When I was younger, I used to get a few tubs of play-doh, usually a blue, possibly a red if I was feeling risqué, hide behind the curtains in the hallway and stuff as much into my gob as possible before I was rumbled.

Something in the combination of digesting brightly coloured modelling clay and the stress of my guerilla eating habits played havoc with my bowels, however.

The look of supreme disappointment on my mother's face as she drew back the twitching curtains to reveal my ridiculous, grinning, blue face still haunts me.

Made for some very interesting poos, though.
( SigmaX0 Dear Die Hard. You rock!, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 14:42, 2 replies)

Fruit is evil.
I hate the texture and the smell of most fruits. I can manage fresh apples OK (green, not red) and some fruit juices (fresh orange, for example), but in general being in close proximity to a piece of pineapple is enough to make me retch. The smell of strawberries also gives me a headache. I am the best person in the world to take strawberry picking because my berry to punnet ratio is a straight 1:1. However, I am also a bloody nightmare on the car journey back, hence I now do not indulge in this pastime anymore.

This stems, I think, from being in the dining hall at first school and not being allowed to leave until I'd eaten all of my dessert, which happened to be a fruit salad. As I sat and stared balefully at the multicoloured pool of gloop swimming in the bowl, the teacher on duty made encouraging nomming movements with his hand. My response was to shake my head; I really didn't like the look of the stuff. So he made the same hand gesture, subtly indicating his mastery over me and general "You ain't going anywhere until you've finished your pudding, bucko" attitude.

Sensing defeat, I duly began to shovel the nauseating concoction down my throat, trying desperately not to gag on the taste and texture of the vile chunks of pineapple and peach and orange and God knows what else was in it. Teacher had gone back to join his colleagues at their table, happy in his victory and general sense of having bested a five year old.

As the last mouthful went down, I got up to leave the dining hall and go and join my friends in the playground. Not entirely unexpectedly, my stomach decided at that point that it didn't appreciate having itself filled with something so abhorrent. Unfortunately for the teachers, it also chose the exact moment that I walked/half ran past their table to forcibly eject its contents all over the floor with an almighty "BLAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!" Some of it may have got on their shoes. It's a miracle none of it got on the back of their heads...

And that's why I don't like fruit.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Wed 1 Jun 2011, 14:11, 5 replies)

Mushy pea toasties
I invented these during my student years. Now I know what you're thinking. But have faith.

Use wholemeal bread, the cheapest, nastiest mushy peas you can find, and a touch of curry powder and pepper. They'll come out of the machine hotter than a thousand suns but give them five minutes cooling time and you'll end up with a surprisingly palatable, quick snack that tastes about a gazillion times better than the sum of its parts.

That said, I can't see it getting on the menu at the Fat Duck anytime soon, but if it does I'll sue Heston for everything down to the bottle-bottom glasses he straps across his weirdly-fat face.
(rampants, Wed 1 Jun 2011, 14:04, 6 replies)