I was hungover at a friend's house
and for breakfast/lunch (brunch if you will) we had to decide who got the baconesque flavour Super Noodles, and who the tin of Heinz Tomato Soup. The logical choice ended up cooking the two separately then combining. Superb.

Did I say superb? I meant a bit rank.
( M3rx likes the Asian ladies, Fri 27 May 2011, 12:13, Reply)

Joe Scaramanga has reminded me:
Six pork pies and several cans of Red Bull over the course of 24 hours is the only way to do your dissertation if you want to guarantee successful failure that includes as part of the route having to use a calculator to divide 3000 by 10, at six o'clock in the morning.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 27 May 2011, 12:09, 3 replies)

Full english breakfast in a can
As a student, a full english breakfast in a can on four slices of toast was tip of the tops. I felt like a king.

As a 35 year old, it just makes me cry...
( Joe Scaramanga with a G-double-O-D vibration, Fri 27 May 2011, 11:58, 8 replies)

this QOTW reminds me of the Sean Lock routine
in which he stated in a quite offhand way that if he had to, he'd suck a cock without worrying too much about it. His logic being 'Compared to some of the meat pies I've eaten at football matches, a cock would be a treat'.

I concur. I'm not a fan of steak and kidney but if there's no steak and onion left then I'll just pick out the kidney. However when you get a bit of kidney that still has tubes attached to it you suddenly lose the desire to eat any more of the pie. Since then my pie motto has been 'Ureter? No-eater'.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 27 May 2011, 11:48, 4 replies)

Everything I ate
in Cyprus.

Even bearing in mind that I was staying in Paphos, which is like the scene described in that Monty Python sketch about Watney's Red Barrel, only worse. And with more fish and chip restaurants that get three stars from the Sun.
Fortunately, there are still a couple of places that sell the kind of food you can't get down your local pub, so we went to them instead. I think the crowning achievement was getting me to eat raw tomatoes. I hate raw tomatoes. In a flatbread sammich with halloumi, salami, feta, olives, ham, what have you...mmmm, Mediterranean food. Eaten on the balcony in the ridiculous sunshine too...even better. And to top it all off, the night before we left I had the most amazing charred spiced bloody-centred steak.*

For some reason I put on a shitload of weight there, too. I blame the halloumi. Low fat my arse (which wasn't, at the end).



* Steak seems to be a popular answer, doesn't it? Take note, veggies!
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Fri 27 May 2011, 11:39, 4 replies)

Best thing ever eaten
Was a ten course meal bought for me by my host when I went out for a conference in Japan. I ate every last mouthful and it was all fantastic. We all had a private room, afterwards I asked my translater/guide if this was a traditional Japanese meal and was told "No this is were the VIPs go to eat" which made me feel 100 feet tall driving a massive honda accord. A picture of every course in replies! Have a look!
( Peej, Fri 27 May 2011, 11:35, 8 replies)

Best/Worst
Best - Most meals my Dad cooks. He's bloody awesome, cheers Dad. He makes the most incredible Christmas lunch for a family of four though - Gluttony being the keyword. One year was a whole duck, massive cut of belly of pork, a whole salmon, a ham hock, all cooked to perfection, sprouts with chessnuts and crispy bacon and seeds, roast potatoes cooked in duck/goose fat, 3 kinds of stuffing, a load more lovely veg. And the gravy to end all conversation. All with loads of brilliant red wine and my family getting drunk and talking shit, listening to everything from Lee Scratch Perry to QOTSA. Looking forward to it again this year.

Worst - I tried fried chicken feet in a chinese restaurant to see what it was like. Rubbery shit is what it's like. Never again.
(Pat_Gash, Fri 27 May 2011, 11:24, Reply)

On your own fire
Tonight I'm going camping. And taking a shitload of beer, meat, and spices.

I'll build a fire from scratch, pull a couple of large flat, smooth stones out of the river, sit them next to the fire until the flames subside and leave the roasting embers.

Then I'm going butter up a whole chicken (about £3 out of Tesco), cover it in garlic and assorted spices, then ram a half-drunk can of beer up it and stand it on one of the stones by the fire. The beer steams the chicken from the inside while the fire crispens up the skin.

On the other stone I'm going to splash a bit of beer for lubrication, then lay a steak on it with a wee bit of Cajun seasoning. The heated stone will cook it in no time, while the beer and Cajun flavouring is the absolute moneyshot.

As always, it'll be the best steak, and the juiciest chicken I've ever eaten.

The satisfaction of having built your own fire and cooked such fine cuisine on it is immense. And the flavour is second to none.

Having just read all that back to myself, I know what you're thinking. And yes, I have just made myself very hungry, and slightly aroused.

EDIT: I'll post some pix of the food on Monday, and I promise my genitals will not feature in any photographs
(Barry Subchimp, Fri 27 May 2011, 11:18, 14 replies)

Worst meal?....
In a friends house in a small village in Greece for Easter. After roasting the whole Lamb on a BBQ it's time to sit down to eat. Good company, lots of shit Greek wine and a nice cut of meat on my plate. I take a bite, oh god it's so juicy and sweet it's melting in my mouth. My friend then informs me "Bababoon you know the lamb that was in the field yesterday that you were squealing over and petting..."
They even ate the head the fucking barbarians.
My tomatoes and tzatziki was quite enough actually.
:(
(Bababoon, Fri 27 May 2011, 11:13, 12 replies)

Cowpats
My dear uncle's friend and his mate awoke one morning after an ultimate bender to find themselves under a tree in a cow paddock. Dear friend wipes away a gobbet of sleep, scrapes the dried drool of his face and comments how good that burger was the night before. Mate argues that there was no burger. Dear friend gets up to stagger home and realises that he had been lying on a very small, but well bitten cow pat.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Fri 27 May 2011, 11:10, Reply)

Everyone has one friend
Who is a walking disaster area. Mine was called Andy, and I met him at Univeristy.

I could tell you a lot of stories about Andy - in fact I'm pretty sure I have in the past. Before becoming a student Andy had worked as a professional chef and he was a pretty damn good cook. Shame he couldn't do anything else to save his life, but there you go.

One weekend, I realised I hadn't seen him for a few days so I popped round to his flat. I found him lying on the sofa, looking ill so I asked him what the matter was. It transpired that having no financial sense at all he'd spent all his money on drink and drugs and had literally nothing left to spend on food. He hadn't eaten much for several days and was starting to feel the first effects of malnutrition.

I took pity on him, gave him ten pounds and told him to go and get himself something to eat. I cannot recall now why my largesse didn't extend to going and getting it for him, but I left him to it, pleased with my good deed, and went on my way.

I re-visited him later that day to the delicious smell of frying garlic. And when I got up into his kitchen I discovered that it was a complete wreck, filled with filthy dishes and encrusted pans. He'd spent all the money - every penny - on a pack of butter, some garlic, and some fresh baby squid and was frying them by coating an electric ring in butter, throwing on the garlic and the squid and turning them with his fingers.

I was very angry. I had assumed he might have stocked up on cheap bread and cheese, but no, he'd blown the lot on one gourmet meal without even having the equipment to cook it properly.

The anger abated when I discovered how delicious the squid were though.
(MattDP (Squiggle), Fri 27 May 2011, 11:03, Reply)

Spider story
Flicking through radio stations, I was uncomfortably drawn to a caller segment for huntsman (tarantula-like spider) stories. The aural nightmare began with a sunny setting of an outdoors picnic between loving couple. The mounting tension built with every mouth watering description of yummy nums that was to tempt our young lovers over the course of a lazy afternoon. My gag reflexes kicked in, not with the image of a seductive hand drawing the slimmest wafer topped with an aromatic brie to her waiting lips, but at the point where she described biting down on a huntsman that had dropped from the tree onto her cheese and bikky.

She said ten years later she still feels the hairs of the spider legs against the roof of her mouth and the shock of the unexpected crunch of spider gizzardy bits.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:53, 2 replies)

Lapin
Best:
right a bit of qualification on this one, though it is going to sound a little "Honda Accord"-esque, our little group of friends like a good meal. Like a really good meal. We "collect stars" in that we eat in as many Michelin starred restaurants as we can. We've also eaten at El Bulli and Noma. So some pretty nice places.
However, the best single course I've had anywhere in the world was in a tiny, familly-run restauramnt in a back-street in Nice - unlike everywhere else we ate while we were there, this place clearly did not cater for tourists, since the menu was entirely in French. I ordered the rabbit, which came pretty much whole and was simply roast in butter, served with it's offal (the kidneys were somehow still attached). It was amazing, just utterly amazing. My mouth is watering just thinking about it...

Worst
Chicken wings. I love chicken wings. BBQ, spicy, "Chinese", however they come, I love the little fuckers. Me and the good lady-wife were in the trafford centre and decided to grab a quick bite. We went into an "American bar and grill" type place in the food court, because they did decent(ish) burgers. I got chicken wings as a starter. When they arrived, they were rediculously hot on the outside yet my first bite revealed they were still frozen in the middle. Called over the waiter and ask him to get the kitchen to give them another go. Next plate came, even fucking hotter on the outside, still fucking frozen in the middle. Called the manager over and told him when to stick his bill. Went to KFC instead, they didn't try that hard to poison me.
(ScousersPet, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:52, Reply)

I don't really get the excitement about food.
To me it really is pretty functional. If I'm hungry, I'll have a cheese sandwich.

Don't get me wrong - it's nice and all, and I enjoy a tasty dish, but I just don't see the point about getting poncy about it, particularly considering that it's life span is generally going to only be about 15 minutes at the outset.

Mrs Vagabond - she loves it - often produces meals which wouldn't look out of place in a posh restaurant, with the leaves of salad arranged just so, and the main part placed on top at the right angle. She's an ace cook, and whenever we have guests they invariably rave about her food, to the point that we've met people at parties who know of her food through one of our friends.

But all this pornification of it? Nah. No point. It's a meal, and will be gone in a few minutes, not a potential life partner.

And you're wrong - I'm fantastic in bed.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:51, 9 replies)

Not funny
But possibly the best meal I've ever had was one morning, coming down off a fantastic LSD trip, sitting on the top of a roof of a tall Edwardian house in Bath, watching the sun come up, drinking fresh coffee and eating fresh doughnuts.

It was utterly wonderful. I've eaten Michelin-starred food in the years since that can't compare.
(MattDP (Squiggle), Fri 27 May 2011, 10:44, 8 replies)

One new year's eve
As an 18-year old I had the good fortune to be able to "borrow" an empty house that had recently been vacated for sale in which to host a small new year's party. We stayed up all night, sitting on the floor, and got very drunk.

As my friends drifted away one by one in the cold, painful light of a new day and the beer started to wear off I started to feel horribly hungover, and very hungry. So, alone in the house I opened the fridge and found a lot of beer. I didn't want beer for breakfast but after a bit of rummaging I managed to find a pizza base and a can of barbecue baked beans.

I was feeling too wretched by this point to actually do anything with these ingredients, but I needed something to line my stomach, and fast. So I sat down on the kitchen floor, poured cold beans over the cold, uncooked pizza base and ate it with my fingers.

Not only was it revolting, but the revulsion was compounded by the fact I was already feeling terrible and the knowledge that beer had reduced me to the state of semi barbarism where I couldn't even heat the fucking beans or cook the dough. It was so wretchedly depressing that I remember it as being one of the lowest points of my entire life, albeit a thankfully brief one. And ever since I've always made sure there's something for breakfast in the fridge before I go out drinking.
(MattDP (Squiggle), Fri 27 May 2011, 10:42, 2 replies)

From the academic elite...
I hate to admit it, but my brother is probably a higher achiever academically than I am or ever will be. Nevertheless, I console myself with the thought that he can't be all that bright: while a student, he invented the mushy-pea and fried-egg toastie.

Even someone as thick as I could have predicted that that'd be rank. Not only did my brother fail to make that prediction; he also enjoyed what he'd made. And this proves that he's got a serious brain disorder.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:37, 9 replies)

A food bore writes
Ah! Now then. I like food, no not like, love. I love it The appreciation of food was instilled into me by my old man. Many of my early memories involve the two of us sitting at the table eating simple great food.

Mussels and crusty bread.
Scallops and black pudding…25 years later it turns up on master chef as ‘a new thing’
Smashing open just cooked crab and eating the flesh along with very ripe sweet tomatoes.
Rabbit from the hill next to the house.
A mound of steaming lambs tongues fresh from the ‘harvest’
Lobster taken from the sea 30 minutes ago
Mackerel char grilled on the BBQ – you’ve got to try this one
Salt Mackerel and creamy buttery mash – probably an acquired taste

When I go and stay we spend hours and hours every day discussing planning , catching, preparing and sharing our food.

Favourite meal is a toughie to choose. The Crab and Tomatoes when I was about 8 years old was the first time I realised that two simple things could go together like that to make perfection. But top of the shop has to be the a meal we made a couple of years ago. We took friends, wives and kids out on the boat, lifted some lobster pots and stopped off on one of the small islands with the ingredients and a portable stove. I made posh scampi; whole lobster tails with a hint of lime juice and chillies in a tempura. My old man did a tomatoes and green been salad. While we where cooking, the kids were exploring the island, wives chatting and sunbathing. It was perfect.

The Worst? The pickled hens feet and sweet potato served to me by my father in law. A meal with no redeeming features.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Fri 27 May 2011, 10:36, 4 replies)

If my dog could post on B3ta..
He might tell you about the time he felt his tummy rumbling. So like a well trained canine he trotted out to the lawn and surveyed all that lay before him to locate the ideal spot so he could expel his faecal matter in an organised coil. Perhaps it was the proximity of the hydrangeas that caught his eye or the listless leaves from the overhanging acacia tree that made him pick a spot so close to where I was dozing on a towel. And so the ritual began. He first gave the chosen deposition area a tentative scratch with his front paws. Once this was completed successfully he arched his back ever so slightly and started to rotate his body in a clockwise direction until his doggy chakra was at peace and he felt comfortable enough begin the evacuation. With his arsehole facing Mecca and incidentally my face the muscles around his sphincter relaxed somewhat and the first signs his glorious efforts were soon visible.

However, the magnificent coil I was expecting did not materialise and in it's place slithered an amoeba like faecal monster that resembled a brown terminator that had yet to take shape. Once Benji had completed his ablutions he turned a full one hundred and eighty degrees and casually ran his nose through the fine scent of his heavenly turd. He looked not unlike a chef delicately dissecting the aroma of a complicated dish. Overcome by the delicious smell and inviting presentation of the whole ensemble his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth and he dropped his head and started to devour his recent creation.

He ate every last morsel and to the eternal disappointment of the insect population inhabiting the lawn none was spared. He then wandered off somewhat smug and content in the knowledge that he had provided himself with such a satisfying meal. Now if he could post on here I'm sure he'd be espousing the virtues of a self made meal, but two factors have conspired against this. Firstly he can neither read or write and even if he could I'm sure his large paws would be no match for the human keyboard. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly is the fact that he died in 2001 - God bless his doggy soul. Nevertheless if he could have overcome these hurdles he would have wanted to share this story with you because that's the kind of dog he was.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:33, 2 replies)

Best sandwich I ever had was of cheese and roast vegetables on tomato bread. Absolutely delicious!
It was about a quid from a petrol station just outside Rhyl, around 10 years ago. Still dream about that sandwich, I do.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:23, Reply)

Not me, honest.
At a friends party, he served up these little dishes of ice cream. After all of us had finished eating he announced "Congratulations, you've now all had some of my wife's breast milk." Turns out he'd made it using one of the bottles she'd pre-made.

Up until that point it had tasted alright.
( Funkenschlag still likes dogs more than cats, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:20, 4 replies)

Liver
Fucking disgusting and I'll have no one tell me otherwise.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:10, 13 replies)

Pesto Cheese Fat.
When I can be arsed, I make my own burgers, whereupon I experiment a bit. Sticking cheese inside the burger, for example, is a tried and tested way to make them more delicious.

Once, I decided to stick some pesto in there, to see what would happen. Being a cheapskate, I usually buy cheap mince, and so when I make burgers, they have a lot of fatty residue after cooking.

The pesto burgers were no different. This time, however, the fat had mixed in with pesto run-off and melted cheese from the burgers. After fishing the patties out, I, in a fucking insane moment of impulse, tried a bit.

And fucking hell it was delicious. I couldn't help myself: I cleaned off the lot.

It was one of the worst things I've ever done, let alone eaten, and it probably took a few years off my life. To this day I feel shame over it.

But goddamn it was tasty.

To understand why this was the worst thing I've ever eaten, and why I should be ashamed I took a picture. Keep vomit bags at the ready before clicking.

I don't expect you to understand why I felt compelled to eat...that. I don't even understand it myself...
( Green Spanner and his magical lack of activity, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:06, 9 replies)

Soft cheese and prolonged sunlight don't mix, kids.
My mate Keith the kestrel went on a camping trip to the Scottish highlands armed with a suitcase of recreational drugs to keep him entertained.

After one prolonged session he got a case of the chronic munchies and the only thing to hand was a soft french cheese that had been sitting on the parcel shelf of his car for about a week.

He described the first bite as the tastiest thing he'd ever had. He described the second bite as the worst thing he'd ever tasted.

He spent a week in a scottish hospital with a nasty case of Listeria. Silly rabbit.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Fri 27 May 2011, 9:59, Reply)

2 bests, one worst
Turbot with buerre blanc in Rick Steins place in Padstow. Quite pricy but incredibly tasty. Definitely worth a trip if you're in cornwall at any point.

Porkpies from Hulsons in Mold, North wales. Beats the hell out of the famous Melton mowbray any day of the week (except sundays and bank holidays because they're closed).

The worst has to be one meal I had in the mess in the falklands... a "stew" which turned out to be liver in bisto. I went hungry that night.
(Darkpie 3.243F6A8885A308D31319, Fri 27 May 2011, 9:45, 2 replies)

Best thing I've ever eaten.
My brother's blue cheese and bacon steak.
It was pretty special in its own right, but the fact it was being served at my parents' house, at the scene of so many culinary crimes made it extra-special. It was as though they'd suddenly started serving caviar at Stalag Luft.
(universalpsykopath loves what you've done with your hair., Fri 27 May 2011, 9:40, 1 reply)

My mate Hannibal served me liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Lovely.
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Fri 27 May 2011, 9:40, 1 reply)

French Sausages - or How I Nearly Ate a Tuantuan.
I was 13, and my family and I had just driven down to the Loire for a holiday. It had been a long and hot and cramped journey; none of us was in a particularly good mood. Still, we'd arrived at our gîte, and it was lovely, and was just across the street from a winery with a restaurant attached. It looked a bit more haute cuisine than we might normally have chosen - especially when two of the diners were grumpy kids who just wanted feeding rather than fine food - but since we were all too fagged to bother looking anywhere else, we went there.

I'd been studying French for a couple of years, so was quite looking forward to being able to show off by navigating my way around the menu. Better yet, my mother went to catering college, and had lived in the Francophone bit of Switzerland for a while in her youth, where she worked in a restaurant; she'd know what was what. Even so, there was a couple of things that puzzled us. What, for example, was an andouillette?

The waiter told us it was a kind of sausage. That sounded great to me. It's what I ordered.

It arrived.

It didn't look all that great: a sort of pale beige colour, and a strange shape. Still, I was hungry, on holiday, and feeling adventurous. I was undeterred, and cut into it.

You know that bit in The Empire Strikes Back where Han uses Luke's lightsabre to cut open a tuantuan? Cutting into the andouillette was like that. It became horribly apparent that this "sausage" was, in fact, simply a piece of gut, loosely stuffed with other pieces of gut. It may have tasted wonderful: but there was no way I was letting it anywhere near my mouth.

I looked pleadingly at my dad. He had ordered something slightly less insane, and had a bit of a reputation within the family as someone who’d eat anything. He looked at my plate, and a look of utter resignation passed over his face. We swapped orders. Even he could only finish his meal by cutting the andouillettes into pieces so small that he didn’t really have to chew them. (It was plain that, after all, the stuff did not taste better than it looked.)

I’m quite an adventurous eater for the most part – but there’s a couple of lines that I will not cross. Tuantuan sausage is on the other side of one of them.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 27 May 2011, 9:39, 2 replies)

If anybody has the (mis)fortune to be near Great Ayton in North Yorkshire
I strongly D Petch butchers on the High Street.
They sell the most delicious pork pies I have ever been lucky enough to taste. Crunchy pastry, just the right amount of jelly and the juiciest, most delightfully peppery meat.
(TheColonel, Fri 27 May 2011, 9:33, Reply)