A story is as old as the hills. Legendary in my family: parents were young, at dinner party for Navy officers. My Dad, from a family of mill workers, asked the hostess would she please pass the “little pieces of toast.” Didn’t know from “croutons.” My mother sank into the floor.

— Carlton J. "Colly" Wilkinson (@CarltonTSC) May 19, 2019

Friends made a point of getting tuxed up, and asking maîtres d (until they got an affirmative), if they 1: had Steak Tartare. 2: Could get it well done.

Number 6 blinked, tilted his head, “If Messieurs, desire steak tartare well done, it shall be well done”.

Said it was great.

— T Karney (@pecunium) May 19, 2019

I was so schooled by being served octopus I yelled out “my god, they left the testicles on!” The people I was dining with were horrified.

I was 14. Humiliation that burns many years later.

— Garfield’s Ghost (@Occamsreznor) May 18, 2019

For the first 30 years of my life, I thought I didn't like tamales. My friend convinced me to try one.

The pitifully aghast expression on my friend's face when I wrinkled my nose and bit into it, husk and all, will haunt me forever.

"Oh, sweetie…"

— CapriciousLeLe (@CapriciousLeLe) May 19, 2019

A waiter once told me a nice wine 'pairs' well with a certain food. I took a sip and said to the waiter 'Wow, you can really taste the PEARS' – my date literally face palmed

— WJRjr (@OwlVsCrow) May 18, 2019

As a teen went to a faux Irish place at Universal Studios Orlando for food. They brought out a dessert trolley at the end and my mum insisted on taking the one she wanted from the trolley. The server offered to bring her a "fresh" one, but she was insistent. They were plastic.

— Shaun Clinton (@shaunclinton) May 19, 2019

Me at 1st cocktail party. There was a dish of what looked like almonds? I took a couple and popped them in my mouth.
They were not almonds.
It was a communal discard bowl for the pits from the fancy olives.
That's right. Olive pits spat from the mouths of god-only-knows who.

— Carlie (@CarlieP) May 19, 2019

Ha! I wasn’t there for that one, but: A friend who was a fancy waiter had someone order the corkage fee, pronouncing it cork-AHZH fay, and my dude helped him save face, saying, “I’m so sorry, sir, but we’re all out of the corkage fee.”

— Malia Jackson (@rhymeswithmaria) May 18, 2019

On our honeymoon at a fancy Fiji resort, a server was walking around the pool handing out slices of watermelon on toothpicks. He held one out a bit awkwardly for my husband, and my husband panicked, leaned in, & ate the watermelon straight off the toothpick in the guy's hand.

— Jill Kolongowski (@jillkolongowski) May 18, 2019

At my first High Table at Oxford, I moistened my fingers in what I thought was a finger bowl. It turns out to have been consomme. Worse: my neighbor's consomme. He didn't notice me doing it, and he drank it before I could warn him.

— Andrew Ross (@AndrewRossME) May 18, 2019