My favorite story along these lines is how my father complimented a friend’s mother on her tuna noodle casserole because of good manners – even though he just barely choked it down – only to be rewarded by her making the dish every single time he came over after that.
So much for good manners.
And I’m guessing these 15 people are also going to have regrets after eating something just to be nice.
15. I don’t even have words.
Husbands mom made a lemon pie, but it was a “special recipe” she learned from her friend where there was no sugar and the crust was made of saltine crackers.
Don’t even have words for how sour and salty it was. But you best believe I ate it as it was “delicious”
14. Just a hint of residual gristle.
Was working in China. They had a big celebratory banquet for us. They served a local delicacy – “sea worms.”
It was a white tube that when immersed in near freezing water essentially dissolved into a gelatinous lump.
Think fish-flavored jello, with just a hint of residual gristle. Ugh.
Had to eat several servings while downing shots of maotai.
13. He absolutely hates bananas.
For a friend of mine it was bananas. He used to come hang out in the morning or stay the night to play games when we were growing up, and he ate breakfast with us a lot.
My parents loved having bananas with breakfast on the weekend (and banana pancakes for that matter), so he’d have them all the time.
It was probably about five years into our friendship before I found out that he absolutely hates bananas and was only eating them to be polite.
12. It was customary.
Was visiting Guatemala, and this old lady invited us to dinner. In this country, it’s extremely rude to not eat what was placed before you.
Unfortunately, this lady served us a vegetable soup with some meat in it that tasted like chicken broth from hell. She didn’t eat with us, as she was being polite or something. She didn’t even talk to us during the dinner.
We took a taste, and nearly wanted to puke. However, due to the country customs, we decided to eat it. We barely could get through it. We ate about 3/4 of it and then mentioned we were just full. We both retched later on that night. It was so nasty!
Ran into the lady later in the week walking down the street, and she apologized to us. Apparently the chicken was rotten and she only took one bite. She then chastised us for not telling her.
Sometimes it’s frustrating not knowing all the ins and outs of different customs!
11. A barely boiled goat ball.
I went to Kenya on a college trip. For the first week we were there we built a kitchen into a school. Every day my buddy and I would joke about this goat at the school and his big it’s nuts were.
Well fast forward and the last day we were there the school put on a feast, eating corn, beans and kale (grown at the school) with goat meat.
The local elders came by at the end to show their appreciation. My teacher (who was from Kenya) got up and said “the elders have prepared a delicacy, it is somewhat of an insult to not eat what they present you”
Bam here came the karma buss. Now I enjoy fried Rocky Mountain oysters, however what they served was a barely boiled got ball. I tore off a sizable chunk like a champ, I will NEVER forget the rubbery texture, or the ultra gamy taste, but I ate it like I was honored for even being offered.
10. It’s not as burnt as it looks!
My sister was trying to be nice after I had taken care of her for 3 years while she dealt with her mental health.
She tried to make me a pizza. It came out more like charcoal. Like fully all black.
She tried so hard to make me happy for once that I had to at least get some of it down; “It’s not as burnt as it looks! Really yummy “. She was really happy with herself after that.
9. Sparkle perfume.
When my sister was 5, she had my mom, friend and I sit for her tea party.
She made us drinks.
I asked her what she gave us and she said it was water and sparkle perfume.
8. I ate as much as I could.
Girlfriend in college wanted to be nice to my roommate and me because she often ate over at our apartment, so she was to cook dinner one night. Teriyaki steak.
Somewhere along the line, she got tbsp and cup mixed up, and added 3/4 cup of salt.
Pretty sure we were nearing the LD50 of salt for a human, but I ate as much as I could, and drank as much water as I could for the next few days…
7. Oh dear.
My beloved but very elderly gram-in-law made chocolate chip cookies in which she messed up the sugar and salt AND mistook the dried black beans in her cupboard for chocolate chips.
Ohhhhh dear.
6. They’re perfectly good.
My husbands grandma made us a “miso soup” that was almost black from teriyaki and soy sauce in it.
All of the vegetables in it were slimy and overcooked. It so barely resembled miso that the next day I made some regular miso for myself and she was offended that I didn’t eat the “perfectly good” leftovers.
I was all confused until my husband whispered to me that she thought the abomination she served us was miso soup.
5. This chili nearly killed me.
My grandmother’s chili.
My grandmother is a terrible, terrible cook. I’ve gotten food poisoning multiple times from her but this chili nearly killed me. She made it in her crockpot. I lived with my grandparents, my younger sister and our mom at the time, my mom was out of town. The first night the chili was good. Everything was fine. She made a huge batch so we had it again the next day. It was still okay, a little bit off but not the worst thing I ever ate. I was so sick that night. Spewing from both ends. The third night the smell was horrible, the chili was popping and effervescence with tiny gas bubbles. I was nine, we had just learned about bacteria in school. I refused to eat more than a bite.
It was pop rocks mixed with rotten meat. I asked her how she stored the chili. In the crockpot she said defensively. “It’s okay to leave things in there, I even remembered to unplug it!”
We lived in Georgia, it was the summer.
She didn’t make chili she made a science experiment on the kitchen counter.
4. Into their heat vent.
My ex-sister in law’s spinach casserole.
My daughter puked it up into their heat vent and I had to clean it out.
3. Sweating and crying.
A girl I dated was trying to impress me, so she tried to make green curry.
She added too much curry paste and we both sat there sweating and crying.
2. Thanks, Mom.
I came home from school one day and was hungry and told my mother that and she told me there was blueberry muffins.
So I took one and when I took a bite it was the driest most flavorless thing I’ve ever eaten.
So as to not upset my mother I ate it and when I came back my mom was laughing and I asked what was funny and she told me they were a friend of her’s muffins and my brother had spit them out when he tried it. So basically I got pranked by my mom.
1. It was floating in bourbon.
This one’s actually kinda funny.
My grandma died right before Christmas. We all got together for the holiday and my aunt was understandably still taking it really hard. She’d made something she called “vanilla angel food pudding cake.”
It was in a shallow casserole dish. Top layer was whipped cream and cookie crumble. Middle layer was vanilla pudding. Bottom layer was crumbled angel food cake… soaked to the top in a massive pool of bourbon. The cake was floating in the bourbon. We’d later found out she’d mixed even more bourbon in to the pudding layer.
She didn’t tell anyone it was alc*holic so we all got scoops assuming it was a syrup or something. My cousin was the first to bite into it and had to run to the trash can to vomit as soon as it got in her mouth. Another person got a forkful near their nose and freaked out and yelled in shock. Cue my aunt beginning to completely melt down about how she’s trying so hard and she got the recipe from a friend and it’s not THAT much alcohol and grandma was such a good cook she would’ve helped her etc etc like full blown about to lose it. The cousin that vomited tried to claim it was something else while the yeller tried to play off that they saw a bug across the room.
Everyone else was sufficiently guilted into eating at least some of what they’d scooped onto their plates. That shit was physically painful to eat. Everything burned. Looking around the table you would’ve thought we were all downing spoonfuls of wasabi. I was 19 but I guess my parents were more worried about my aunt than me getting underaged sloshed on pudding but about halfway through my portion they found a discreet way to dump my plate. The whole place reeked a couple minutes after we dug into the “pudding” too so it was this awful inescapable sensory overload of bourbon.
Manners are nice to have, but they sure can get you into trouble sometimes!
Okay, now we want to hear from you! Let us know what you think in the comments!
Thanks, fam!
