From culinary creations gone wrong to holiday feast fiascos, our Food & Drink contributors have their fair share of horrific tales. A sampling:
Barbecue Triumph and Tragedy
A buddy brought over three boneless pork shoulder roasts from George's in St. Pete. I was a graduate student with no money, and here were these beautifully pristine roasts rolled up and tied with string. I was at the height of my slow-cooked barbecue obsession, and I lovingly rubbed the roasts with spice and smoked them late into the night for brunch the next day. At about 1 a.m., the meat was finished, bronzed and burnished with smoke and spice. My friends and I passed one of the roasts around and each took a bite. It was the best barbecue I had ever prepared. I planned to let the meat rest for an hour or more, then refrigerate until carving the next day.
Then, my buddy had a really stupid idea. He wanted to untie the roasts and gently simmer them overnight in barbecue sauce. But the roasts were already perfect, I said, and more cooking, however gentle, would only sully the meat. It was late and I was tired. I should have taken a stand. I should have saved at least one roast. Instead, I acquiesced and watched the roasts go into the crockpot.
I awoke several hours later smelling barbecue. I darted upstairs and found the crockpot had been left on high while my friend snored on the couch. The meat had come apart after boiling for a couple hours. I turned it down to low, but knew the damage was done. My smoked perfection was ruined. Dry, charmless meat made for a feast of morning regret.
—Andy Huse
Cuban Pasta Crisis
My worst dining experience took place in Cuba.
We rented a motorcycle in Cayo Coco and rode toward Moron. On the way we found what seemed to be a nice restaurant in a new white building with an expansive outdoor dining room made of dark wood. We were the only customers.
On my way in, I tripped on a stray dog that had placed himself across the doorway. I'm not sure if he was there to nap, or commit suicide. But hearing the blood-curdling yelp as I tripped forward into a dining room table was the first omen.
A surprised man with a straw hat sat us down at his finest table — the only one with cutlery. We got the "tourist menu": burgers, fried chicken and pasta. We decided to play it safe and order the spaghetti with meat sauce. The man went back into the kitchen and sent a young boy out to buy some pasta at the store!
During the hour-long wait for our meal, we were musically raped by a loud gang of Mariachis that would not leave our table. Scraggly-looking stray cats attempted to rub their filthy fur on my legs, and various birds took turns menacingly peering into my soul from nearby chairs.
The "meat sauce" had no meat. We ate our insipid, crunchy pasta, paid the mariachis their ransom and left with a good story to tell.
—Cristian Feher
Please Do NOT Pass the Salt
A few years ago, we decided to vacation in Virginia. It had history, scenery, family who lived nearby (kill two birds) and wineries (can't be too bad if there are wineries). While visiting lovely Virginia, we happened upon the town of Smithfield, as in Smithfield Ham.
Conversation: "Let's get a ham! And what, lug it back to Florida on the plane? Yes! And we'll cook it for Thanksgiving and have everyone over! We'll start a tradition!" See the excitement with all the exclamation points? Warning: Don't ever start traditions while on vacation.
The ham we bought was the uncooked, dry cured, super-salty kind. You have to soak it for at least 24 hours, changing the water every four hours. Then you're supposed to wash it thoroughly with a stiff brush to finish it off and remove any mold. Yuck! When we all sat down to dinner, my father-in-law was given the honor of blessing the food and carving the ham. He also had the honor of throwing it away. The ham was absolutely inedible.
Following soaking instructions had not been enough; we must have soaked that ham in enough water to fill a pool. This particular piece of pork had surely been rolled in a vat of Morton's salt because we soaked and changed water and soaked and changed water, you get the idea, and it was still so salty it was disgusting. Of course everyone, especially the moms, asked, "Did you soak it? Did you change the water? Did you clean it with a stiff bristle brush?" Yes, yes, and YES!
Moral of story: Buy your ham all pretty and spiral cut and ready to serve from somewhere nearby — like the grocery store. Lug back wine bottles instead.
—Cecelia Messina
A Slip of the Finger
It was one of my last semesters in culinary school and — due to playing hooky — I had to make up one of my Asian cuisine classes with a certain chef instructor who had made me a nervous wreck since day one. This particular educator just had a way of getting under my skin and knew which buttons of mine to push. I hate to admit, but he even made me cry once.
Said instructor requested that I come to one of his Basic Skills classes (aka: the course for the first semester newbies) to make up my lesson. While all of the other students were busy learning how to make sauce, I was at my own table chopping and dicing away in preparation for a Japanese meal. After awhile, some of the students gathered at my work station to quiz me about what it was like to be a "Senior," what to expect in semesters to come, etc. As I was chatting away, I was also trying to show off my mad knife skills by slicing shiitake mushrooms into very thin pieces with expert speed and precision. Lo and behold, the chef instructor decided to walk up behind me to watch my actions and give me a hard time. Startled and nervous, my ring finger slipped out from under my left hand and off went a good chunk of my fingertip (and a bit of nail with it).
Without a word or even a sound, I closed my eyes. I couldn't look at it. I quickly walked over to the sink with a sigh and let my teacher survey the damage (and, of course, make some snide remark about it). I had lopped the top of my fingertip clean off and no bandage could stop the bleeding. The pain of embarrassment was far worse than the pain of the cut.
In the end, I was forced to go to the emergency room where they glued my fingertip back on. Needless to say, my reputation for being the girl that chopped off her fingertip and had to be driven to the hospital by the school director far outlived my time at that institution.
—Katie Machol
The Lentil Bomb
The dinner itself was fine, delightful even. Some Kenyan friends threw a dinner party, African style, with chapati (flatbread), ugali (a starchy corn, millet, or flour mush), collard greens, rice pilau with beef, and stewed lentils. We ate and talked late into the night. The next morning, a couple friends and I would attend an all-day festival concert in the August heat. We bade farewell to our Kenyan hosts and retired to my apartment.
Early the next morning, my two friends and I vied for the bathroom. We were all exploding with gas, shitting up a storm. About 11 that morning, one of my hosts from the night before called. She asked me if I had gone to the bathroom multiple times that morning. I said yes. Then she apologized, explaining she did not listen to her husband's instructions for properly preparing the lentil dish. He was the cook in their household and probably should not have left such an important task to his "untutored" wife. Her mistake sparked a literal shitstorm among us that lasted well into the afternoon.
We finally went to the concert that day drained and weary. The heat index rose well above 100 degrees. We tried to enjoy the music, which proved difficult. Wrung out, we were dehydrated at the steamy festival, where the line to the drinking fountain was 30 deep. Overpriced beer and my flask of warm whiskey did little to comfort us. We left the concert before dark, depleted and defeated by a batch of gassy lentils.
—Andy Huse
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2011.