10 People Whose Culinary Adventures Would Leave Gordon Ramsay Fuming

Cooking often involves a lot of experimenting, and sometimes those experiments lead to mistakes that are just too funny not to talk about. Food has this unique way of connecting people, whether it’s over a mouthwatering dish or a hilariously epic kitchen fail.

• I brought my famous homemade apple pie to my boyfriend’s birthday party. I placed the box on the counter and went to greet everyone. When I returned, I saw my boyfriend standing over the open box with a look of disgust. “What is that smell?” he asked, covering his nose.
  Confused, I rushed over and was horrified to see a mess of melted plastic and something unrecognizable in the box. His younger brother sheepishly admitted he thought the pie was store-bought and had tried to reheat it in the microwave. In the box.

• My boyfriend was so excited to introduce me to his parents. On the way to their house, he wouldn’t stop raving about his mom’s cooking. “She’s the best cook you’ll ever meet,” he said, making me even more eager to try her food.
  Dinner was served shortly after we arrived. My boyfriend’s mom set down a dish she proudly called her “signature recipe.” A strong, unpleasant odor hit my nose. She looked at me and said, “Try it, dear, I want your honest opinion.”
  I smiled and took a small bite. It tasted so awful I thought I’d gag right there. But before I could say anything, they all started laughing.
  Turns out, it was their family tradition to prank first-time guests with this “special” dish. The real dinner came out shortly after, and it was the most delicious meal I’d ever had. I couldn’t even be mad.

• When I was first learning to cook, I didn’t know that oil doesn’t boil. I was trying to deep-fry something and kept getting frustrated that my oil wasn’t boiling yet. Eventually, I set the burner on high, put a lid on the pot and left it for ten whole minutes.
  After it still wasn’t boiling, I got frustrated and tossed a few shrimps in. The whole thing nearly exploded, and it is a miracle I didn’t set a grease fire that burned down my house. The pot was spitting everywhere, screaming and smoking massively. My roommate ended up running in and opening the back door for me to toss the entire pot — oil, shrimp and all — into the snow.
  Learned my lesson there. I stick to shallow frying these days. © gradschoolforhorses / Reddit

• We were living in a big house in the country, and had invited about a dozen or more of our family and friends to share Thanksgiving with us. We were preparing a traditional meal with many side dishes, including a huge stuffed turkey as the centerpiece.
  Somewhere about 4 or 5 hours after we started cooking, we noticed that there wasn’t much heat radiating from the stove, and discovered that the oven had not been working, and the huge turkey had been just sitting there the whole time. So we called our neighbor up the road, and rushed the turkey over to her oven.
  Dinner was quite late, but we eventually retrieved the bird and had dinner late. Everything went fine. Everybody stayed the night with us. The next morning, we all had vomiting and diarrhea, and were standing in lines outside the bathrooms. Awful.
  Now, I maintain that it’s possible that we all just came down with a virus, and it’s possible that the turkey was just fine. But that day will be remembered by most as the Holiday of the Great Food Poisoning. © CategoryObvious2306 / Reddit

• 20 years ago, I found a recipe for ’ham loaf’. Basically, you put ham into a food processor and grind it up. Then, mix it with breadcrumbs, egg, and pepper. Bake in oven like a meatloaf.
  My husband and I still talk about it. It was the consistency of cat food. We’ve been married for over 24 years, and it has been the only thing I’ve ever cooked that we didn’t eat and threw out instead. © tielmama / Reddit

• I was backpacking and making dinner after it got dark. I had a small bottle of olive oil and the same type of bottle with dish soap. Guess which one I added to the pot. © Unknown author / Reddit

• I was experimenting with pizza dough a month or two ago, and let it rise for a second time after I’d stretched it out on olive-oiled sheet pans. I’d made a tomato sauce from scratch, gotten all the toppings prepped, was super excited to see how they’d turn out—and the bottoms came out as absolute horrible soggy messes from sitting in the oil for so long.
  The pizzas were falling apart in the middle, I could barely get them out of the pans. Slapping them on an electric griddle did kind of crisp the bottoms up, but I was SO disappointed. Haven’t made pizza since. © niboshi_ / Reddit

• When I was learning how to cook, I put frozen shrimp in hot oil. Immediately caused a fire several feet tall. Immediately took it to the sink. Turned the water on.
  I know now that’s not the answer, but I panicked and didn’t think to just put the lid on it. Thank god, pouring a constant stream of water didn’t make the fire worse and actually put it out. © my_reverie / Reddit

• One time I made fish cakes with some fish I steamed and flaked up. Added some mashed potato, cornstarch, green onion and various seasoning. They wouldn’t stick together properly when forming, so I added another scoop of cornstarch.
  Then I also dusted them in cornstarch before frying them, to get a good crispy surface. Served them up to the family and took a bite. It became immediately obvious that I had used powdered sugar instead of cornstarch. © MrsFlip / Reddit

• I overcooked a duck once, and it came out looking like a football. © soon_zoo55 / Reddit

If you want to steer clear of those funny cooking fails, take a look at 25+ tips from chefs that might just save your next meal.