15 Popular Meals We’ve Cooked or Eaten Wrong Our Entire Lives

For the chefs that really care about their meals, it may be shocking to see how people treat their food. Of course, nobody has the right to tell someone how to eat a certain meal but in some cases, it’s impossible to remain silent.

We at Bright Side don’t think that every visitor of a restaurant has to read a manual before eating a meal. But we decided to find out more about the point of view of people that have a different opinion. And in the bonus, you will find out that pepperoni pizza is not what you think it is.

1. Sushi

For some strange reason, a lot of people eat sushi by dipping the rice into the soy sauce/wasabi mix. This is supposed to be the wrong way to eat sushi because the rice might break apart. Also, many people use chopsticks to eat sushi. In Japan, they turn the sushi upside down and dip the fish into the soy sauce/wasabi mix. And sushi is ‘best’ eaten with fingers, not chopsticks. The chopsticks are never used in high-class Japanese sushi restaurants.© Eugene Lim / Quora

2. Feta cheese

After years of eating feta cheese straight from the package, I learned it always requires rinsing under tap water before consumption, to wash off the brine that aims to preserve it. Feta cheese should not be excessively salty and if it is, it’s because you haven’t removed the excess salty water! © Silvia Botz / Quora

3. Pasta and “meat sauce”

World-famous, yet so embarrassing to even display it like that, the combination of spaghetti and “meat sauce” is a complete mess and the wrong way of combining 2 otherwise delicious things, namely spaghetti and “meat sauce.” No need for a long answer here. It’s as simple as this: a proper plate of pasta with ragù (that is what a meat-based sauce should actually be called) is best served with egg dough, fresh pasta. Spaghetti is a really bad idea to accompany this sauce because its surface is too slippery, and it does not hold on to meat particles, thus yielding the use of a fork a very difficult and frustrating exercise. That is why egg dough pasta, like fettuccine or tagliatelle, exists: their rough surface is capable of sticking to a meat sauce and therefore maximizing the combination of pasta and sauce. You are basically getting the best of both worlds. © Antonello Frau / Quora

4. Bacon

Do you cook it in a frying pan? Bake it in the oven instead. It takes 20 minutes, but it’s worth the wait. A frying pan gets extremely hot and cooks it quickly and unevenly. That’s why you get some parts that are burnt and other parts that still have the rancid flavor of the uncooked fat. Ovens cook slow and even so the entire strip of bacon is consistent throughout. I used to think I liked bacon crispy because it needed to be to get rid of the rancid flavor. Having it out of the oven it’s even more amazing a little undercooked. © Jason Siegel / Quora

5. Chocolate

I went to a chocolate tasting class. You are actually supposed to let the chocolate melt in your mouth a little, to taste the various flavors. Honestly, I still just devour it... © ts1985 / Reddit

6. Tortillas

So many people, stores, and restaurants practically serve them “raw.” Like if any of you have ever bought a pack of tortillas at the grocery store... Put them on a pan or the stove! Get it a little toasty, if it’s a flour tortilla, it should puff up a bit so you know it’s done. But no, so many people just straight up eat them flat, cold, chewy, and flavorless. © athaliah / Reddit

7. Chicken

First off, they brine the chicken. It doesn’t make it “juicy”, it makes it bland and wet. The chickens you buy at the supermarkets were raised at farms where their muscles couldn’t form properly, so the meat will all taste the same. And they are injected with water, so it makes brining even more pointless. Coq au Vin was created to cook tough old stringy roosters. We need a new recipe to work with modern mass-produced chicken. © Malcolm Minchin / Quora

8. Steak

Steaks should be served well-rested. No one does this. It takes a long time for a steak or roast to rest. Restaurants would get complaints about the wait, and then more complaints about their food being cold. But a well-rested slice of prime rib is divine. For a roast, you want it to rest so that all the juices don’t drain out when you slice it. But the more important thing is the flavor profile that you get when the fat begins to solidify inside the meat. Try it sometime. Eat one steak hot off the grill, leave another on your cutting board for later. Slice it into thin strips, dab it in a little salt, and let it melt in your mouth. © Steve Carroll / Quora

9. Hamburgers with mayo

Specifically, where does the mayo go? Think about what the purpose of mayonnaise is here? To add flavor? To add fat? A well-made burger will have plenty of either of those. The unique property of mayonnaise is that it is a stable emulsion. It has an aqueous phase and a lipid phase dispersed through one another. This means that it can bind with both water and fat, which are, not coincidentally, the 2 things that a juicy burger is bleeding out unless it has been seriously overcooked. If you put the mayo on the bottom bun, it will protect the bun from the moisture. If you put it on the top bun, it will just stay there. © Jesse Sutton / Quora

10. Apple skin

An apple with skin contains around 5.4 grams of fiber, while without skin it contains only about 2.8 grams of fiber. Plus an apple with skin contains about 116 calories and without skin, it contains about 104. So, you see there’s no significant difference in calorie content, but there is a significant difference in fiber content. Plus, the peel of apple can provide some great health-related benefits as well. The most significant is a reduction in the risk of getting certain types of cancer, like liver and colon cancer. The peel of an apple contains a compound known as triterpenoids that have the tendency to destroy cancer cells, as well as prevent new ones from forming. © Tracy Morgan / Quora

11. Boiled potatoes

I always start my potatoes and eggs in cold water. In the case of potatoes, the spuds and the water come up to temperature at the same time, so the insides are done at the same time the outsides are. © Beth Goldowitz / Quora

12. Surströmming

Watching YouTube videos of foreigners eating surströmming is painful! Yes, it smells bad, but please remember you have to rinse it before you eat it. Traditionally you take a small piece of surströmming. (Its taste is very strong and salty, you should not put a whole filet in your mouth.) After this, you can put more stuff like red onion and sour cream on top too. Of course, this is really easy to figure out if you just YouTube! Learn to do your research! © imroroyo / Reddit

13. Salt and sugar

All meals should be eaten with salt. Even the sweet ones. If you are making sweet oatmeal with milk, you need to add salt to it until it becomes tasty. This oatmeal will taste way better. © SPICERACK.RU / Pikabu

14. Tofu

People will eat an unseasoned, microwaved block of tofu and go like, “I don’t think this is for me.” Tofu is a flavor sponge. You gotta press the water out, add your seasonings, and provide salt and fat for tastiness. For anyone trying tofu, press it, then quickly marinate it in a 50/50 soy sauce and hot sauce dip. Add black pepper, cumin, and a splash of liquid smoke. Slice it thin and pan fry it in oil. You’ll have a crack level tasty kind of bacon. © brodoyouevenscript / Reddit

15. Caesar salad

The way it’s SUPPOSED to be prepared is with whole romaine leaves. You take the leaves whole, toss them in dressing, and top them with cheese and croutons. Simple enough. But you’re then supposed to eat it with your fingers. Yes, pick that stuff up and eat it. The romaine leaves should be large and sturdy enough to be picked up. If not, it’s a bad salad. I have worked in precisely ONE restaurant that served it the correct way. © EET_SALAD_RIGHT / Reddit

Bonus: What’s wrong with pepperoni pizza?

“Pepperoni” consists of peppers. What you call pepperoni is actually salami — and a very bad take on it at that. © TheScienceN**** / Reddit

Which of these meals surprised you or had you been eating the Caesar salad with your hands your entire life? Maybe you also know about a meal that nobody eats correctly?