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My university major was wildlife biology. The wildlife management department had an annual "wildlife BBQ" every spring. There was a large box in the department's walk in freezer/cooler for meat donations for a couple of months ahead. All donations were supposed to be dressed and ready for use, and labeled. There was always something left to the imagination. This walk in freezer/cooler also served to store various animals that were being necropsied or used for dissection labs. Never knew what you'd find walking into it at any moment. Roadkill elk, frozen eagles, etc.
In addition to the more predictable fare like bear chili, the BBQ was famous for "non-traditional" meat offerings. The highlight of the event was having professors and students outguessing each other about WHAT they were in fact eating. Beaver kidneys, opossum stir fry, sandhill crane drumsticks, carp fillets, some vague canid-looking carcass deliberately skinned and butchered to make the guess more of a challenge. The anonymous dishes were the first to run out.
A long term close friend of my parents was invited elk hunting. He had never hunted in his life. Against all odds, the friend either wounded an elk and the hunter he went with either dispatched the animal or he simply gave him part of the meat. He got the roast home and started looking for preparation tips and recipes, then invited a small circle of married friends to a formal feast. Dinner jackets, long dresses, full high tone attire expected. Found some sort of BBQ advice and spent all day concocting the sauce and trimmings.
The dinner started off in fine style: featuring the hunk of elk along with all sorts of fancy side dishes and elaborate hors d'oeuvres. Halfway through dinner most of the guests became violently ill which was a problem in their one bathroom home. Everyone left in utter misery. Apparently the elk meat hadn't been handled correctly and was tainted.
It started a tradition for that group. Every year they held "the elk feast", taking turns hosting. An old weathered deer skull I found in the woods was hung over the appropriate front door. The ladies would wear their most elegant gowns (this wasn't a traditionally snooty fancy dress group so it was a stretch). Gentlemen wore dinner jackets, bow ties, full display style. Eventually it got a little warped; one man always wore his tropical palm tree print lava lava with said dinner jacket, buffed suede shoes and carefully chosen crew length socks. They always play croquet. Each player had their official croquet color every year, and their crew socks, ties, or other accessories coordinated with that. The ladies wore a sash in their husband's croquet color and tried to outdo each other bringing the most unusual side dish they could dig out of the library cookbooks. I think they held the elk feast for the next 30 years.
My mother-in-law is a notoriously bad cook who hated it as well, while my mother comes from a cooking family. We used to swap out holiday dinners. For my MIL's first turkey, she apparently had a fear that it would be underdone, so she started it the night before and cooked it half-way. Then the next day she put it back in the oven. When she asked me how to know when it was done I told her to put a fork in at the thigh and when the juices ran clear, it's done. As she was digging around in the thigh she asked, "What if there aren't any juices?" "Then it's overdone!" I told her. No way to get salmonella from her turkey.
When you go to my mom's house for a turkey dinner, you smell the food halfway down the driveway. When you go to my in-laws, all you smell is air freshener. The food is always lukewarm, never hot. My mom's food hits the table straight from the kitchen, served on heated plates, and all enjoy until we are as stuffed as we can be. Fortunately for us all, my mother-in-law is no longer up to cooking, so when it is her turn, it's pot luck. My mother can still turn out a roast dinner with no problems at the age of 85. Her Yorkshire puddings are legendary.
We lived in Florida. My parents, being from the Midwest, were enamored with fresh sea food, and especially my dad loved trying new things.
One day he bought home a big bag of fresh squid. My mom says "how am I supposed to prepare this?" My dad didn't know, and it was long before looking it up on the internet, so she boiled some of the squid.
When you boil squid, they turn into rubbery, chewy bouncy things. Lord knows, we being obedient children, we tried. It's not that it tasted bad. It had no taste. But we literally could not chew it. So it was a big failure.
To make the story even funnier, my sister asked if she could take some of the squid to school for show and tell. Show and Tell was on a Wednesday, and she kept forgetting to bring them home. Until the following Monday when the whole classroom smelled to high heaven. LOL
I was a newly wed. Hubs was in college..at the library. Dutifully studying late. We were terribly poor. Yet I decided to make him a late night dinner. Tuna casserole!
I had candles lit. He was so charming that night. We sat to eat it. He said. ..ohh just what I needed. And he swooned. Then I looked over at the counter and there sat the can of tuna I had not added!
We laughed so hard. He was a real sport at not mentioning it was missing the tuna.
My mom...who was a fabulous cook, did the ghetto meal one time. You know...when you barely have anything in your pantry and try to make a meal of it? Well it went as follows:
Pancakes, burnt bacon. Tuna casserole with golden mushroom soup and some boiled carrots. The entire meal was gosh awful ! But laugh...ohh that meal was a memory we often spoke of.
Many decades ago, a friend of mine decided to prepare a somewhat sophisticated entree for a dinner party that he was hosting. The recipe called for Currant Jelly, but instead of buying that rarely-used ingredient, he decided to substitute the Grape Jelly that was sitting in his refrigerator.
I can still recall EVERYONE asking him... Steve... Why is the entree PURPLE?
My first attempt I was home from school and cooking dinner as my parents would be late getting home. Making chicken breasts in a cognac & cream sauce. Boy, was I surprised what a difference warming the cognac before igniting it made, the flame actually reached the ceiling. The entertainment value alone is probably what's kept me cooking all these years.
Another coworker had a food-related story about her 5-year-old grandson that was cute. Every time I walk into a Chinese restaurant I remember this story and chuckle.
One day at a Chinese restaurant her grandson asked her, "Grandma, can we order some crab raccoon?"
He was only 5 years old, so the word "rangoon" didn't make any sense.
Growing up poor on a farm we have had a number of "more creative" meat dishes such as squirrel, wild rabbit, bear, venison, various birds. My older sister is well known for her fabulous Porcupine Meatballs (rice & hamburger meatballs, with green beans in a tomato sauce). She was preparing it for a meal with the extended family. One of her nieces asked where she found the porcupine meat in the middle of winter. Apparently for 30 plus years the niece just assumed that it was made out of real porcupines!
Last edited by germaine2626; 06-26-2019 at 06:10 PM..
Before I finally learned to cook, I wanted to make spaghetti sauce. We didn't have any tomato sauce so I figured ketchup would be a great substitute. It's not.
Lol... my first attempt at making dinner for my b/f’s dad was spaghetti. I did it right using tomato paste and packaged mix. I dished it up and brought my b/f and his dad a plate while they were sitting on the sofa watching basketball. His dad said thank you... I love spaghetti! My b/f said, don’t expect too much it’s the only thing she can cook... when I went to hand him his plate... I accidentally dumped the whole plate in his lap.
After which I left and let him clean up the mess.... and the dishes.
Mine was so bad that the range hood filter caught fire and the charred debris fell into the frying pan.
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