Shit, half of you are probably looking at it right now, post photos, I wanna see some Midwestern fruitcakes and potato salad with raisins
My spouses family has a lot of southern US dishes that are absolutely hurt, but I think the weirdest is pineapple au gratin. Thank potato au gratin but with pineapple instead of potatoes and no other changes.
food especially among the ruling class often involves plundering raw ingredients from colonized people without understanding a damn thing about how to cook these new ingredients and just having their servants or slaves make disgusting things like this as a way of showing off what a rich piece of shit they were to other rich pieces of shitHence the existence of pineapple au gratin
Tbf this sounds like some 60s recipe Dole came up with because they had excess pineapple inventory
Put it in a wrestling ring with a casserole tray of Aunt Myrna's Party Cheese Salad
Here’s another “southern hurt dish” for ya: pear salad.
It’s half a canned pear with mayonnaise on the flat half, then mild cheddar stuck into the mayo, topped with a maraschino cherry.
No, it’s not good. No, I don’t know why it exists. Send help.
I'm pretty sure I didn't actually try it but a relative brought a pumpkin pie that had a greenish tint to it several years ago. My dad ate a bite and then loudly complained that it was the worst pumpkin pie he'd ever had in his life and how the fuck was it green while the person who made it stood 5 ft away.
Still remember my aunt once made "healthy" potato salad
It was just boiled potatoes with raw onions and olive oil on it
No salt, no seasoning, no hope
That sounds like someone who vaguely heard of french potato salad but then never remembered a single part of the recipe beyond oil, just skipping the vinegar and/or mustard.
Goes well with chives also.
It was a lot of olive oil too
Like, at least an inch of it at the bottom of the tray
That was basically my face when I had to take some so I wouldn't hurt her feelings
When I was 6, my alcoholic aunt made this pudding spiked with rum. Think pudding shots, but a big bowl of it.
Thanksgiving in my family was always self serve, as in they'd put all the food on a folding table and everyone loads up their plates with what they want, buffet style. I've been told that this is a strange way of doing it, let me know if you think so. Anyway, this big bowl of delicious looking homemade chocolate pudding was not marked as alcoholic, and I had no idea. No one told me about it or said not to eat the pudding. So I ate some. A lot. Like a big fucken bowl of it and then some more.
It was delicious! I didn't recognize the taste of rum, but the astringency of it and my small range of taste experience made me think it was some strange variety of mint, and I loved it.
Soon enough I started to feel a little weird, and thought I ate too much (I did) and went and tearfully told my mom how I ate too much and got a tummy ache. She could smell the alcohol on my breath, and immediately went to check the pudding.
Turns out my aunt didn't tell anyone about the alcohol in the pudding! So that made my mom very angry at my aunt, but I was preoccupied with how I felt. Despite the upset stomach, I was vibing and having a good time, and feeling a lot more social than normal and was living it up with the rest of the kids when before I was eating pudding alone in the corner.
TLDR, I ate a ton of unmarked pudding shots and got wasted for the first time at the age of 6, and enjoyed it.
Macaroni casserole where the macaroni is over cooked (squishy and soggy), the top is burnt (very hard, borderline inedible), cheese is basically velveeta and american. No other seasonings afaik. She made this every single year.
Two answers, a lemon meringue pie where the meringue didn’t set but still tasted good, and ambrosia salad made properly.
and ambrosia salad made properly
I had an aunt (estranged now) who would occasionally bring this neighbor or friend (?) of hers. This person would always bring an ambrosia salad or a punch bowl cake. I can't remember what exactly went into the punch bowl cake, but it was always vile.
That aunt would always bring a broccoli casserole - overcooked frozen broccoli, processed Velveeta cheese, and butter crackers.
it's not a dish but one time I grabbed something from a bowl of what looked like cookies but tasted like dog biscuits. had to quietly sneak off to the bathroom to spit it out. to this day I'm not sure if I just ate an actual dog biscuit that was left out near the people food for some reason
Wasn't Thanksgiving, but a potluck for teachers provided by students. Thought it was a bowl of snickers salad (Snickers, Apples, Cool Whip/pudding). Sat down and took a huge bite... Pickles... Not sweet... Some form of horrible salad with the main ingredient being pickles... Somebody give that kid an F, please!
Somebody brought little bacon rolls. I assumed it was wrapped around cocktail weiners. It was liver. Why the fuck would you do that?
Thanksgiving is not a thing in South Africa so I'll do Christmas dinner. It was a dry af roast, served with a side of raw yellow rice or burnt pap (similar to grits). It was foul and so dry. Worst pap and vleis ever.
Second has to be a bad bobotie. Bobotie is a casserole that consists of a particular curry mince at the bottom, which includes raisins, topped with egg. The spice mixture for the curry mince in this one was all wrong, and when combined with the raisins it was the worst kind of sweet and sour I've ever had. I like bobotie, but that was not right.
I think it was some kind of cranberry salad? I thought it was the yummy kind with citrus and nuts in it, but someone made something that looked similar but used mayonnaise.
I saw it wasn't quite the right color - too pink - but I foolishly assumed it had some whipped cream in it and thought that might be fun, so I took a big bite. 🤢 will never forget that flavor or texture, blech
