Smells like Roses... 

Ate with a very poor Iban family in East Malaysia. They served curry chicken (which was awesome), boiled grass, and gutter fish. I watched them walk outside and pick hand fulls of grass from the side of the road and toss it in boiling water; tasted like boiled grass, surprise surprise.

The fish was caught from the gutters, also outside the house. It was a trash fish that eats sewage and trash that runs into the gutters and tasted like a portopotty smells. I ate the whole thing. It was all they had and I was amazed that they were willing to share. dontmockmymoomoo

MMMMM....

I have a very sweet neighbor, she's an elderly Armenian lady who lives with her son. Sometimes when he is out of town she asks me to help w little things, one day I went over to set up her Wi-Fi. She gave me an Armenian soft drink that was tarragon flavored. Ummm, wasn't expecting that. I was very polite and said "mmm!" Encouraged by this, she then gave me some soup. I don't know what it was called but it was hella sweet, kind of like a fruit roll up.

I finished all of it because she's such a sweet woman, but, oh boy. VeronicaNew

Sounds prickly...

My grandfather's cousin was dating a man, who died quite suddenly and left her heartbroken.

Grandfather goes to her house to support her. I go to support my Grandfather. She's a mess, but brings us two glasses of what looks like water. It's not. It's cactus juice.

I'm not sure WHAT cactus juice is supposed to taste like, but this tastes like a handful of salt left out in the desert for a month and then strained through a sandal. The two of us sip at this horrific drink, nodding politely and trying to hide the fact that we're gagging. We finish the drinks quickly and put them down. She fills them again before asking, and here we go again!

Many tears flowed that evening. Nosynonymforsynonym

Joey : GOOOOOOOOOD!

The top 3 layers of it weren't that bad: toasted slivered almonds, cream cheese, candied cherries. The bottom layer? Steamed fish.

To this day I still have no idea what that was supposed to be. sabine_strohem_moss

Makes me think of Friends, when Rachel accidentally mixed two recipes. Ross: "it tastes like feet!" FuddieDuddie

What's not to like? Almonds? Good. Cream cheese? Good. Fish? Goooood. Jesmasterzero

Will you supply new teeth?

The plate.

I was in India and was presented with this incredible pile of food on a palm leaf. There were no knives or forks. And someone told me to 'Just use your fingers, like it's a tortilla.' So I assumed you wrapped up the food like a tortilla and ate the whole thing.

You don't. He meant just eat with your fingers. Not like a tortilla.

Now I know how Stallone felt when he asked what the three seashells did in Demolition Man. And it was probably a banana leaf - I'm from the UK so tropical foliage is not an area of expertise.

That's not BBQ! 

Still-moving raw octopus tentacles.

When someone looks you in the eye and says, "You must chew many times or you die," then you 'might' not be eating the best dish in the world.

This was in Korea - during my first tour here. I was with a bunch of other people having a get-together with some locals and we all got SUPER drunk on soju at this giant "BBQ." Anyway, once everyone was good and sloshed, they brought out this plate of something out of my nightmares. These things were still wiggling around and because of the specific purpose of this get-together, I had to indulge our hosts... Anyway, I don't really remember fine details, just that I chewed for probably two minutes straight out of sheer terror, then swallowed. I don't really remember a specific taste. After that, we were hanging out of the windows of our car on the way home vomiting on the highway.

No more tentacles for this guy. lukaron

Ramen is that you?

My mother in law on one of our first meetings made a terrible meal for my wife and I to welcome me into the family. Now this woman hated cooking and took that out on the food. She was an Irish home cook who would put the vegetables in about 6 hours before the meal if left to her own devices so they'd taste of nothing come the meal. She'd then drink the water they were boiled in which disguising as it sounds was probably really tasty and full of nutrients and flavor that had boiled out of the veg.

Anyway this one meal was a stir fry. She didn't have a recipe for stir fry but how hard could it be? Method's in the name. So she put a bunch of veg in a frying pan. Didn't have any oriental spices but she had ginger wine. And then for the noodles she had some dried super noodles (if you're not in the UK think the least authentic, most anglicized version of ramen). After a while this all wasn't coming together how she wanted so she put it all in the oven and baked it. Baked stir fry.

And yeah it was foul. Crisped up instant noodles, flavorless veg and the gloopy remains of the concentrated down ginger wine. But I wanted to appear respectful so I tucked in to about half of it before I noticed my wife and her mum had both taken one bite and then just stopped eating. We sent out for a Chinese instead. mrmessiah

Love you grandma but.... 

Plastic. A disposable takeaway food container lid, or at least most of it.

My grandmother is not a good cook. Quite the opposite. But she thinks she's a gourmet chef... and she's very sensitive about her cooking. My grandmother gave me a big bowl of soup. I took one spoonful, stopped, and insisted... that something was wrong. Too much fish? Some kind of seafood? Maybe some ingredient had gone bad? I got yelled at. Screaming, top of the lungs, yelled at.

I asked my grandmother, no, seriously, have you tasted this? Of course she had, she replied. The soup was fine. So I finished the soup. Every last drop, because it was the polite thing to do. It was incredibly awful, but I figured the soup had to be okay, just particularly foul tasting for whatever reason. For obvious reasons, my family has the ability to choke down food while ignoring the taste and any urge to vomit.

Of course, the truth was... she hadn't tasted the soup, she just lied and said she did, in order to win the argument. To be fair, she did apologize when she discovered the melted remains of the plastic container at the bottom of the pot. This didn't make me feel better. Acylion

Surprise? More like a nightmare. 

My aunt's dish that she brings to every family get-together:

"Lime jello, marshmallow, cottage cheese surprise."

Everyone hates the dish but loves her - so, I eat some so as not to hurt her feelings. Back2Bach

My mom makes fruit salad with mayonnaise. It's really good but I grew up with it and still think it's weird. No one's ever said anything but I always wonder what people think that have never had it before. SchlapHappy

There is such a thing as too polite! 

Pig's Face for Christmas. Lived in a former Soviet country for awhile it's considered traditional. Just a boiled pig's head, no seasoning, mostly fat and cartilage. But once you drink enough, you'll eat the face.

Bonus Meal out of politeness: heart, liver and, kidney soup. Made from the unhappiest most starvingist cows you'll ever see. Strong blood and iron flavor, water for seasoning. Eaten with lots of alcohol. motorcycle-manful541

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