When getting together for dinner with friends, there isn't a more convenient, economical, or (hopefully) fun way to do it than having a potluck.
That way, one person isn't responsible for cooking everything, not to mention cleaning all the dishes afterward.
And everyone can contribute something they love, be it handmade or store-bought.
Of course, the ongoing risk with potluck meals is that one dish proves to be much less popular than others, possibly even going completely untouched all night. Perhaps the only thing worse than a dish going completely untouched is only one person touching it and then warning others to avoid it.
Redditor aquamarinetangerines was eager to hear about the most disgusting dishes people have ever seen or tasted at a potluck, leading them to ask:
"What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen someone bring to a potluck?"
Disgusting AND Lazy...
"Has a guy bring in his 'specialty corn'.”
"It was legit canned corn in a crockpot with spices."
"Thing is, he tells us 'ya, my wife took it to her pot luck on Tuesday, they didn’t eat it so I saved it on low in the crockpot and brought it here'.”
"It was Friday."
"Corn was brown."
"Nobody ate it."
"He kept eating it saying it was so good."
"The following Monday his new name at work was Corn Cob Rob."- ComparisonHonest
"She opened a can of tiny shrimp and poured it out, liquid and all, on top of a block of cream cheese."
"That was it. I guess we were supposed to eat it with crackers."- cherrybounce
Happy Fun GIF by Chopt Creative Salad Co.GiphyCheck The Dates...
"My grandmother-in-law."
"Everything she brings."
"The first time was stale cake in a bowl of syrup(?)."
"It was both cake and soup, while also being neither."
"She has meat in her deep freezer older than some of her grandchildren."
"She’s a depression-era cook, so expiration dates don’t apply to medicine, cupboards, or freezers."
"Once she tried to give my daughter (2yo at the time), cough medicine that expire 9 years before she was even born."- dirtandstarsinmyeyes
"We had a potluck today and someone brought some Doritos."
"People started eating them and complaining that they tasted like dirt."
"We looked at the bag and it had a promo for 'Mockingjay part 1'."
"The chips expired in 2014!"
"This was a mixed department pot luck and we haven’t found the person that brought the 9 year old chips."- Chicken_Scented_Fart
Beef In Place Of Walnuts? Makes Perfect Sense...
"Someone made brownies with ground meat in them to a church potluck."
"My vegetarian friend discovered this when she bit into one."
"She was more confused and horrified about their existence than she was upset about eating meat-."
"It was the concept of this abomination itself that was disturbing and baffling."
"I thought she had to be wrong."
"'You haven't had ground beef in years, you don't know what it tastes like anymore, it's probably something else'."
"I tried them."
"It was beef."
"I was disgusted and really, really, really confused."
"Years later, I found out that apparently this was a thing."
"Someone came up with this-- putting beef in brownies-- as a substitute for walnuts for people with nut allergies."
"While this explains it a little, in theory, I'm still confused about why someone would assume that people who can't eat walnuts would prefer to eat ground beef brownies over just regular nut-free brownies."
"My sister reminded me that she was also there for this and she had tried the brownies first, and that they were actually the reason she stopped wanting to come to church."
"'I started doubting the entire establishment', she says."- Unfey
Hungry Pizza GIF by Papa JohnsGiphyHonest Mistake? Or Adventurous Experiment?
"Someone brought Deviled eggs and instead of sprinkling paprika on them they used cinnamon."- TinyWifeKiki
Veering From The Recipe Doesn't Always Pay Off...
“'Homemade fried chicken'.”
"Which translated to ‘chicken that I covered in pancake batter and breadcrumbs and dropped into a frypan until the outside looked cooked'."
"It wasn’t even seasoned."- Tying_pyrope
Not Everyone Likes Things Spicy...
"An apple pie, but they didn't have apple pie spices, like clove, cinnamon, or nutmeg, and said they used taco seasoning by accident and expected people to eat it."
"I, a dumb b*tch who likes to torture themselves tried it, and promptly tossed it into the trash when they looked away."- jirohen
Hot GIF by GIPHY Studios 2018GiphyAt A Restaurant No Less!
"A Korean-American coworker brought homemade kimchi, but she admittedly didn't know how to make it and just 'winged it'."
"It was fermented wrong and was covered in mold, which she didn't seem to understand was bad."
"The vegetables were basically half liquified and it smelled like dumpster juice."
"The thing is...half of the chefs at work had learned to make kimchi correctly and safely since various different kimchis used to be on the menu before she was hired."
"So we all instantly knew it was wrong and unsafe, but no one wanted to tell her."- No_Pear_2326
Cross Contamination...
"At my previous job, I had a coworker that would frequently cook food because it was his 'passion' and he would bring it in to share with everyone."
"On a few occasions, someone would get ill after, but infrequently enough that people wrote it off as a coincidence."
"This coworker goes out on PTO and asks another coworker to feed his 12 cats while he is gone/scoop the litter boxes."
"Unfortunately, it was discovered the coworker was cooking/serving us food in the same pans he was also sometimes using as litter boxes for his bushel of cats."
"When confronted, he stated he thought this was fine because he washed them after."
"We never ate his food again."- Kitten_spawn
Surprise Ingredients Rarely Pay Off...
"Casserole with a side of roaches."
"Not even kidding."
"They crawled out of the bag she brought her dish in."
"I stopped participating in potlucks after that."- CanUFeelItMrKrabs
new york cockroach GIFGiphyYesterday's Delicacies/Today's Atrocities...
"Grandma's Jello salad, made with cottage cheese and celery."- GoatEatingTroll
No two people share the same taste in food, hence why we shouldn't always be hurt or offended if our contribution to a potluck doesn't prove popular.
There's also nothing wrong with choosing to pop by a supermarket instead of preparing something yourself.
As a store-bought lasagna will always go over better than homemade kimchi covered with mold or ground beef brownies...
The way people spend money has always fascinated me.
For many years I waited tables.
I worked in high-end, low-end, and all of the in-betweens.
And what would shock me most (besides all of y'all's BAD behavior) was the waste.
The waste of food, but more importantly the waste of money.
How does someone order a $50 steak, only eat half and toss out the rest?
No doggie bag. No leftover.
It must be nice to have that much coin to toss away.
Redditor StalkSmash wanted to discuss everyone's shopping habits, so they asked:
"What is one thing that you flat out just don’t know how people afford?"
Premium liquor choices always stun me.
When a certain friend can just casually order a $30 martini because of the vodka choice, without blinking, I'm stunned.
Jealous first, then stunned.
Stay Home
Hungry Night Court GIF by LaffGiphy"People who eat exclusively by ordering takeaways or delivery from restaurants. It's mind-bogglingly expensive."
woke_agenda
Secrets
"Secret hidden families. I can barely afford 1."
judgeeveryonesbiznes
"At my last job, a woman told me her (ex)husband had a secret family. She found out when I guess the mortgage company called to ask about some documents for the new house. No idea what he did for work. Wife, two kids, a house, and whatever the bonus family consisted of."
Tomacxo
"My dad did this. He had started a company in another city within the state, as that was where the industry prospects were better. Aaaaaaaand time rolled on past and I guess he missed having family around, just not ours."
luckycaller13
Bad Upkeep
"Eyelash extensions and the upkeep of them."
CollegeFabulous3535
"I got them. They took 2 hours to put on initially and then you have to go back every two weeks to get them filled or you look like you have mange."
"You also have to brush them every single morning or they will point in every direction, and God help you if you have a cold or allergies where your eyes get even slight build-up. You can't just pick any crusty s**t from your eyelashes because the fake ones are glued on and this acts as a stopper so you can't just slide it off your lash."
"I spent so many mornings standing in front of the mirror cleaning and arranging one f**king eyelash at a time. I couldn't deal."
Purple_Chipmunk_
Overpaying
"I still don't know how we afforded daycare. At one point had two kids in daycare for a year before oldest went to kindergarten."
PJ_lyrics
"We have two kids in full-time daycare, the daycare that we go to is slightly below market rate for the area, we're going to pay around 25k this year. Thank God my oldest goes to kindergarten next fall."
"We overpay on our mortgage because we're trying to pay it off quicker, but if we paid the actual loan amount daycare would cost more than our house."
"And let me be clear, my wife and I are the lucky ones. We waited to have a kid until our late 30s, and I was 40 when kid 2 was born. We both have good careers and make good incomes and it's a serious, serious financial stretch for us to be able to afford it, I honestly don't know how other people do it and there's no way I would have been able to afford two kids even 7 or 8 years ago."
topcide
For Fun
Shark Week Ocean GIF by Pudgy PenguinsGiphy"A boat or RV (or both)?! I can barely afford to exist much less spend all this money on recreation."
Korashime
Boats have always been an issue.
Just remember the Titanic.
Upkeep
Face Botox GIF by Montreux ComedyGiphy"Women who keep up with nails, lash extensions, Botox etc. That crap is expensive as f**k!"
GingerMeTimberMate
Up in the Air
Flying Music Video GIFGiphy"First-class airfare... it’s just so overwhelmingly expensive in comparison to regular seats I can’t imagine anyone ever having that amount to spare unless you’re incredibly wealthy."
Fit-Vanilla-3405
International Worth
"International First Class tickets. I'm going to Japan in a month and was thinking of going in style. I got a nice raise and a bit of vacation time saved and wanted to treat myself. Forget it all. $17k was the cheapest I found. Absolutely insane!"
trapNsagan
"Buy economy than wait. They will send emails out to bid on the business and first-class seats that are not sold. Or you can check on the airline's app for seat upgrades closer to the departure date and upgrade cheaper."
brosiedon7
Special Days
"Multiple-family foreign holidays per year. To be clear, I'm not criticizing anyone on this, and I appreciate that if you leave in mainland Europe, it's easier than here (Scotland)."
"I am just genuinely amused/bemused when I see people on their 2/3/4 foreign holiday of the year on social media."
"We went to Portugal last year (Fantastic country, btw). 2 adults 2 kids (the eldest boy was playing in a football tournament), and it was probably £3.5k and that was done cheaply. We don't go into debt for a holiday ever, though."
MelmanCourt
Getting on in Years
"Eldercare. $300 a day is about typical for most states, and it goes up if they need special care (dementia, etc)."
"3/4 of Americans who live to 21 live to 65, of which 2/3 will need long-term care for an average of 3 years. Maybe not all long-term care is nursing level, but some of it is even more expensive -- memory care, etc. Comes out to roughly $150k per person-- and almost double that if you limit it to those who need any at all. Somewhere between a generous down payment and a new house. Who can afford that -- especially after decades not working?"
Opening_Cellist_1093
First-class has always been an intriguing aspect of mine.
But that extra coin can get crazy.
I'll stick to coach.
