Maybe this is a lounge question

[Tab]

I don't know why I'm asking it, except it's nearly midnight on a Friday and I had a Most Crappy Day. So I feel entitled to expand a bit.

What's the most awful thing you've eaten or seen eaten?

I have horrible memories from grade school in the 60's with "vegetable medley", "shephards pie" and whatnot, not to mention made-from-box mashed potatoes and "tuna tetrazzina" from high school, but the one thing that is stuck is my mind is a weekend that I either spent in Burlington or Montreal - I think it might have been Montreal - we all drank the bejeezus out of wherever we were, and probably were stoked on hash too (I haven't used drugs for 20 years, but that's how it was in the late 70s and early 80s) and this friend of mine from Montreal had the munchies (he had FAR more hash than I ever did) and opened a COLD (or room temp) can of creamed corn, for goodness sakes, and ate it. I not only was ready to heave right then and there, but every time I remember it WHICH, I might mention, is not an easy image to avoid.

Apologies to those of more sensitive nature. As I said, it's been a crappy day, and I just need to say something to someone. You guys are my friends (well, maybe not after this post) so I feel safe saying it here.

- Tab

[grasswire]

1. it was probably linguine with peanut butter

Somebody was trying to make szechuan noodles and just used those two ingredients. :::shiver:::

[Tab]

7. I confess to going this route too

there's a huge difference, I found, between szech noodles with peanut sauce and linguini with peanut butter. On the surface, though, it seemed to make sense at the time.

[Duer 157099]

2. I just can't seem to get grossed out over cold creamed corn

:shrug: I guess I just like corn too much. Not that I've ever eaten it out of the can, but I bet it's not horrible. Maybe it's just horrible to watch someone eat it?

I'm pretty sure that the worst things I've seen being eaten were either on Man vs. Wild or Survivorman. Yeah, that's it - it was when Bear Gryllis caught a fish and just bit right into it while it was still alive. Or maybe it was those big squishy worms or grubs that he ate live. No doubt he's eaten the grossest things I've ever seen. Makes me less squimish about things like bugs in my food.

Creamed corn ain't got nuthin' on him I tells ya.

[grasswire]

9. did you see him eat the mangrove snake?

Or the monitor lizard? Mangrove snakes are poisonous. He did cut the head off first, unlike some other things. Oh, and the yak eyeball? He said that was the worst.

[Duer 157099]

18. Oh god, yes, I remember the eyeball, that was bad

and thanks, now you've reminded me of the episodes where he finds dead and decaying carcases and feasts on those, thanks :thumbsup: :D

Or maybe Bourdain was the worst, when he ate some truly horrific things in Africa (Nambia?), because he takes you with him to the horribleness of it because you know he appreciates good food, whereas Bear might just really not care as much.

[housewolf]

3. I, too, have had a Most Crappy Day and it's almost midnight my time...

I'm squeemish about a lot of things, and not any sort of adventurous eater. So, I gotta tell you, I can't hack Anthony Bourdin's tv show. I just cannot watch without wanting to run for the bathroom. The commercial with him eataing the still-beating cobra hearts still gives me the shivers. Ugggggghhhhhh

I can't hack a lot of Asian ingredients, even to look at them... especially some of the more exotic seafood items, either. But then, I'm so squeemish that I can't even sit at a table when a fish with a head on it is served... something about those eyes....

I've been threatening to go pour myself a stiff drink for a couple of hours now... I just may have to break down and go for it now....

[Tab]

4. Aaah, we're a sorry bunch, aren't we?

It's nearly 5 a.m. now. I'm awake because my legs hurt (long story) but

(sigh)

Never mind.

At least thanks to some of you I can replace the imagery of cold creamed corn from the can with snakes and bugs. Thanks a lot, y'all! :)

- t

[Callalily]

5. I'm a pretty adventurous

eater, but I do have my limits. Was having lunch at an Asian restaurant. They had many Asian cuisines and the entrées were very authentic. I ordered a salad (Korean - sorry don't remember the name of the salad), and actually, it was quite good. Except there was one ingredient that I just could not place. It was whiteish and had a rubbery texture. I asked the waitstaff what it was. When she started to explain that in Asian cultures "nothing goes to waste", I got a little apprehensive. Well, she finally told me what the mystery ingredient was - cow stomach! :puke: :puke: Sorry, I just could not finish that salad.

Oh, and your creamed corn aversion? I had a friend who just loved creamed corn over mashed potatoes. That's the god's honest truth.

[Phentex]

6. Hands down, a nasty casserole called Johnny Marzetti...

My husband's family loves this nasty stuff. Apparently, somebody's great grandmother made it so I think there is sentimental value to it. But coming from a family of Sicilians, this stuff makes me gag. I know there are many versions of it, but these people use green olives, onions and peppers, canned tomato soup and slices of American cheese. I would rather eat Beef-a-roni!

[hippywife]

8. Oh, no!

I grew up eating Johnny Marzetti. There were six kidlets and not a lot of money, ya know? But the canned tomato soup and american cheese got me. Ugh. We didn't make it like that. At least we had the decency to make it with tomato sauce but with no olives, and parmesan cheese even if it was from the can.

I don't make it anymore because we don't eat like that but I did make it into my adulthood before I really learned how to cook. And it does seem to come with some sentiment attached to it. :rofl: But then there are many childhood associations with food. :hi:

[Phentex]

11. Regular sauce and parm would be good....

more of a beef casserole. It's the combo of soup and am. cheese AND the fact that they cook it to mush that makes it nasty, IMO.

I googled some other versions and they sound pretty tasty. :hi:

[housewolf]

10. Oh yeah, Johnny Marzetti was a staple of the mid-west

where I grew up in the 1950's. There are many versions of it but basically it's egg noodles, tomato (in some form or another) and ground beef. Most versions have some other ingredients to jazz it up, but it's traditional Ohio-Indiana-Pennsylvalia "comfort" food. Not that is's so comforting to most of us now!

I went to a family reunion in Ohio a couple years ago, hadn't been back for about 20 years. My relatives went all-out to "bring back the old days" for us - it was the first time we'd all been together since my family left in 1964. One of the events included a dinner of "old family favorites"... and of course, Johnny Marzetti was on the menu. My mother stopped making it decades ago, but, well... there it was! Growing up in Ohio during the 1950's, our palates were accustomed to pretty bland food.

[Phentex]

12. I think I made a skillet version once

using tomatoes and hamburger meat and elbow macaroni. The combination of those items is okay. I just don't get the canned tomato soup (when you can buy a jar of sauce!) plus the green olives and bell peppers. And the am. cheese - why??? LOL.

[hippywife]

14. OMG!

I didn't know you grew up in Ohio! I did, too. But I didn't leave until I was 38, 11 years ago now. :hi:

Hope you got some sleep and are doing better this fine day. :hug:

[housewolf]

19. Oh yeah... Born & bred on the east side of Columbus

I still have a lot of family there... my mom's two sisters and their husbands are still alive, one had 6 kids and the other had 2 so there were tons of my cousin's kids and their kids who I'd never met. One of my cousins rented a little bus and we took a "tour" of the city, visiting all of our old "historical" locals... including our grandmother's house (which was the house I grew up in). Of course, the current residents wondered why this bus full of people unloaded in front of their house... they came out and talked to us and so graciously invited us into the house to re-visit it. Got to see the old kitchen and recall my grandma showing me how to make bread and cookies. It was quite the trip.

What part are you from?

[hippywife]

20. I love the tour story! What fun!

PM to you. Didn't want to totally hijack this thread. LOL

[kestrel91316]

23. In vet school I practically lived on casseroles, one of which was

Marzetti-like, with elbow macaroni, ground beef, tomato sauce, and cottage cheese. I guess I'm weird. I LOVED it.

[sandnsea]

13. Raw Oysters, no question

Even crappier than when my mil put garlic on a ham. I was in pretty much the same condition you described, in one of the finest restaurants in Little Rock, with a growing wad of, well you fill in the blank, in my mouth. I know a lot of people love raw oysters, I'll cook them, thank you very much.

Sorry you had a crappy day.

[japple]

15. It had to be the "hot roast beef" sandwich from the Huddle

House. My husband and I were driving from NC to GA, got a late start and it was about 2:00 when we decided we couldn't hold out until suppertime. We stopped at a Huddle House and there was a sign on the door advertising their special Hot Roast Beef sandwich. The picture looked just like the sandwiches my mother used to make, so we each ordered one. When they came to the table, they were made with that paper-thin sandwich roast beef, fried in a skillet, served on white bread and covered with a gluey "gravy." I tried one bite and that was it, but the french fries were good. My husband ate his sandwich, because he was really hungry, but he had to choke it down. He was made of sterner stuff than me. :puke:

I've never been to a Huddle House again and that was about 10 years ago.

[Warpy]

16. My mother, the career food wrecker,

went on a Gayelord Hauser kick in the 1950s, putting brewer's yeast and blackstrap molasses into everything. Weekends weren't bad, my dad would look at the mess and a night out to a cheap cafeteria would ensue.

As I recall, it was mercifully short. As I recall, it was memorably awful.

Ever have peanut butter with blackstrap molasses and brewer's yeast on Wonder Bread?

This was the period that taught me how to hide the really nasty stuff in toilet paper stuffed in my underwear for later disposal down the john or under the shrubbery.

The shrubbery seemed to like it, anyway.

[mtnester]

17. Well...it was something I did NOT eat actually.

Ahem...1979.....microdot (purple). Was bored and hanging out with my favorite tripping girlfriend Belinda (always felt safe, laughed more than anything, we tripped well together) ANYWAY, we had already set some steaks out, and it was summer and we STUPIDLY crushed the dot and snorted it instead of the traditional way. Of course, snorting it works quicker. We miscalculated, and when trying to get the steak grilled up so we did not trip on an empty belly (always better if you ave a meal first), the dot kicked in and them damn steaks did the Poltergeist thing (no worms, they only "moved away" from the fork.) Every time we tried to hwndle the steaks, they moved (not really, but sheesh)

Well YEAH that was a bit more than we could handle, so we threw them in the trash (instead of putting them in the fridge of course..we were higher than a damn kite by then...DUST had trails)

We then went outside and sat and tripped on lightning bugs and jet planes the rest of the evening. To this day, I remember that particular event.

Steaks alive! Gawd I was young.

[Tab]

21. Purple microdots, eh?

I mainly had them at concerts at Saratoga Springs, Talking Heads in particular, but I think also Santana, and maybe the B-52s.

I do remember a trip to the Canadian border for grilled food on the beach at 5 a.m. I don't think it was microdots (I only tried them a few times) but I'm pretty sure hashish and some magic mushrooms figured into the trip.

Oh, yeah, and lots of Brador. (That's the strong Canadian version, not the weak-assed American version).

I swear it's a wonder I'm still alive.

[kestrel91316]

22. When my sister returned from her year as a foreign exchange student

in Sweden, she just HAD to introduce us to the local cuisine. Are you familiar with lutefisk??

Let it suffice to say even my DAD wouldn't eat it, and he loved everything.

Thankfully, salt cod, from which lutefisk is made, is virtually unaffordable these days so I am hoping that the next 30 years will pass the way the last 30 have: lutefisk-free.

[Tab]

24. Lutefisk is gross

as is tripe.

Supposedly a few people can make it really well (Thomas Keller seems to like this stuff) but I see the stuff and it just makes me... well, let's not go there.

[Redstone]

25. A note for the "Johnny Marzetti" fans:

Oddly enough, I'd never heard of that before, but just last night I was reading "Bake Until Bubbly" (a book about casseroles), and the author said that it actually was popularized by Americans in the Canal Zone in Panama, way back when.

Any truth to that?

Redstone

[housewolf]

26. I don't know...

In my family, growing up, we just called it "Marzetti", later in life I heard it referred to as "Johnny Marzetti." We had a restaurant in town named "Marzetti's", so I always assumed that it came from there. This was in the 1950's.

[Redstone]

27. Could be. Food history is murky, so I'm not sure if the author of that book

really knows what he's talking about.

Just thought I'd throw it out there for your consideration.

Redstone

[housewolf]

28. Several references sourcing it to the restaurant I mentioned...

I Googled "history marzetti" and got quite a few hits. Here's a link sourcing it back to the Marzetti's Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio
http://idrathernotbecooking.blogspot.com/2008/04/johnny-knew-thing-or-two-about-marzetti.html
The Johnny Marzetti casserole was created in the 1920s by the owner of the Marzetti Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, and the dish was named Johnny Marzetti after the brother of the owner of the restaurant. This restaurant was founded by Teresa Marzetti who was a recent immigrant, in 1896. It became so popular with its recipes for dressings that after her death, the restaurant closed but remained on as a manufacturer of their signature dressings.


There's a Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Marzetti
Johnny Marzetti is a baked pasta dish, or casserole, consisting of noodles, tomato sauce, ground beef, and cheese. Other ingredients and seasonings may be added to adjust the taste. The dish originated in Columbus, Ohio at the Marzetti restaurant, and spread to other parts of the United States as variations of the recipe were published in magazines and cookbooks during the mid-20th century. The dish is still served in Ohio, especially at social gatherings and in school lunchrooms.

Johnny Marzetti also gained a great deal of popularity in the Panama Canal Zone, where it was served at social occasions and on holidays since at least the early WWII era. The Canal Zone version of the dish typically includes celery and green olives, and is almost always spelled "Johnny Mazetti" by Zonians. The importance of Johnny Mazetti to the culture of the Canal Zone was such that most Zonians are unaware of the origin of the dish and are surprised to learn that it did not originate there.



Here's another link - this one to the "Culinary Types" blog titled "In Search of Johnny Marzetti"
http://culinarytypes.blogspot.com/2006/11/in-search-of-johnny-marzetti-its.html
She also sources it back to the resaurant, saying she found that reference in her "Joy of Cooking" cookbook.


Here's one more, a newspaper article with several recipes
http://www.post-gazette.com/food/19991104mailbox.asp
Kitchen Mailbox: Johnny Marzetti immortalized as casserole
Thursday, November 04, 1999
By Arlene Burnett, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

What's Johnny Marzetti? Johnny Marzetti is a casserole created in the 1920s by the owner of the Marzetti Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. Who was Johnny Marzetti? According to the "American Century Cookbook" by Jean Anderson, Johnny Marzetti was the brother of the owner of the Marzetti Restaurant.

Casseroles steamrolled into the kitchen in the 1940s and have remained popular staples to this day. The Johnny Marzetti casserole was popular in the mid '50s and early '60s. It consists of meat, pasta and either tomato sauce, soup or juice.

When Mary Dietrik of Venetia requested a recipe for this hearty casserole, the mail poured in. As we read through the recipes, we realized there were as many versions of this dish as there was mail. We wish we could print every recipe we received because every one sounded delicious.

We chose two recipes that are similar to the original recipe -- and we chose the third recipe because it was absolutely one of the quickest meals we ever made.

Inga Bauman of Lyndora, Pa., remembers the Johnny Marzetti casserole from high school. Bauman received her recipe from the Knoch High School cafeteria in 1963.
Johnny Marzetti

1 pound ground chuck
1 onion, diced (we used a medium size)
1 green pepper, diced
1 teaspoon oil
1 large can tomatoes (29 ounces)
1 large can tomato juice
1 pound elbow macaroni, cooked
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Garlic salt, to taste

Brown meat, onion and green pepper in oil.

Drain, then add tomatoes, tomato juice and spices.

Add cooked macaroni to sauce. Simmer 10 minutes and serve.
-----------------

Susan Hawkins of Whitehall says this casserole is a family favorite -- she's had the recipe since the late '60s.
Johnny Marzetti

1 (8-ounce) package noodles (we used egg noodles)
1 1/2 pounds ground chuck
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1 (8-ounce) can mushrooms (juice included)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon oregano
2 cans condensed tomato soup
1 small can tomato paste
1 cup water
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
8 ounces (2 cups) sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

Brown meat; add onion, green pepper and mushrooms. Cook until tender, then add seasonings; set aside.

In another pot or bowl, combine soup, tomato paste, water and Worcestershire sauce; set aside. Cook noodles and drain.

Place a layer of noodles in a greased casserole (we used 9-by-13-inches), then a layer of meat mixture and half of the sauce and half of the cheese.

Repeat, ending with the remaining cheese.

Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for 1 hour.
------------------

Here's a version sent in by Phyllis Sember of McDonald, Pa.
She credits it to the Cecil Elementary PTA cookbook, "Kids Cookin' " (1988).

Johnny Marzetti

1 pound ground chuck
1 small onion, chopped
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 (14-ounce) can tomatoes
1 (8-ounce) bag of noodles (we used egg noodles)
1 1/2 cups grated American cheese, see note

Brown beef and onion. Add remaining ingredients and place in a casserole dish.

Top with grated American cheese. Bake at 275 degrees for 1 1/2 hours.

Note: This recipe didn't call for any amount of cheese -- we used 1 1/2 cups, but more or less may be used.
-----------------

[hippywife]

29. That first recipe is the one

I remember both from home and elementary school (mom was a cafeteria lady for a few years.) And, while I don't remember the restaurant (we were too poor to eat out) I do remember the factory on Indianola Ave. where they made the dressings.

[Tab]

30. Sounds like a homemade version of Hamburger Helper

or what they called "American Chop Suey" (effectively a weak goulash)

[hippywife]

31. That's exactly what it is.

Hamburger Helper is just a high preservative and chemical rip-off of comfort food. :hi:

[housewolf]

32. Generic Beef-a-roni

I guess any sort of beef (or other sort of meat, I suppose), tomatoes & pasta would qulify, with whatever add-ins desired.

My family's version was browned beef, sauteed onions, & canned tomatoes ,,, I think that's it. Very plain, slow-cooked, big casserole. I recall liking it very much as a kid... don't know what I would think of it now.