The eGullet Hall of Shame

[SheenaGreena]

I forgot to add that I do not know how to make coffee. I can grind my own beans, throw them in the french press and make decent coffee but that was all for my ex. Now that we aren't together I have no desire to make fancy pants coffee. Now I just stick to drinking instant coffee with splenda and lots of non dairy creamer (the powdered kind). Tastes like candy for breakfast!

[Beebs]

Thanks to this thread...I went all-out at the supermarket last night, and filled a basket with shameful items. I'll be making tuna noodle casserole this weekend, which I've only made once before (and not even real casserole at that - it was boxed mac & cheese with a tin of tuna stirred in). I now have hanging out in my kitchen a couple cans of cheddar cheese soup & a couple cans of mushroom (No Name brand), some tins of tuna (President's Choice), and bow tie pasta.

I also bought a bag of cheese puffs, which I shall not-so-shamefully consume while constructing the tuna noodle casserole.

[jasie]

Thanks to this thread I just went and bought a big bag of ruffles (Original) , sour cream, and onion soup mix. And am having bad BAD cravings for multiple other things mentioned in this thread.

[violetfox]

Jiffy corn muffin mix

original green bean casserole with canned cream of mushroom soup AND "french fried onions"

I also use said mushroom soup and FF onions in tuna noodle casserole, but also celery (diced fresh), frozen peas, and lashings of Hellmans mayonnaise, usually Old Bay Seasoning too (boy, am I hungry right now!)

Penzeys spice mixes (oh the horror)

yes, Underwood Devilled Ham but doctored with mayo and pickle relish

[andiesenji]

Thanks to this thread I just went and bought a big bag of ruffles (Original) , sour cream, and onion soup mix. And am having bad BAD cravings for multiple other things mentioned in this thread.

Me too! I had to pull out the ThinSkin keyboard cover and apply it because of the danger of serious drool...

The casserole which is calling me is the one with Fritos (original) layered with canned chili chopped onions, grated cheddar alternating - two layers of each.

I shudder to think of the number of calories, the total fat and know that I will need industrial strength antiacids later.

Something similar was in the original I Hate To Cook Book.

I'm also a fan of the Underwood spreads but my favorite is the roast beef mashed with the creamy horseradish sauce from the dairy case.

Edited January 22, 2010 by andiesenji (log)

[LindsayAnn]

I love Love love Munchos. I used to buy a large size individual bag (funny, that barely makes since, you know the bags with 3 or so servings in them that you ALWAYS eat the entire thing of, hence in reality its ONE serving thank you very much!) when I was in junior high. Every Single Day! YUM! I love canned cheese dip (non spicy please, just pure cheesy goodness, and I always have a few cans stocked in the house. I love making up large batches of pasta (so that there are extras in the fridge...ok ok OR so I can eat multiple servings at once, I prefer spaghetti or egg noodles for some odd reason, and my favorite way to top said pasta is with either butter and Parmesan cheese, or with butter and grated/shredded sharp cheddar cheese. Salt and pepper on both combination's please. Simple and so so yummy. I love eating peanut butter straight from the jar, on a spoon....but hey I am not shamed at all about that one now that I think about it. I Love Bagel Bites pizzas, just bought some today. I enjoy frozen pizzas - totally different than delivery but both have their place in my diet And, I haven't read this one on here yet....wait for it, wait for it......I LIKE, I honestly really really like lunchables. Shutter the glares in my direction!!!! Yup, I said it, and it feels GOOD Just the plain old cracker, ham or turkey and cheese Lunchables. They are so different than making up your own deli meat/cheese/cracker sandwichs. Totally different. While both are good, Lunchables find their way into my shopping cart quite regularly. Kinda similar, I also like Handisnacks (you know the little mini packs that come with four of those butter crackers and a little mini tub of spreadable cheese that you spread onto the crackers with that cute little red cheese wand-things. Love those. Still buy them too!!!

P.S. I always like Tostitos Lime Chips!

[LindsayAnn]

Wow, I just noticed all of my confessions have cheese in them! Haha. I do love my cheese that's for sure!

[Rico]

The casserole which is calling me is the one with Fritos (original) layered with canned chili chopped onions, grated cheddar alternating - two layers of each.

I shudder to think of the number of calories, the total fat and know that I will need industrial strength antiacids later.

Now, where I'm from, that's a Frito pie to be proud of. Nothin' shameful about that at all.

[heidih]

My main shame is the use of Knorr or Maggi chicken bouillon powder as the taste "fix it". Maybe is is just way of using MSG with yellow food coloring. I could refine things more and balance the flavors but dang this stuff works. That said, I do like Krab in mayo based salads and keep chocolate pudding cups and lite cool whip in the fridge for sweet emergencies. I make a mean variety of slaws but there are days when the KFC coleslaw is the only answer, eaten with oven baked frozen fries with more mayo and horseradish and/or Sriracha sauce.

[Aloha Steve]

Last night I made chocolate chip cookies for myself to take to my poker game tonight.

I used the best ingredients I had, unbleached organic flour, Maui sugar, etc and topped it off with a dab of my secret ingredient fiori di sicilia, which cost 3,000,000 a quart. LOL Its fancy vanilla extract. Cookies smelled good, taste eh, I'll be kind, good too.

Remade today using, bleached cheap white flour, white cheap sugar, cheap butter, no fancy extract..........

I hope we leave enough after stuffing our faces for me to bring to the game tonight they taste so good.

[barolo]

Wow, the power of suggestion! Last night I actually considered buying a can of cheddar cheese soup - something I've never purchased before - and looked at the price of a package of KD - something I haven't eaten in a decade or so.

As for my shame, I go with the OP:

I am ashamed to admit that I do not own and have not read Mastering the Art of French Cooking, nor have I ever made a single recipe from either volume.

and add that I didn't much like Meryl Streep as Julia in Julie and Julia.

I'm not ashamed that I use tetrapak chicken stock, that I buy ketchup as an emergency replacement for tomato paste or sauce, or that I use canned beans pretty much all the time.

That KD is still calling to me though.

[dockhl]

I love Girard's dressings, know that mine will NEVER taste as good. I pour off 2/3 of the oil , tho, and saute mushrooms, etc in it. I don't think the dressing suffers at all (apparently I am not a fan of high oil:vinegar ratio salad dressings!)and I like having the oil for saute.Also like the fact that they are SO low carb !

[Fantastic Mr Fox]

I put ice in my wine, especially red, and it usually comes from a box.

Tastes fine to me.

[kayb]

Maraschino cherries, straight from the jar. I can, and will, eat a whole damn jar of them. El cheapo bread and butter pickles (a buck a jar at the dollar store). Chocolate cream drop candy (which we as children in the South used to know by a name that is not now proper to speak in polite company, or any company at all, for that matter), squashed flat, and layered with a slice of co-jack cheese.

Oh,yeah, and the green bean casserole with golden mushroom soup and fried onions. Got to have it at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's canonical.

[jsmeeker]

Canned peaches. In heavy syrup. Love 'em. I haven't bought them in some time, But I came very close to buying a can at the grocery store today.

Add another person to the Little Debbie Army, Fudge Round brigade. I love, love, loved these. I used to buy them regularly. But I stopped. Then, one day, I looked at their end cap display in my local grocery store. What did I see? Fudge Rounds being offered in a JUMBO size! I did buy some But that was a long time ago. I haven't bought any since.

[Boy R D]

I really like that fake krab meat. You know the stuff made out of whitefish sugar and potato starch? I like to mash it up with mayo and crumbled blue cheese and have it on toast.

[KaffeeKlatsch]

I see Underwood spreads mentioned several times. Does anyone remember the Underwood Liverwurst? I loved that stuff when I was a kid on white bread with Hellman's mayonaisse and a slice of bologna. It's amazing my arteries didn't shut down by the time I was 12.

[CKatCook]

Ok, here is the list:

I grew up eating boiled chicken skin. Yep, I eat boiled chicken skin, heavily salted. To this day I will snatch it off the chicken before shredding it into something I am making. It was the only way my mother knew to cook chicken, so that is how we ate it.

I like underwood deviled ham, and spam - chopped up in kraft mac & cheese. Prefer veleeta, which makes the best queso..if you add sausage and rotel tomatos.

We like pizza rolls, frozen pizzas (dipped in ranch dressing) whoppers, big macs, spagetti o's in the can, manwhich. lunchables sometimes.

I don't see the fasination with truffles, the oil, the truffle, I just don't get it...I tried the oil once, and my throat locked up and refused to let me swallow the taste was awful.

I don't feel much shame about it, really the only thing on the list I cringe at is the chicken skin.

[Lapin d'Argent]

I forgot about canned peaches! I used to love them when I was a kid.

And Underwood deviled ham. I think the fact that the cans came wrapped in paper, like bottles of Worcestershire sauce, added something to the flavor. I never see them in the store anymore. Of course, I don't really look, either...

Boy R D -- you make me want one of your special fake crab meat sandwiches. Maybe with just a couple dashes of hot sauce...

This thread is the Den of Iniquity. Carry on!

[Beth Wilson]

Enablers! You are all Enablers

Made Cherry Jello Last night. It has been years since I have had it and I think I will get it again! This thread has me looking at things in the grocery store I have avoided for a while.

[conor610]

I can't stand uni. I know that I'm supposed to swoon over it, or something, but it's just so...so... squicky. Texture's usually not a problem for me (I love me some raw Kumamoto oysters, for example), but somehow the flavor-texture combo of uni just kills me. I try it every 6 months or so, just to be sure, and...yep. Still gross.

[djyee100]

I can't stand uni. I know that I'm supposed to swoon over it, or something, but it's just so...so... squicky. ...Still gross.

OMG, uni, the one thing I won't eat at a sushi bar. It looks like and probably tastes like...well, I won't say. Years ago a friend and I went to our favorite sushi bar and asked the chef to deep fry the uni in a tempura batter. My friend said that with cooking the uni tasted like the bellies of New England fried clams. I agreed. That was the only way I ever liked uni (& it brought back fond memories of clam shacks in my New England childhood).

[Richard Kilgore]

I love Tater Tots, with ketchup.

Ohhh, I forgot about those. Tater Tots with lots of ketchup. And if some of that ketchup accidentally oozes on to my steak, I am happy (ashamed but happy).

Where's the shame? I yam proud to love tatter tots!

[andiesenji]

I see Underwood spreads mentioned several times. Does anyone remember the Underwood Liverwurst? I loved that stuff when I was a kid on white bread with Hellman's mayonaisse and a slice of bologna. It's amazing my arteries didn't shut down by the time I was 12.

I remember it well. Tasty stuff, especially on pumpernickel sliced very thin.

Others have mentioned canned peaches - yes, I like them with cottage cheese, with enough syrup that the cottage cheese curds are swimming.

Not so much a fan of Spam. Although there was an event, many years ago, when I was a new bride and proudly made up a recipe from The Farm Bureau Cookbook, for "Spiced Ham Loaf."

My ex Navy husband took one taste and told me that I had reinvented Spam. Following the tears, he manfully consumed the portion on his plate and I think fed the rest to the dogs. I never saw it again.

[John]

As a hot dog lover and traditionalist it shames me to say this, but I once had a hot dog with ketchup on it! Quite by accident of course, but still... I was busy talking to my crazy uncle (everybody has one) at a family get together when my son handed me a half eaten hot dog that he couldn't finish. Without looking I shoved the thing in my mouth not knowing there was ketchup on it. My body went into convulsions and my vital organs started to shut down. Fortunately for me one of my inlaws is a nurse who was able to give me CPR. She put mustard on her lips to counter the effects of the ketchup. It was close, but I was able to pull through.

I was shocked that my own son would put ketchup on a hot dog. So shocked that I had to question my wife regarding the boy's paternity. I almost insisted on a DNA test. For a brief time I thought perhaps John Edwards might be the father. With some tough love my wife and I were able to cure my son of his anti social behavior. He now only puts mustard on his hot dogs.