Worst meal at someone's home - Part 2

[Pat Churchill]

OK, why is it that every time I go to my in-laws house for a meal, they don't even start cooking until we get there???  We were invited to breakfast at 8 today.  We got there at 8 and they didn't know what they were going to make yet.  We ate after 9- in shifts- and my hubby did most of the cooking.  WTF-over???? 

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At least the food is freshly cooked. How about getting to your in-laws and finding the broccoli is already in the steamer - an hour before dinner!!

[tkerby]

I've had some bad experiences, may which I've tried to help recover such as suggesting our friend might want to parboil his potatoes before roasting them (after the solid lumps we got the last time) and put them in hot oil. Shame he decided he didn't need to turn them. Crispy and perfectly cooked on one side (if a little greasy) but hard, slimy and undercooked on the other

Another memorable one we had was the duck we had got from a very good butcher which they had forgotten to gut. 30 minutes of pulling out its insides and the stench of rotting pondweed later, we put it in the oven but the smell continued to get worse. We gave up and got takeaway as I guess the meat had been tainted by the rotting stomach. That said, they did give us $200 of free steak when we mentioned it the next time we were in.

The worst, however, has to have been the dinner party of a manic depressive friend. The house was thick with dirt, the bird in the hallway stank and the place was a tip. At least they were scrubbing the pots and pans, albeit out in the back yard. The meal was a thai chicken curry. Noodles and chicken were cooked, the chicken sliced and a tub of Lloyd Grossman sauce thrown over the top. I could have thought of worse and was so hungry I was pleased to have some food. I started slurping the noodles until my teeth crunched on something harder. What did I find? A kitchen matchstick, head still on. I poked around a bit to discover about 15 more and put them to the side of my plate and enquired to our host what had happened. I noticed the other guests were doing the same. Apparently they had dropped the matches in the boiling noodles and though they had managed to pick them all out. Unfortunately it was a jumbo sized box and they had missed more than a few and nicely steeped the noodles in a chemical soup. We carefully picked on the chicken, leaving the noodles and hoping for the best

Then one of the guests offered a bottle of Bunnahabhain after trying to correct the entire party on its pronunciation (they were all correct, he was wrong). We all took a nip and were glad it was a closed bottle to start. Then he took it to the bathroom with him claiming he didnt want it spiked. The volume was still the same when he came back so we braved another shot assuming he was just being a bit odd. Only later were we told that he had added some of our hosts lithium tablets to the bottle to make it more fun. Luckily by this point we had only had a small sip of the second glass and myself and my girlfriend promptly left.

That night we were both violently sick and I awoke multiple times in the night paralysed and in great pain from muscle cramps. I think I would have phoned the hospital had I been able to reach the phone downstairs. Luckily by the morning the effects seemed to have worn off and we had survived the experience left only with aching stomach and muscles for the next few days.

I've had food poisoning before but I never expected chemical poisoning from a dinner party. We've not been back since.

[racheld]

This ole thread just keeps bumpin' up and chuggin' along. And the stories are all grotesquely charming, in their way.

Newly-Vegan friends will be here for Labor Day weekend, on their way up to Amish country (what a WASTE of all those splendid dinnertables, groaning with seven sweets and seven sours, and ninety other dishes in between). I haven't a clue what to think of to prepare for them, so we're mostly grilling---a garden full of zucchini and squash can't be ALL bad.

They're welcome to all the tofunutloaf they can hold, but I won't be cooking any---it would be like the time a Japanese houseguest visited our home down South. Several friends jumped in with their own "authentic" Japanese recipes to serve her while she was there, but that would be like the time the Pope visited the USA, to be taken on a viewing of the Pieta, on loan to a museum here. (only on a VERY much lower, redneck-sort of level, and presumptuous to boot).

We had Pinto beans with several pounds of ham silky-simmered in, and cornbread and devilled eggs and homemade banana pudding, all of which she wrote about for years after her visit.

I DO love all these contributions. Anyone else?

Please.

[hummingbirdkiss]

ok how could I forget about this meal? maybe it was the wonderful caring company ..maybe it was the wine ...but here it is

I love spaghetti ..really love it ..I grew up in Providence RI so it is in my blood

so my dearest of friend when I went to stay at her house one time asked me what I wanted for dinner ..I said "I am depressed that our time together is over and would love to have a big plate of spaghetti"

she honored my request refused my offer of help so I could just be catered too....she is not a bad cook she does fine with things she makes as a rule

she opened a can of Hunts tomatoes whole into a pan and mashed them with a fork ..and tossed an oxo beef cube said the words " this is my easy meat contribution" boiled it for 3 min added a handful of dried oregano and poured it over some very under cooked spaghetti noodles...

served it to me proudly with some grated cheddar cheese and a nice glass of wine

I love her and appreciated her efforts but honestly have never seen anything like what my plate held!!!

oh yeah RE the cheddar cheese on top? "hey it is as good as parm" she says ...

the wine was a fantastic Rioja so with the warmth of that and her genuine love for me ..I ate every bite and then I hugged her profusely

it may very well have been the worst plate of spaghetti I have ever had but it was one of the sweetest meals of my life

Edited August 15, 2007 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[Shelby]

ok how could I forget about this meal? maybe it was the wonderful caring company ..maybe it was the wine ...but here it is

I love spaghetti ..really love it ..I grew up in Providence RI so it is in my blood

so my dearest of friend when I went to stay at her house one time asked me what I wanted for dinner ..I said "I am depressed that our time together is over and would love to have a big plate of spaghetti"

she honored my request refused my offer of help so I could just be catered too....she is not a bad cook she does fine with things she makes as a rule

she opened a can of Hunts tomatoes  whole into a pan and mashed them with a fork ..and tossed an oxo beef cube said the words  " this is my easy meat contribution" boiled it for 3 min added a handful of dried oregano and poured it over some very under cooked spaghetti noodles...

served it to me proudly with some grated cheddar cheese and a nice glass of wine

I love her and appreciated her efforts but honestly have never seen anything like what my plate held!!!

oh yeah RE the cheddar cheese on top? "hey it is as good as parm" she says ...

the wine was a fantastic Rioja so with the warmth of that and her genuine love for me  ..I ate every bite and then I hugged her profusely

it may very well have been the worst plate of spaghetti I have ever had but it was one of the sweetest meals of my life 

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Awwwww what a great story!

[tabascomutt]

I was invited over to a friends new home for dinner. I was excited when I got there, and could smell the ripe tomatoes simmering in the pot. It smelled delicious! So we talked for a while and she began telling me about the recipe for the Beef stew she had created. She is a good cook so I had no reason to be worried, or so I thought. As we all gathered around the table and closed our eyes for prayer I peeked at what would be the toughest meat known to man. Then I opened my mouth and began to chew. . .and chew. . .and chew. The recipe had called for her to "Brown the meat" before putting it in the pot to cook. She had used cheap stew meat and "browned the meat" to the point it had no hope of ever tasting good. But the conversation was good, and I did what any self respecting person would do in a situation like this. I went back for seconds, and never regreted it.

[dvoskuil]

Ah, where do I begin...

I will preface this by saying I am a non-proselytizing ovo-lacto vegetarian, who will gladly cook meat for others - I've even hand-made sausage. My dietary "quirks" are not something I inflict upon other people. I also, like many vegetarians, expect to pick at salad, bread, and perhaps a side at a big meal and don't want anyone to go out of their way for me. However, I appreciate honesty when someone tells me what is/isn't edible for me, as I've been a vegetarian for so long that I become sick to my stomach (and often vomit) when people intentionally or unintentionally put meat products (even broth) into my food. (So far, Thai fish sauce in non-huge quantities seems to be digestible, and considering my fondness for Thai food, that's one area where I will budge, the other being traditional rennet.)

My father-in-law got the idea that my vegetarianism and stated inability to digest meat products properly was merely "being picky." There were two or three instances where he told me that a particular dish was edible for me, I ate it, became ill later, and after we arrived home, FIL would call our house while I was being ill in the bathroom, gloating over how I'd eaten broth or whatever, and thus I was just "faking." The first time we chalked it up to his ignorance and stick-in-the-mud ways. (My mother-in-law keeps forgetting I'm a vegetarian until reminded; that's how alien it is to their way of thinking.) The last time it happened, my husband let loose on his father with an amazing tirade that hammered the point home.

My vegetarianism has saved me from horrible food disasters-in-the-making at their house. My father-in-law is cheap. He also used to work in the grocery business, so he thinks he knows everything there is to know about food - and he doesn't. He's eaten awful-smelling meat from a freezer that had lost power for a day or two - getting very ill afterwards but stalwartly denying that it was the meat or that he shouldn't have eaten it.

On one occasion, he had heard how some of us liked sushi, so he bought a pre-made sushi platter from a supermarket for the get-together at their house, intending it to be an appetizer. Which was a week later. I'm sure he bought it a week in advance because it was on sale, probably because it was old. What to do? Throw it in the freezer, of course! And then I suspect it had a day or two in the refrigerator for defrosting - or perhaps he left it out on the counter. One of the inlaws happened to hear his plan, either from him or my MIL, and called around to warn all of us to not eat any of the sushi. Someone brought some cheese and other munchies along, and we all scarfed up as many as we could before he brought out the sushi platter, then we all claimed being too full to eat more appetizers when he'd grumble that no one had touched the sushi.

At another get-together, there were a couple dishes of shrimp and cocktail sauce amongst the appetizers. One - and we can't figure out why it was only one - of the dishes apparently had shrimp that had an odd, too-mushy texture and an off taste. Perhaps he'd bought two packages of shrimp and one was old, or one was put in the fridge instead of freezer after being purchased far ahead of time, I'm not sure. After discussing this in the kitchen away from him, we sent someone to sneak the contents of the bad bowl onto their plate, and threw it all away.

I'm sure there are more, and that I'm merely repressing the memory...

Edited August 19, 2007 by dvoskuil (log)

[dockhl]

Yikes.

Not-very-passive passive aggression.....

[Dianabanana]

The year:1979. The place: My aunt's house in the suburbs of New Jersey. The occasion (cue scary suspenseful music): Thanksgiving.

My aunt's children, my cousins, had all gone in together to buy my aunt a Radarange as an early Christmas present. For you young whippersnappers, the Radarange was the first popular home microwave oven, a monster the size of a bank vault. It came with a thick instruction book enthusiastically explaining how you could cook absolutely everything in a microwave in a fraction of the normal time and with delicious, foolproof results. We all gathered round excitedly as the Radarange was unwrapped and marveled over its shiny controls.

Now, to give you an idea of my aunt's cooking skills, she had exactly one dish in her repertoire (chicken marsala, made with canned cream of mushroom soup), and otherwise never darkened the kitchen. Literally every single night at dinnertime she fed her family of five by making a run for either pizza, McDonald's, Burger King, ribs, Roy Rogers, subs, or cold cuts and Kaiser rolls for do-it-yourself sandwiches. Literally. Every night. So, you can imagine how, faced with having to cook Thanksgiving dinner for a house full of guests, the promise of the Radarange shone brightly indeed.

She started cooking the meal by peeling and slicing the potatoes for the scalloped potatoes. And then letting them sit on the counter for two hours, not in water, while she made the Stovetop Stuffing and stuffed the enormous turkey. I remember watching in fascination as they slowly turned pink, then a sort of ashes-of-roses color, then finally black. Meanwhile she confidently shut the Radarange door on the turkey, consulted the instruction book, and entered the cooking time on the big-ass keypad. She turned her attention to the only non-nuked dish of the night, a salad of chopped fresh cranberries with mini-marshmallows in Miracle Whip. Then she nuked a can of Frenched green beans, nuked the scalloped potatoes, and dinner was served.

My poor aunt. Dinner was eaten in stunned silence as we hacked our way through the gray, vulcanized turkey, the black scalloped potatoes, the olive shreds of green beans. I was so thankful for the presence of that cranberry salad that I ate practically the whole bowl myself, a strategy I came to regret along about midnight when the vomiting started. Violently red vomit. Everywhere. All night long. How I wish I could say I've never been back.

[SundaySous]

Growing up say about 6 to 8 years old I would eat at a friends house. His mother the cook liked to drink Vodka, lots of Vodka. If you were invited over you might get a great meal and other times you were taking your life in your own hands.

Back then you would never think of questioning an adult. If the meal was off all you could hope for was that it was burnt to a crisp. Undercooked chicken? Why you sat there and ate like a good little soldier.

[John Whiting]

From "If music be the love of food...", a gastronomic history of Electric Phoenix, an electroacoustic vocal quartet with whom I used to tour:

The wooden spoon must go to our hosts in an upper New England college town which should out of charity remain nameless. Midway through a punishing tour we arrived late in the afternoon and were taken to the house where we were to be entertained and fed. Upon arrival we were met with a house full of boisterous kids. All the available chairs were piled high with books and papers, their outline softened by the patina of age. After we’d stood around for a while, enough chairs were finally cleared and collected for us to sit around the empty dining table.

We were all dying for something alcoholic; even the cheapest, most watery of American beers would have been welcome. No way—this was a teetotal household. Waiting for the food, we were given a criminally thin glass of Kool-Aid—and another—and another. After an aeon a large dish arrived, full of an ambiguous vegetable stew whose watery broth could have come straight from the rain barrel. The meal was rounded out with a sloppy tasteless Jell-O. It was a foodie’s Room 101.

Those parsimonious New England Yankees would have given the Puritans a bad name. I was so ashamed that the next night in Portland, Maine I treated us all to a lobster dinner. We attacked it with the eager enthusiasm of the College of Cardinals breaking its Lenten fast.

[Carrot Top]

Back then you would never think of questioning an adult. If the meal was off all you could hope for was that it was burnt to a crisp. Undercooked chicken? Why you sat there and ate like a good little soldier.

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Yes, I remember that way of things too.

I came to regret along about midnight when the vomiting started. Violently red vomit. Everywhere. All night long. How I wish I could say I've never been back.

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Those parsimonious New England Yankees would have given the Puritans a bad name.

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The conjunction of these lines of Dianabanana's and John's reminded me of my own worst meal served at someone's home. I wrote it out once as part of a story then it depressed me so much I consigned the whole thing to the trash can.

Vermont on the border of California. A place called Earth People's Park which was home to a "commune" where if you look at the same of the place should have been quite lovely, earthy, full of wonderful people, all intelligent inclusive and warm. A new world, a better one in the making and all that.

I was fourteen and it was my first stop after leaving home/running away after my mother decided that pursuing her Ph.D was enough for her to do without raising a child and that foster care or juvenile detention would be the best option for a place for me to live. Hah.

We arrived at midnight.

Not really, but close to it.

The house was small and cold. The snowbanks were three and a half feet deep. I was five feet tall.

There was nothing to eat in the house but some stale crackers and the kitchen was inhabited by a large angry Doberman Pinscher who had been deserted there by his owner who obviously thought a group of happy hippies needed an unfed Doberman around the place, so he left the dog tied up in the kitchen when he left in the middle of the night, taking his mandoline and his hash pipe back to his NY apartment, several days before.

Everyone (I won't go into describing the characters here - you can insert any variety of general-purpose hippie of the times including men who decide to grow long hair and act cool in order to get into any female's pants that their eyes happen to fall upon and women who, well . . . I can't define them except to say that on a good day they might enthuse about brown rice and cook up a clumpy bit of it which one hoped did not have any of that Zap Comicbook hair lurking around the edges.) But let me stop being bitchy for one moment and get on to the real deal here - the meal.

Everyone was looking forward to the next day when a farmer from nearby would be bringing a donation of food. He arrived in the early-afternoon cold grey grimness carrying with him one battered cardboard box of gray cabbage. Worm-eaten and mushy.

One of the women braved the kitchen. I entered just far enough to push a bowl of water towards the lunging barking tied-up Doberman and throw him all the stale crackers I could find around the place. We awaited our repast.

It emerged, and from a communal bowl we scooped out shreds and chunks of greyish green vegetable matter from a watery greenish grey broth. Broth is a kinder word than what I mean.

There may have been some bits of brown rice in it. Probably there were. It tasted like sewage.

I ate a bit because I was hungry.

Then quietly I went out to the deep snowdrifts and threw it all up and cried. Vermont snow, vomit and tears are not a pretty mix.

Edited August 19, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[John Whiting]

Thank you, Carrot Top, for making my Vermont scrapings seem a Lucullan feast!

[BetD]

Years ago, when I was less put off by poor "kitchen hygiene" then I tend to be today, I was still totally undone by the experience of looking over at a nicely set table while we were enjoying our drinks in the living room. In the middle of the table sat the family cat happily licking away at the stick of butter... we all have other images of cats and licking, right? Then the dilema... speak or be silent..... I chose silence and ate lightly that evening. Needless to say, I was never tempted to have another dinner at that friend's house!

[GTO]

Cat: Man, this milk is off...

Edited August 20, 2007 by GTO (log)

[chappie]

This is really a great thread. The story of the Radaranged turkey and its accompaniments almost makes me outraged. I am still stupefied by the sheer number of people who have lost that once almost innate, handed down art of preparing a decent meal. Doesn't have to be gourment, but people should know how to make nourishing, tasteful food. It's not difficult; really, it's not.

I had a friend in high school whose mom's idea of cooking -- every single night -- was throwing frozen onion rings, chicken tenders, fish sticks, etc. (usually two randomly chosen items) -- into the microwave. And serving it on paper plates with ketchup. I couldn't believe it when I was served rubbery, chemically onion rings as dinner. Nothing green, nothing real.

This same friend, when he stopped by our house for the first time on a Monday night -- when Mom was making her simple, weekly baked chicken -- ate like a rescued shipwreck victim, his eyes bulging at the idea of true sustenance. From then on he tried to find his way over to our house in the evenings as often as possible.

[divalasvegas]

So does anyone here have the answer to chappie's question? Why, why, WHY do these people do it? Are their tastebuds so off that they can't taste how gagtastic their "cooking" is? Reading some of the concoctions on this thread have actually caused me to have waves of nausea just thinking about the taste, smell and texture of some of these dishes. Surely these folks have had a decent food in restaurants and the homes of others, so again I must ask why? I just don't get it.

[divalasvegas]

Oh geez, how could I forget our neighbor and her "breakfasts." I would spend the night some times and in the morning her mom would fix breakfast. She was nice and I hated to be critical (like someone said upthread, kids kept their mouths shut then and DID NOT openly criticize adults, the good old days) but my mom was a grand cook, country girl/farm girl type cooking from South Carolina so nothing fancy, but really delicious home cooking and this woman absolutely could not cook. And she was cheap too; pleasant, but so very cheap. Lunches/dinners would be ONE piece of chicken or ONE hotdog and some awful canned vegetables which was a blessing since she wasn't a great cook and home was right next door.

Now when it came to breakfast there would be maybe one slice of bacon, one scrambled egg, a glass of Kool Aid (I actually liked Kool Aid, but I'll betcha she served that "bargain brand" Kool Aid, just to save a couple of pennies). Anyway it wasn't the bacon or eggs or Kool Aid that was skeevy, it was what she did with the jelly. Like I said, the woman was cheap so that after she had buttered her toast and then put on some grape jelly--Oh Hell No, it wasn't Welch's, too expensive --in order not to "waste" anything she would scrape away any excess jelly along with the solidified margerine and bread crumbs BACK INTO THE JAR OF JELLY. Just imagine the sight: different little piles of used jelly, toast crumbs, and congealed margerine. I distinctly remember trying to maneuver my knife towards a "clean" patch of jelly. I'm pretty sure I only did this once. I was only a little girl then, but I'm sure I ate my toast dry after that experience.

[Sunny Simmons Steincamp]

I've just wasted half a morning after discovering this thread... great, great stuff!

It's timely, too... I just posted a request recently for potluck theme ideas, because I've been feeding a crowd of people every Friday night for, wow... well over a year now... and my husband sort of put his foot down about spending up to $200 a week fort this endeavor. These people aren't exactly gourmands, mind you... but most of them cook for themselves, I happen to know. The crazy part is I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't go back to the Sunny-and-Cat-going-broke dinners... no WONDER these people eat like they're starving every week when they're here! I didn't know you could screw up Kraft Mac & Cheese... or potato salad... or (shudder) the more industrious things they've brought so far!

The story that sticks out most in my mind while reading this thread was a meal not endured by myself, but by my children. I have five, and they're stairsteps (the youngest was born just after the oldest's 6th birthday,) and when they were in the elementary/preschool age range, a friend of mine (who also had five kids) kept them overnight so my ex and I could have a "date night." You'd think that someone with a big family and a limited budget would learn to cook, right? Apparently not... they came home furious with me, saying that there was nothing edible the entire time. Their particular gripe was sausage gravy and biscuits. She made the gravy by pouring (undiluted) cream of mushroom soup into a pot with (uncooked) el-cheapo sausage and cooking it until it was gloppy and the sausage was gray, and served it over Bisquick biscuits made with water that were, as my son described them, "like bumpy pieces of white dirt." Dinner the night before had been pinto beans cooked from dry in unseasoned tomato sauce, but not *quite* to an al dente stage, them poured over mashed potatoes that my daughter said tasted like plastic. Poor kids.

But seriously, how do you mess up sausage milk gravy? My *least* skilled child can do it in his sleep!!

[racheld]

Thank you, Carrot Top, for making my Vermont scrapings seem a Lucullan feast! 

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I think I love you both. Retroactive hugs.

[racheld]

the woman was cheap so that after she had buttered her toast and then put on some grape jelly--Oh Hell No, it wasn't Welch's, too expensive --in order not to "waste" anything she would scrape away any excess jelly along with the solidified margerine and bread crumbs BACK INTO THE JAR OF JELLY. Just imagine the sight: different little piles of used jelly, toast crumbs, and congealed margerine.

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Been there, done exactly that, on my first-ever sleepover of my life, down the street at a weekend-friend's house, as I was visiting my Mammaw.

Her Mama swept around the kitchen in a can't-forget-it silky robe of some neon yellows and eye-sharp greens, one hand waving a Kool and the other clutching her coffee cup, which held a thick, sugary brew lightened with a goosh of Pet Milk, AFTER she poked a red fingernail through the little dried church-key triangles in the lid.

Coffee was the only drink in the house, and I drank mine with milk, so, dreading the eeew of the Pet, I said my doctor said only hot water for me at breakfast (I was ten and I'd heard my neighbor name a long list of foods her doctor advised against, so I played my flimsy trump card).

So I got it---my yellow Melmac cup lifted with thumb and ring-finger of the Kool-hand, faucet turned on, one finger of her coffee-hand held under to test, then my cup flooded overflowing, a bit dumped into the sink, and the cup thumped down.

My water was delicious with the toast and oleo-crumb jelly.

[jedi_pocky]

more please! this is one of the threads that made me join. i read about 20 pages of every frighteningly hilarious story. any recent thanksgiving or x mas disasters?

[christine007]

more please! this is one of the threads that made me join. i read about 20 pages of every frighteningly hilarious story. any recent thanksgiving or x mas disasters?

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Crap, what a bunch of wussies

Since I started working ten hours a day with a bunch of gross young males, nothing fazes me. My cat licks the butter all the time, who cares?

My boss brought in leftover meatloaf and the four of us ate that using the same fork. We also drink from the same two liter of diet coke.

I guess what I'm trying to say is "Worst" is relative.

But you want a worst holiday story? For Xmas, my sister took a seventy dollar piece of beef and cooked until it was the color and texture of high quality shoe leather.

I wanted to harm her, holidays be damned.

[RAHiggins1]

My friend was hosting a casual dinner party. Typically during these events he cooks, I usually help out and everyone else crowds around the island counter in the kitchen. This time I was out on there patio with most of the others. My friend was making chicken fried chicken (only in the south), which was coming out overdone, but his wife likes a little carbon on her food and it wasn't completely burned. I was not really paying close attention to what he was doing, we had all been drinking and my friend can get testy when I start making kitchen suggestions. So I was staying out of the way, but did see that he mixed flour into the fry oil to make a roux for the gravy. It went immediately to black. All the flour in the pan had burned from his oil being too hot during the fry. I may have intentionally went outside and grabbed a beer to try and stay out of it. About 15 minutes later my wife comes to me and says "Dave needs help with his gravy".

I go back in the kitchen and he is adding everything he can find in his spice rack to this black goo in a pan. He sees me and immediately offers me a spoonful while asking me what it needs. I with some hesitation accept the tasting and immediately turn to the sink trying to get it back out of my mouth. He had added RUM to his burnt bechamel. I turned around, looked at him and said, "Dave, what it needs is for you to put it down the garbage disposal right now." At which point my wife flys into me and I leave the kitchen to go back to my beer. I had not meant to be so cruel in his time of need, but we all had been drinking and it was only the three of us in the kitchen and really, I just wanted to spare him the embarrasment of trying to serve it to his guests.

Needless to say, he continued to try to save it even after we all went home. His wife who likes burnt food, told him she thought it was ok. We are still best friends.

I just have to endure his looking for an opportunity for some payback.

[MGC]

--in order not to "waste" anything she would scrape away any excess jelly along with the solidified margerine and bread crumbs BACK INTO THE JAR OF JELLY.

I'm still trying to understand the concept of excess jelly...