Are there any foods that have been ruined for you?

[NulloModo]

meatloaf.  Mother made it with fritos and pickles.

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Were the fritos still crunchy? Dill pickes or sweet pickles?

Dill pickle meatloaf with a crunchy frito coating actually sounds pretty good right now...

[foodie52]

Gin. Used to drink gin and blackcurrant in college until one evening I too overindulged. The smell of it makes me ill .

As to the topic of "dirty" fruits: I've attended food safety classes and the ONE thing I remember more than anything else is the instructor saying:

"WASH YOUR STINKY PRODUCE"!

In the fields, produce is often peed on by the pickers. (Sorry if I offend anyone with that word.) In the stores, vermin run across the produce at night. There have been ultraviolet light tests on produce that actually show urine trails of rats and mice. I shudder when I see customers "sampling" grapes and berries and giving them to their children to snack on as they wander the produce aisles.

So wash the rinds of your melons, rinse lemons before slicing them, etc...

[ghostrider]

It's gonna be a while before I order BBQ ribs again after my experience last summer.

I know in my mind that it was the shrimp salad I'd had for lunch that day that made me so ill, but the nausea came on immediately after I'd eaten the ribs, & the association is still too vibrant.

I love ribs too much to swear off them, that's for sure. Just a matter of time.

Then there are clams. But really, who cares about clams?

[EdS]

Rum and coke. 1st time I ever got sick from drinking too much.

A score of years later, the smell of it still makes my stomach churn.

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Spot on with that. Germany 1960. In my army mess a double rum cost less than the Coke, the whole thing was duty free. So easy to drink, but the after effects were horrendous

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Rum for me as well. I got sick on rum and Coke as a teenager. Sickly sweet? Yes, literally.

[pam claughton]

Peachtree Schnapps...even though it goes back almost 20 years now, I still can't stomach the smell of Peach Schnapps.....brings back memories of too many woo woo shots.....ugh!

Food wise, it has to be sesame chicken. Learned a valuable lesson though. Always cut into your chicken before popping it into your mouth. Was at a well known chain restaurant and had been craving the sesame chicken since I'd had a taste of my friend's meal on our last visit. The dish has bite-sized pieces of lightly battered chicken in a sticky sesame sauce. Delicious, and I kept thinking, "wow, this chicken is sooo tender."

Yeah, because it was RAW! Discovered that several hours later, as I was violently ill with food poisoning. I'd taken half the chicken home....and finally realized what might be the cause...cut into the chicken, and it was completely translucent.

Haven't had it since...

[Puck Confit]

This is a very interesting thread.

I'm sure I have more, but the only one I can think of at the moment is.....

Shepherd's Pie.

Edited to add: Mustard. Oh God, how I hate mustard.

Edited December 12, 2004 by Puck Confit (log)

[viva]

Ahh - the liquor stories could be endless. I celebrated my 21st birthday in Mexico, and let's just say it took a long time before the smell of tequila didn't make me shudder. I still can't smell the cheap stuff without feeling nauseated.

When I was a teenager, my family was cooking live lobster at home. My father made little screaming noises as he dropped the lobsters into the pot. My impressionable young mind thought that the screaming was the lobsters - couldn't eat them for years. I've gotten over it, though.

[ruthcooks]

Rare beef. When I was a teenager I was served a very rare hamburger in a diner that was too busy to thoroughly cook the burgers. Pushed my hand down on the bun to compress it, and the bun was immediately soaked with bloody juices. Gag. If you ask me how rare I eat beef, the answer is: if i see blood, I'm not eating it.

[auntdot]

Just remembered about donuts. Used to live in New England and those folk are donut happy.

Used to be available at every meeting, lecture I went to.

Got to the point where I can no longer stand the things, even Krispy Kremes.

[sassybat]

i got sick from a baconburger at a restaurant just a couple months ago. i'm still slowly trying to get back to eating hamburgers.

[Daniel]

I have had a few experiences with tuna fish that has ruined it for me.. My first experience was a sandwich left in my elementary school classroom over xmas break.. The resulting smell ruined tuna fish for me for years. Several years later i was a high school junior working at a sub shop on the jersey shore during the summer..

At this shop, there was this retarded lady incharge of making the tuna fish and other mixes. She would start with dirty finger nails and hands, at the end of the hand mixing process she would have clean finger nails. She was really out of her mind, I remember her chasing flies around with butcher knives, and scratching herself as if no one was watching. One day i was incharge of mixing the tuna, it just so happened to have broken my thumb playing hockey a week earlier. I ended mixing the tuna with a cast on.. Tuna got stuck in my cast and the resulting smell was god awful. It got so bad i eventually removed the cast myself a week later. I would not eat tuna especially in a restaurant ever again.

[Jason Perlow]

Rum Raisin Ice Cream. Utterly vile.

[Chef Shogun]

Rum and coke. 1st time I ever got sick from drinking too much.

A score of years later, the smell of it still makes my stomach churn.

In terms of food, a bad dish just makes me want to run off to the store to get the ingredients so I can make it at home the RIGHT way.

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Heineken does the same to me: Tequila Grill on 18th (19th?) and K has/had a 'Free Beer Night' on Thursdays. Ok, there was a $10 cover, so you had to drink a few to break even. Long story short, we get there a little closer to the end then usual, and have to play 'beat the clock' because hey, you have to break even before the Heineken is free, if only as a matter of principle! Then of course after that it's HELLO! Free beer! Now I can't go near the stuff.

Think the same place has Free Margarita Night, too. Never been.

[Mooshmouse]

Sambuca, without a doubt.

During my corporate days, one employer of mine had a penchant for splurging on elaborate business dinners. Don't get me wrong -- the dinners started well and the food was fabulous, but they always ended horribly. He'd order an assortment of hors d'oeuvres for the table, after which you were expected to order a minimum of 3 courses on your own. Always accompanied by copious quantities of wine and followed by the richest desserts in the house, of course. After ensuring that we'd all stuffied ourselves silly, he'd invariably end each meal with a round of flaming sambuca shots, replete with coffee beans. One or two sambuca lovers in the group would sip the shots. I, the diehard licorice hater, would toss it straight down to dispose of that horrific liquid as quickly as possible. Needless to say, an overly rich meal followed by a taste that I loathe always made me feel green for the rest of the evening.

To this day, my palms sweat a little and I get that sick feeling in the back of my throat if I catch even a tiny whiff of sambuca.

[CharityCase]

Anything with Caraway (save Rye Bread) - Blech. The worst flavour I have ever known.

[JPW]

Another one for me...

Although it was just the icing on the cake, a summer of sticking my fingers into the nether regions of squid to yank out the cartilage made calamari my mortal enemy.

[jschyun]

another rum and coke hater. what a way to ruin a good coke.

mescal I think is the name of another drink I can't do. I just think of that shriveled gray worm staring up at me as if in an accusatory manner.

one time in college tried mixing up minute maid citrus punch with a fifth of vodka. I didn't mind the punch at the time, but never again.

--vodka was absolut citron. how could I forget. agh

Edited December 14, 2004 by jschyun (log)

[iamthestretch]

I'm having serious problems with eggs.

A few weeks ago we were doing the old boiled eggs and soldiers for breakfast and I took one bite of my second eggy toast and ... whoops a daisy. Immediate and total rejection of a stealthily, but seriously, degraded egg. Now, even though I've always loved eggs, just thinking about actually eating another one makes the back of my throat start to sweat! This can't last forever, right?

[jess mebane]

meatloaf.  Mother made it with fritos and pickles.

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Were the fritos still crunchy? Dill pickes or sweet pickles?

Dill pickle meatloaf with a crunchy frito coating actually sounds pretty good right now...

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soft fritos and dill pickles. Trust me about the gag factor on this......