What’s the Worst Thing You Ever Ate?

I asked a friend to give me a topic to write about and her response was “What’s the Worst Thing You Ever Ate?” Okay, I’ll accept the challenge! Of course I have given way more thought to the question than any possible answer, well…’cause that’s how I think.

There is a part of me that hopes that I have already eaten the worst thing I will ever taste…I don’t like some surprises. The question, “What’s the Worst Thing You Ever Ate?” may not have to do with food. We all have or eventually will involuntarily swallow a bug. Maybe a small bug, but it will happen. It either has to do with riding on a motorcycle or simply having your mouth open at the wrong instant. Not pleasant, but is it the worst thing I have ever eaten?

On a dare once, I swallowed a live gold fish. A typical college bet (in my day) and I rationalized that I was simply eating “pre-sushi”. Of course there was alcohol involved, but that was used as a suspension agent or lubricant.

I was lucky growing up because both of my parents had careers (double income) and we did have food at the table that some of my friend’s families couldn't afford…we certainly never went hungry except by choice. A caveat to this is my mother was a Home Economics teacher and given the times, nutrition had another look.

Vegetables, which grew in dirt, had to be boiled to the point where color, taste and nutrients were evaporated into a pulpy mush where flavor did not exist. To my mother’s credit, this was normal operating procedure based on recommendations from the government and “nutrition experts” and not necessarily her better judgment. Meat was cooked into hockey pucks so there was no possibility of bacteria, and gravy was a requirement to introduce moisture back into the meat. Again, I don’t blame my mother; it was simply the “best practices” advice of people and agencies that influenced cooks of the time.

Both of my parents worked and neither was home before 4:00pm AND supper had to be on the table by 5. This meant that every meal had to be prepared and served in an hour or less.

Wednesdays and Saturdays were the worst. Wednesday was “Everything casserole”. Casserole is French for “throw whatever you have in with some noodles and serve it with bread”. Saturday was “Leftover Soup”…that is self explanatory. The trick my brothers and I learned was to make sure we cleaned up anything we didn’t want to wind up in casserole or soup…the best case scenario was to have boiled water on Saturdays.

To date…what was the worst thing I ate? Well, I’ll go with involuntary bug swallowing…the goldfish, well like I said, alcohol was involved...but with a little Wasabi and Edamame…I’d do it again.
What was the worst thing you ever ate?
-Thanks for the idea Jos-