JFF: Bad Potluck Dishes That Won't Go Away

Haven't tried to engineer it out but my sister in law makes this awful dish called cheesy beans. I wish I could put into words how gross this is. Pretty much canned green beans and watered down liquid cheese.

It is amusing though, her family just loves it, the rest of the family eats it to be polite, I throw up quietly in my mouth.

Sweet potato casserole with marshmallow disgusts me! It's always at Thanksgiving dinner...when I went to my family dinners, and now my hubby's. Also can't stand that cranberry glop in the can. Yuck! Love me some green bean casserole though. To each their own!

We used to go to a big family Thanksgiving in Connecticut every year. There was one person who always made this deeply disgusting jello salad thing. It had tiny pretzels in it...(little dry heave here)...that absorbed the jello and got very worm-like. Sweet and salty may mix, but sweet, salty, and soggy is just gross. And yet, not only was it there every year, I put some on my plate every year. One of the great mysteries of the holidays.

My mom thinks that her "homemade" stuffing is so great.
Do you suppose that a box of store-brand stuffing, mixed together with stale bread, and somehow burnt AND soggy counts as delicious homemade stuffing? I don't understand how something so soggy can crunch.

Seriously, we can't even get the dogs to eat it. SHE won't even eat it!

*gag*

Yet it shows up EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. And NEVER gets touched... You would think she would give it up by now. Actually, I suspect that she may just be freezing the same dish, and busting it out every year, just for show. Lol.

Jessica, NO! I LOVE the sweet potatoes with marshmallows! It's my favorite dish. Lol. Of course, since no one else eats it, I only make a half dish. Lol. (Looks like I am also *that* person ;)...But in my defense, I don't expect anyone else to touch it. I know I am making it purely for myself, and since I am in charge of all but two dishes (including appetizers) I feel like I have the right to make something just for me. Lol.)

My ex sister in law INSISTED on bringing her 'home made hummus' to every get together I hosted (she ended up leaving with it as well...lol). The beans must have been undercooked, and no 'spices' I could detect, and it was not a nice smooth texture.

It was awful. She seemed to have no clue.

It is surely one of the many things that I have NOT missed in the years since my divorce...

lol

ETA:
Geesh AK mom...I never said I made her feel 'bad' about her dish. That is why she kept bringing it!! This was a "JFF" question, Yes?

One relative makes awful mac and cheese. I don't know if it is just my husband and kids who hate it (I don't eat it) or if everyone hates it and is too polite to say please don't make this anymore.

I hate green beans so green bean casserole should never show up in my opinion but it always does and others seem to enjoy it.

I bring what I am asked to bring. Makes it a lot easier.

Too bad there aren't voting buttons on that site so that everyone involved can vote for what goes and what stays.

I'm going to out myself as a culinary neanderthal. I love green bean casserole. I also like sweet potatoes with marshmallows AND ambrosia! I even like canned cranberry glop. Yep. I do. I can make and enjoy amazing fresh green beans with a hollandaise sauce. I love baked sweet potato with a butter drizzle and cinnamon. I adore and will cook fresh cranberries w orange zest. but, I love those oldies because they taste like childhood and warm family memories. Bring em all on!

Ambrosia - no recipe should include both sour cream and marshmallows. Actually no recipe served indoors where there is access to a cooking source other than a camp fire should include marshmallows. The people who make 'those' recipes (the ones you are trying to eliminate) are always 100% certain that everyone LOVES that recipe and that the world will end if a holiday is celebrated without it.

No, because if someone made it it means at least one person loves it and wants it there. I would be very disappointed in any thanksgiving meal that did not include a green bean casserole, it simply would not be Thanksgiving without it. I hate cranberries, I think they are the grossest thing ever, but I would never try to keep them from being served because I know others like them. I don't see the point in trying to make others feel bad about the dishes they love and want to share?

We gave up the grey dish of green bean casserole many years ago, thank goodness. What happened is that my mom started making fresh green beans with toasted pecans... No one touched the casserole.

We are ashamed of one casserole we do like. It looks horrible, sounds horrible, but for some reason is good....once a year.

It is canned asparagus ( I know) drained
A can of the Lesuere peas, drained
Small can of sliced mushrooms drained
A can of cream of mushroom soup and half a can of milk
3 to 4 slices white bread, crust trimmed off. Slice these into 3 slices
1/2 stick of butter

Mix all of the veggies and carefully stir in the soup and milk. Place in a 2 qt. casserole. Then dip the bread strips in butter and place them over the top of the casserole. Place n a 350 oven for 30min or until the bread on top begins to brown...

Ok, I shared our food shame...

The rest of the meal has been perfected. No canned anything, no jello products..fresh veggies, fresh cranberry relish, delicious dressing, heaps of mashed potatoes, amazing turkey and wonderful desserts. Pecan pie, fresh pumpkin pie, and my Aunt bakes an amazing cake.

My grandma makes a special jello salad. Not just the regular jello and pretzels, hers has applesauce, 7up, and some other unknown ingredients. It has a grainy texture and is a weird shade of pink. I think at some point I had a cousin who liked it as a kid, but now we've grown up and the jello 7up is still around...

Let's see....

Green bean casserole, and this thing my mom used to make that still makes my gag reflex kick in. It was cottage cheese, pistachio pudding (you know the green instant pudding that's a color not found in nature) pineapple tidbits and I think jello came into play somewhere. It was a green tinted nightmare. You would think the pudding would be the deal breaker in this festival of shame that someone somewhere decided to call a SALAD, but it was the cottage cheese. It added a textural element that literally gave me the willies. I couldn't eat cottage cheese for years because of it.

We have pot lucks every month at church. I have to say, we get a variety and it's getting healthier, not there, but at least aware they should change.
We don't have a sign up but that might not be a bad way to go.
I usually don't know what I am going to make till I look in my fridge or cabinet on Sat.

We went for about a year or two, making way too much desert. It's fairly easy to make and you can make it impressive, so we had a lot of deserts.
But people are cutting back on how much desert they eat so, we had quiet a bit sent back home. Nobody wants their desert rejected or to have to eat it for a week!

There are some brownies made by people who don't cook, that, well, might be better off buying something at the store...

hahaha - sooooooooo funny about the canned green beans with the velveeta-ish cheese! my brother in laws mom makes that grossness - HE loves it and all his brothers & sisters but nobody else will touch it ,. heehee - just canned green beans, with velveeta cheese, yuck.

well, I thought I was being original when I was going to say the jello and pretzel type of "salad" ish....but AZneomom already mentioned it... HA! apparently that stuff has been going around from state to state....

Funny! I don't know what you could do to avoid that.

Most of the time, we just have sooo much leftover food. My brothers are fairly clueless about how much food is needed but are really generous. So I might say, "can you bring butter and honey for the rolls" and my brother will bring 2 giant honey bears and 2 lbs of butter. Or I will ask for sodas/drinks and he will bring 8-10 2 liter sodas for a group of 10 adults, 10 kids.

My aunt does make these horrid "stuffing balls", basically lumps of stuffing baked into a dry little puck. Ruins the best part of a Thanksgiving meal, I think! I also LOVE how anytime someone is assigned a salad, without fail they will bring some sort of jello-marshmallow-fruit glop. There will be like 10 of them in varying colors and nary a vegetable to be seen. We live in Utah, maybe that is why! Ugh, jello! But at least we CAN always count on multiple people bringing Funeral Potatoes, yum!

Fun question!

Ah the 3 bean salad. It's infamous in my family. Years ago when I was little, my parents were out of town and my oldest sister who was in High School had to bring something last minute to some potluck. My grandma was watching us and she whipped up what she could- 3 bean salad from the pantry.

My sister brought it home after school the next day, entirely UNTOUCHED. One of my aunts (who was the youngest aunt and actually just in college then) and another cousin were over and the 2 of them plus my sister agreed that we could not let Grandma see that her culinary efforts had gone completely rejected. The 3 of them sat at the kitchen table and choked down a decent portion of that vinegar-y awfulness so my Grandma's feelings would be saved. To this day anything sad or pathetic (but also funny) that happens in our family is known as "3 bean"... "Oh I threw a Tupperware party and no one came"---> "that is so 3 bean"

I was shocked when I met my husband and found that he actually likes that stuff and his mom buys the big jars of it. ICK.

Agreed on the ambrosia concoctions. I just noticed my SIL signed up to bring hers to our Day After Feast, she makes the one with cool whip and grapes and stuff... I don't know what. I can only eat a few bites.

Good JFF!

My MIL makes these homemade rolls - goes on and on and on about how everyone loves them and they are soooo hard to make because they take 3 days to get the dough right and we have to have them because they were great grandma's recipe. They are horrible, dry, flavorless, think soda bread in roll form but drier with no salt. Took me 10 years, but finally I was able to swap them out for Sister Schuberts frozen rolls one year when MIL was traveling before Christmas and couldn't make 'her' rolls. Everyone raved about them that year, not realizing MIL didn't make them, and she has refused to make hers again. Success!

The answers have me cracking up.

My paternal grandmother never was a good cook (by her own admission) so after her children flew the coop, the standards fell even further down the ladder. By the time us grandkids came along, she found herself banned from hosting Thanksgiving. Her undoing was when she revealed she started cooking in July. That's right; she cooked a dish a week starting in July. Come Thanksgiving she would thaw and reheat everything. What started out as mediocre did not improve with the freezing, thawing, reheating process. Oh my...bad memories of Thanksgiving at her house. My parents would take us to a restaurant before showing up at her house and they would swear us to secrecy. They would lecture us sternly in the parking lot NOT to breathe a word of what we had eaten before arriving. LOL...

As for random potlucks at a church gathering we had a few African ladies make their cultural specialties. I am wiling to try most anything so I put a dollop of everything on my plate. Believe me when I say I have seen wet dog food that looked and smelled more appealing. But I try to give my all at these affairs. Not all of us are blessed cooks and not everything that looks like dog vomit tastes bad - although visual appeal is often not far off the mark. Anyway when I sat down, my husband leaned over and whispered, "You really aren't going to eat that stuff are you? Oh, and can you move over a little. Whatever that orange stuff is smells bad." I think I am the only one to try the goat curry. I can usually manage goat and curry but apparently not together because that has to be the vilest thing I have ever put in my mouth.

Food and people, guaranteed good times even if the food is off key.

I bring what's asked of me.

Speaking of which, anyone know of a "Thanksgiving" themed green salad idea but without nuts? (We have a 'eat nuts will die' friend in the group.) I'm thinking pears or cranberries with some sort of cheese... but I don't eat salad and don't like salad. PM me if you get a brainwave...

and JB, just have to say-- loved this question!

I'm 100% with Sharon E---I like some of those nasties just because they remind me of childhood, make me smile/laugh, even though I'd never make them myself. I love ambrosia and laugh out loud every single time I remember my husband (then boyfriend) being served that by my very proud 86 year old great aunt. His eyes bulged in horror....and if I see it, I'll eat it and smile on the inside just for that memory. My mom is so proud of those sweet potatoes with marshmallows (and bits of pineapple?) and I liked it as a kid, even though I make sweet potatoes like a "grown up". I always take a little helping of green bean casserole home with us, to freeze, and use all year long as a threat to the boys if they get stupid and won't eat their dinner. "Oh you don't want to eat dinner? Here, let's have this green bean casserole instead!" That gets them straightened out! And for those that do like green bean casserole (I do, but haven't had it in years), check out how my friend, who CANNOTCANNOTCANNOT cook to save her life makes it---it's terrifying to look at, and awesome in it's horror: 1 little can of store brand beans, 2 GIANT cans of store brand cream of mushroom soup....AND THAT'S ALL! No seasons, no weird onion stuff, no anything. It cracks me up, as she got the thing totally backwards and thinks it's awesome. It's gray liquid gloppy soup with a few tiny gray beans in it. I always get "too full" before I get to that dish, but it makes me all kinds of happy to see it every year. On the way home, if my husband starts giggling like a schoolgirl for no reason, I know.....he's thinking about that bean casserole. And how "thankful" he is that his wife can cook without poisoning us all.

Never seen or heard of the cheesy beans but that's so gross sounding that I'm going home a happy girl today. Maybe I'll pass the recipe on to my friend. Sounds right up her alley.

I love to read these kind of stories to know that I'm not the only one with crazy people in their families!! lol!!

I LOVED hosting Thanksgiving Dinner for my parents for more than 20 years; my Mom did it before that and my Grandma before that!! But now that they're all in heaven, I quit! It's just not the same any more. BUT, back when I was doing the Thanksgiving Dinner, my sister always had to "try" a new recipe! I swear half the time, I seriously had no idea what I was eating but to be polite I would at least taste it. Sometimes it was good; other times, not so good.

The real kicker though, was one year my niece wanted to contribute to the dinner. She said she likes to cook "gourmet" dishes. I said ok! Well, she shows up with some store-bought cinnamon bread or something; I still have no idea what it was. And my other niece, who didn't tell me she was bringing anything, shows up with some Mexican dish!! Although, it actually was good, it certainly didn't fit for a Thanksgiving Dinner.

This year, I think I'm going to suggest to my kids and hubby that we go out for Chinese!! lol!!!

Aren't families fun!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

I've really been enjoying this question and the many responses!

I'm in a number of organizations (choruses, my gym class, etc.) that have periodic pot lucks, but we can never decide if it's a true pot luck (meaning you get what you get) or an organized shared dinner where people sign up for things. They are called pot lucks but then the administrative aspect steps in for the right reasons (no duplicates) but then all hell breaks loose because this one is vegan and this one is on the paleo diet and that one is kosher and another one is on South Beach. At which point everyone signs up to bring wine, the hostess finds a bag of stale chips, and we're off and running!

The one thing that stands out in my past is fried oysters. I have no idea what the origin of this was, since the family is from central Pennsylvania and there ain't a fresh oyster for hundreds of miles. But there that dish was every Thanksgiving, and the only part I could stand was the layer of crumbled saltines on top (and those were usually from the bottom of several old sleeves of saltines, kinda old). My mother wasn't a good cook at all, and I think she tried to live up to the standards set by her mother and grandmother, who were outstanding cooks. I don't remember my great grandmother even sitting at the table very much for any meals - she was always back in the kitchen and then ferrying out more dishes and more helpings. "Seven sweets and seven sours" were the tradition for ANY meal (Pennsylvania Dutch custom) so by the time all the pickles and pickled beets and slaws came out, plus the applesauce and other sweets, the table was creaking under the weight of delicious homemade foods. My mother could never manage that, so somehow fried oysters was the central dish.

The greatest moment of my life was when I had my own home and my mother stopped hosting Thanksgiving.

Thanks for the memories!

Anything made with jello and is referred to as "salad". *shudder*

haha...growing up we had no extra money, but did attend pot lucks from time to time.

My mom had a carrot dish she always made. It was shredded carrots, a box of raisins, and mayonnaise.

People liked it...BLA!