The World's Worst Recipes

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Posted at 5:00PM, 05 October 2010 by Carol Wilson - Food writer

I have a fascinating collection of recipe booklets from the 1920s, up to the Seventies; fascinating because I can't imagine anyone today wanting to make some of the recipes! Many of these were issued free by food companies to persuade people to use more of their product or to use it in ways they may not have thought of. Garishly bright coloured photos of the finished dishes in all their lurid glory accompany recipes in the later booklets.

One booklet issued by a crisps manufacturer includes recipes for Crisp omelette - crushed crisps stirred into the beaten eggs to make it crunchy. Even worse sounding are Banana split with crisps and Lemon meringue pie with - you guessed it - crisps! I mean... would you?

How about bananas wrapped in bacon and covered in cheese sauce?

Danish bacon issued a recipe calendar in the 1950s that included Danish bacon mousse. Or how about bananas wrapped in bacon and covered in cheese sauce? A Marmite recipe booklet from the same era includes gems such as Hawaiian toasts, a tasty mixture of cream cheese, Marmite, pineapple and bacon on buttered toast.

Makers of porridge oats issued lots of free recipes. I have a leaflet from the 1970s for a Savoury bean casserole made with green beans, mushroom soup, mayonnaise, porridge oats, cheese and nuts. Ugh! Thankfully readers were spared an accompanying photo.

One well-known margarine manufacturer released a substantial booklet with recipes that included ice cream made with milk, margarine and gelatine, and 'Brussels eggs', chopped hard-boiled eggs on a bed of mashed Brussels sprouts mixed with cheese, covered with a white sauce made from the sprout liquor, milk and margarine.

Someone must have pulled out all the stops to come up with Salmon soup, made with tinned salmon, milk and two packets of custard powder, which I came across in a recipe booklet from the 1950s issued by a very famous custard powder maker.

Did anyone actually make any of these I wonder - and do you know of any worse recipes?

Comments

1-20 of 22 comments

Nicola

6 October 2010, 8:36AM
Nicola

Hahaha...custard powder in salmon soup. Yuck! I have to say though, banana wrapped in bacon and cooked on the BBQ is really good, although I'm not too sure about the cheese sauce.

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Cassandra Amy Rose

6 October 2010, 1:57PM
Cassandra Amy Rose

Ugh! That sounds foul, although I could imagine my great-grandmother making them! YUCK!!

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studentbaker

6 October 2010, 7:41PM
studentbaker

True that sounds awful but for me it has to be lasagne sandwiches and battered Mars Bars that turn my stomach. I think the lasagne sandwich is more of a student thing anyway. Nice to see Tesco have latched onto that and made it part of their range. NOT lol :)

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Pollys favs

8 October 2010, 7:52PM
Pollys favs

I made Cinnamon rubbed salmon with couscous & Harissa yogurt, out of the november good food magazine tonight. It was horrible none of the flavors went well together, the worst meal I've made for ages-- never again , half went in the bin!

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christmas fairy

9 October 2010, 8:32PM
christmas fairy

Made some beef in red wine for a guest-it's been a brilliant recuipe over the years. Sadly, the cow must have been about 16 as the beef came out as tough, 2 hours later, as it went in-yuk!

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jess

10 October 2010, 7:41PM
jess

eurgh, that's hilarious. i think this is much more yo my street than banana and crisps http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/101007-pretaportea-fifth-anniversary-.aspx

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Effi

10 October 2010, 11:10PM
Effi

Well my personal LEAST favourite recipe of all time is an Austrian dish (which many of my family members - being Austrian of course - love) called 'Beuschel'. It's lung stew and although it invariably looks yummy, I can assure you, the texture and flavor is disgusting! And, UGH (!) you should smell it as it cooks, and see the lungs fill up and deflate! The only thing going for it other than the smell (once it's finished) is the KnÃ¶del that usually comes with it! I also have to admit that one of my strange combos that I liked as a kid, and yes, I still do, is McDonalds strawberry/vanilla/chocolate milkshake with chips dunked in it!!

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Georgia Knoll :)

11 October 2010, 3:18PM
Georgia Knoll :)

YUM! ;)

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smitty

12 October 2010, 1:34PM
smitty

those recipes sound really awful. That said, I can imagine my granny would have made them and thought they were very modern at the time.

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Lushious

13 October 2010, 2:26PM
Lushious

One of the worse things that I ate was a 'special' desert my Malaysian sister-in-law presented to my husband and I and it was a kind of blancmange made of sweetcorn. It was absolutely vile and I remember just trying to swallow it without tasting or chewing. It makes me shudder to think of it!

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British Food USA

13 October 2010, 3:27PM
British Food USA

Well, some of these are seriously turning my stomach! I once made a haggis and rice concoction which didn't turn out too well (my own innovation), but I'll bet it wasn't as bad as custard powder with salmon, or Brussels sprouts with sprout liquor sauce. I think I'm going to have to link to this page from my website page about seriously bad British food. These beat fried mars bars, black pudding, and haggis. Grew...

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vjforsy

16 October 2010, 1:45PM
vjforsy

During a recent episode of 'Masterchef, The Professionals', one lad (who thought himself pretty funky, and described his recipes as "mad" - not half!), presented venison on a chocolate sponge! Now I know about the whole idea of game with bitter chocolate sauce - but a chocolate sponge cake?! I thought that Michell Roux Jnr's eyes were going to pop out his head, and that Greg Wallace was going to gag (despite his liking of puddings!).

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twinkbot

17 October 2010, 1:13PM
twinkbot

ha ha i think the next time the kids want just crisps! for dinner the we should look up one of these!

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Katherine Moore

20 October 2010, 7:49PM
Katherine Moore

When my husband was a student he made a savoury mince dish that was meant to have a cornflake topping. He didn't have any cornflakes so used frosties instead! Yuck!!

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Katy

20 October 2010, 9:19PM
Katy

My flatmate once made haggis lasagne complete with blended neeps and tatties instead of white sauce. Yuk

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kitchenwitch

21 October 2010, 9:43AM
kitchenwitch

When I was younger I got invited to a friends house for tea she was making chicken in white wine sauce, not being a wine drinker she used Thunderbirds (a rather cheap and nasty fortified wine) and put far too much in. It was swimming!! yuk

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andycrofts

21 October 2010, 10:45AM
andycrofts

Oh, yes!!! Swedish SurstrÃ¶mming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming For the effect... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iebNdCSqWmc&NR=1 (Personally, I quite like it...) -Andy

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Sarniagirl

23 October 2010, 11:16AM
Sarniagirl

When we moved to Australia we were invited to a barbecue and accompanying the steak and bangers was a savoury salad made with...marshmallows!!

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SamM1

28 October 2010, 12:39PM
SamM1

We had lunch cooked for us by my mother and her partner and he included "red herring" pigs in blankets....these were baked banana wrapped in bacon. They were delicious!

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Jo H

9 November 2010, 8:44PM
Jo H

Hi Andycroft, I've tasted the Swedish surstomming 2 years ago. The dish consists of fermented herring and usually it is sold in cans, but once opened it releases a strong and overwhelming smell. So much so that it is best eaten outdoor. I prefer to call it Rotten herring. The smell is unbearable as it gets closer to your nostrils, yuk it was the only time I felt like puking on my plate. Yuk, Yuk, never again!!

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