Potlucks are great. People get to chat with friends, acquaintances, and family, all while eating delicious foods. What not to like? Well, unless someone brings a not-so-great dish, then things might not be so enjoyable. These people share the strangest dish someone brought to the potluck party. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
They Deserve The Worst Potluck Lunch Award
“I worked in an office of about fifty workers and we frequently had potlucks. One odd food item was brought by the director of our department. It was very dark green leaves that were slightly warm but still quite crunchy. The inner part of the leaves were packed with a mixture of unidentified assorted seeds. It was dry, nearly tasteless, and stuck in your teeth. Very chewy, and just plain icky. I had heard that because her husband had serious heart disease, she had taught herself to cook healthy meals, so maybe she wanted to treat us, too. I’m sure many of us got our fiber that day.
One lady’s idea of a salad was odd. It was a big bowl of cut-up lettuce. On top, she’d tossed one whole large tomato and one whole green onion. There was no dressing. Some of us took a bit of lettuce, but that was all. Were we expected to each saw off a piece of the tomato and onion? I mean, it’s not like we kept paring knives in our desk drawers.
There were some people who brought some pretty good items, but too many others relied heavily on mayonnaise or Cool Whip and more than once, I suspected a dish contained both ingredients. Nothing like having to sit at a desk for the next four hours with a horribly bloated tummy.
To be fair, I rarely went all out for potluck days. We had so many, that sometimes I’d forget about it. Once, I didn’t remember it till 10 pm the night before. We hardly had any groceries in the house, but I did have six eggs. My plate of deviled eggs was pretty small, but at least they were tasty for anyone that got any.”
“Satan’s Bones”
“I once belonged to a wonderful writer’s group. We met once a week to share our projects, but also would have a few parties throughout the year. One of our favorites was the Halloween party. We’d all dress up with prizes for the best and scariest and funniest costumes. We’d write an anonymous round-robin scary story that was always hysterical. Best of all, we would all bring a dish to pass and it had to be weird or spooky. Prizes were handed out for the food, too, but mainly it was for bragging rights.
One Halloween, I was making my way down the buffet row, laughing at the cleverly-named offerings. Deviled eggs with black olive and red pimento spiders were labeled, ‘FRESHLY HATCHED BLACK WIDOWS.’ Pastry-wrapped mini hot dogs were called, ‘MUMMIES IN A BLANKET,’ and bloody finger breadsticks with almond slices for fingernails were called ‘LADY’S… FINGERS’.
When I got to the end of the row, I had just enough room left on the plate for a small dessert. It was then I saw the cutest bone-shaped sugar cookies gathered around a bowl of delicious fluffy bright red frosting. Its identifying card called it, ‘SATAN’S BONES.’
I took a bone and a good-sized glop of the frosting and went to my seat where I tucked right in. The room was loud and boisterous, with lots of laughter, scary music and maybe even a few arguments over the merits of the semi-colon or something word-nerdy like that.
All of the food was tasty and pretty soon I’d eaten everything except that delicious-looking cookie. I picked it up and swooped a big dollop of the bright red frosting onto the end, then took a huge bite. I’m not quite sure what happened next, because the room went dim, my eyes spun around in their sockets, smoke came out of my ears and I am pretty sure a laser beam of fire came shooting out of my mouth. I let out a muted cry of pain and Jan, the gal who had brought in the cookies, took one look at my hand, saw the red frosting on my lips, and yelled, ‘Ooooh, nooooo!’
Sheer pandelerium! My apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, but his made-up word is an absolutely perfect description of what happened. I sobbed in pain as I tried to get everything out of my mouth. My lips were numb as if I’d had a shot of Novocain and a reddish drool dripped out of my mouth and down the front of my costume.
Jan was running around the room screaming, ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’
Other people were yelling, ‘What’s wrong?’ and started to panic.
Jan brought me water, then ice, then more water. Finally, slowly, the pain subsided into a dull roar as Jan explained that Satan’s Bones were not pretty cookies but homemade crackers with a dip made of whipped cream cheese, copious amounts of horseradish, three or four different kinds of peppers, red food dye and who knows what else. It was truly the evilest thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. It has made me very cautious of potluck offerings since then.
On brighter note, Jan won a prize for her Satan’s Bones, in an all-new category created just for her: Treat most likely to kill someone.”
Finger Food Only, But Some Didn’t Get The Memo
“We hosted the middle portion of a ‘progressive party’ in our neighborhood. Every message that went out regarding the party said ‘FINGER food only’. For every ‘house’, ‘FINGER FOOD ONLY,’ meaning no silverware, no large plates, etc. These parties are always hosted on our decks, so it is impossible to hold a drink and eat anything that requires holding a plate/fork. For our house, heavy appetizers (invitation specified heavy on the protein) meaning chicken bites or crab bites or chicken wings (hard to eat with one hand but not requiring silverware).
So I think you have the lay of the land here by now, but one woman showed up with a small ramekin of guacamole and a tiny bowl of chips. Finger food? Yes. Heavy appetizer? No.
A couple then showed up with pasta salad. It was a huge bowl of salad. Finger food? Um, no. I had to run around and try to dig up larger plates and forks.
How hard is it to understand finger food?”
Uhm, Where’s The Food?!
“My family is Jewish, so when a neighbor invited us to celebrate Christmas Eve with them, along with some other families we knew, we were very excited to go. The problem was, we were returning from a cruise that morning. Our ship docked in New York City, and we hightailed it back to Philadelphia. Time was short, so I just whipped up a huge Caesar Salad, and brought a few bottles of Moscato.
When we arrived, there were several people already there. It was a potluck event. The kids went off to play with the others, and we were ushered over to the bar to get some drinks. Someone had made mini-dogs and there was some cheese and crackers, and veggies and dip. A huge table was set beautifully with a landscape of twigs, bird nests, pine cones, and lots of tea candles.
The host pulled out some pizza and chicken fingers for the kids. My salad was ceremoniously placed in the center of the table, along with some other sides like green beans and potatoes. The host served us some soup and that was it. There was nothing else. No ham or turkey or roast beef. Nada.
I leaned over to my husband and asked, ‘Where the heck was dinner?’
Apparently, no one had brought a ‘main course’. And we were starving. There were about 12 adults all looking at each other when the twigs on the table caught on fire. We all scrambled to put out the fire. Then, after finally settling down again, the guy sitting next to me decided to steal some of the chicken fingers from the kids.
‘You want one?’ He said, pointing to his plate.
‘No, thanks,’ I said.
Things were getting very desperate and very awkward. As we are not big drinkers and exhausted to boot, we were the first to say our goodbyes and ‘go home.’
After we got into the car, I turned to my husband and said, ‘Is that what most people do on Christmas Eve? Why didn’t they have food for us?’
He said, ‘Honey, we’re Jewish. That’s all we do, shove food into people’s faces. It looks like they were more interested in the eggnog, extended drink selection, and exotic mocktails. Maybe there was a miscommunication or something?’
I shrugged and said, ‘That was some fire, huh? I told you those tea candles were going to go up in flames sitting in kindling like that, right on the table!’
‘I’m a bit tipsy, and starving,’ he replied.
The kids started to complain too, ‘Mom! Please, can we get something to eat! We’re hungry!’
So we ended up doing what we usually do on Christmas Eve; we went out for some Chinese food.”
“Olive Oil Is Not A Good Choice For Brownies”
“I was invited to a party by a new friend, and it was really last minute. I flew to the cupboard to grab something for the potluck, and the quickest thing was a marbled brownie mix. I am mostly vegetarian, and it’s difficult to find pre-packaged food that is vegetarian unless it’s a single-serve item. With no time to boil grains or soak beans, I pulled the mix out and heated up the oven.
It required butter or oil. Well, I don’t have butter, and I don’t have plain vegetable oil, that’s not healthy. All I have is olive oil. Well, oil’s oil, I thought, and I poured out the required amount into a measuring cup.
I brought the brownies to the party and placed them on the dessert table. Well, the table was emptied, but despite the appealing yellow and brown marbled brownies, only one brownie was missing. No one was touching the brownies. Well, I was embarrassed. I felt like everyone at the party knew I brought the brownies and it looked bad that the pile was not going down. I know, I know, but I really felt like that. So I decided to eat one to inspire others to do the same.
I bit into it.
It was vile.
It tasted like motor oil. Well, I’ve never had motor oil, but if I had, this would have been a good approximation. I had to find a corner and spit it out.
As the party went on, I would randomly go over, pick up a brownie, and toss it in the trash.
Apparently, olive oil is not a good choice for brownies.”
He Was Notorious For Being A Terrible Cook And That He Was
“We used to have a Christmas potluck at work every year. There was a signup sheet for what to bring. One of the engineers was notorious for being a terrible cook.
The previous year, he had made mashed potatoes in his food processor and brought in what was basically glue. The following year, a couple of the women signed him up for ‘caviar on toast points’ as a prank and ragged him about it for weeks about where he was sourcing it from, etc. He decided to roll with it and showed up with Wonderbread toast and a jar of ‘Balls O’ Fire’ bait (chemically treated salmon eggs) with a hand-scrawled ‘Caviar’ label pasted to it and put them out on the potluck table.
We all got a good laugh out of it. Our receptionist got the last dig in though. She played dumb and told him how delicious his caviar was. The look on his face as he tried to think of how to explain it all was priceless.”
“What She Did Was Freakin Murder”
“A year ago, there was a publicised cooking competition held around my neighbourhood, in which each person from a household, if they were interested in the competition, was tasked with cooking a unique dish of their own choosing and bringing it to a medium-sized potluck dinner-kind-of-feast for scrutiny and tasting for the judges who instated the competition in town, with the cook of the best dish receiving a cash prize of around 200 bucks. Each participant was allotted eight days to prepare their chosen dish and present it at the dinner.
At the time, I was facing a bit of a financial crisis in that I only had five cents in my piggy bank that, to say the least, was far from acceptable for someone who always has her eyes set on stuff to buy.
The competition was an opportunity for me to secure an adequate amount of cash for my needs fairly quickly and easily, so I got on with making a truly novel, never-seen-before dish that I was sure would leave the judges thunderstruck with its impeccable blend of such exotic and tasteful ingredients as to make it seem like something from heaven.
To my shock however, during the course of my preparation of the dish, I found out that a friend of mine, who had also decided to join the competition, was making the exact same dish that I was making, the only difference being her tweaking its appearance to a small extent so that it didn’t look like a direct plagiarism of my dish, but that’s exactly what it was.
So I reached out to her and implored her, not confronting her or fighting her over it or anything like that, but politelyimploredher that she please make another dish. Sadly, she didn’t take too kindly to my request and literally told me to get lost.
But I pressed on. After hours and hours of persistent pleadings, she accepted to stop copying my dish and to work on an original one. But oh Lord, if I knew what her new ‘dish’ was going to be, I would’ve let her copy my dish without saying a word.
The eighth day passed, and with it the time of preparation. And my dish was more than ready. I brought it to the potluck dinner to see a crowd of people already there with rows of sizzling dishes placed on the tables. I stepped forward and put mine there.
And then came my friend a while later, carrying a ponderous bag and eyeing me with a mischievous smile. I thought nothing of it but then she opened the bag and what was inside caused a deafening commotion and that isn’t an understatement.
She reached into the bag and took out pieces of what looked to be a dog, and soon enough it was little chops of what was once perhaps a puppy she placed on the table as if they were meant to be eaten. Its roasted head, legs, tail, body, brain; all there, in front of dozens of appalled eyes.
And upon closer inspection, I saw it wasn’t just some dog, it was actually my pet. Of sorts, it used to come to my house occasionally for small pieces of meat that I had a penchant for giving it. What she did was freakin murder.
The dinner had to be shut down that night and postponed because everyone present lost their minds over what she brought, and she was permanently banned from attending future potluck dinners around the neighborhood, and I cut all ties with that monster.
The dog’s remains because I knew it more than anyone, were entrusted to me and I later buried them in a secluded place.”
The Audacity Of This Woman To Bring What She Brought
“Well, I still feel annoyed about a potluck at my house about 10 years ago. You see, I had gone to a similar event at my colleague’s house for two years in a row. The first year, I brought a cold meat platter that cost me some money. The next year, I made deviled eggs, which takes time and effort and they were the most popular item on the table. So the next year, I said I would host the potluck.
I laid out a nice table, ready for whatever offerings would come my way. Well, she arrived with an already-opened bag of chips, attached with a chip clip. I couldn’t believe my eyes. All the effort and money that I contributed to her potluck, and she arrived late with a chip-clipped half-empty bag of chips. Well, how disrespectful!
Epilogue: I kept the chip clip! I kept if for years, and snickered every time I used it! Take that, you inconsiderate, selfish, disrespectful guest!”
Venison Chili? Pigeon Pies? Oh Boy!
“I make a really excellent venison vhili. People get into fist fights to get the last serving good.
If I were going to a potluck back home with my sportsman friends and acquaintances, it’d be no problem at all. But I was going to a potluck here in New York City with my friends and acquaintances who are most definitely not sportspeople. If I brought the chili and labeled it as ‘Venison Chili’, then I’d probably have to carry it home.
So, I pulled a nice picture of Bambi off the internet, printed it out with a label saying, ‘CHILI’ under Bambi’s feet, and then I slapped it on the crockpot. We were good to go.
When I got to the potluck, I placed the crockpot of chili with Bambi’s dad on the table. My uptight urbanite friends couldn’t scarf it down fast enough. The crockpot was empty about halfway through the potluck. At the end of the night, people were raving about it and asking for the recipe.
So I told them, ‘You start by going out in November and shooting a nice buck whitetail deer. Then grind up about three pounds into chopped meat.’
Cue the wailing and hand wringing.
The organization has unfortunately stopped doing potlucks. Millennials have taken over and none of them can cook to save their lives. Too bad. I was gearing up to make a big platter of Pigeon Pies. Pigeons are easy to catch here in the city. They eat better than most people do.”
How Many People Brought Fudge?
“When I was a kid, we celebrated holidays as an extended family. Christmas was normally at our house, since we were the most centrally located. They were big relaxed gatherings with not much forethought or planning. That year, my mother decided, that instead of her usual ham or turkey, her contribution to the potluck was to provide a clean house. But not wanting to look too stingy, she made a plate of fudge.
My grandparents were the first to arrive. Normally, they brought a potato hot dish to all our shindigs. This time, Grandma decided to do something different, so she brought fudge. Next, my aunt arrived with her family. She was known for her light, fluffy homemade rolls.
But she had a new fudge recipe she wanted to try. Now my uncle and his family got there. Normally, they brought a salad, but this time they brought – wait for it – a plate of fudge.
By the time all the families arrived, we represented eleven households. The potluck consisted of eleven plates of fudge. Oh, and a bunch of peanut butter sandwiches my mom and grandma threw together at the last minute.
As a ten-year-old kid, I thought this was the best potluck ever. The adults, on the other hand, decided a little forethought and planning might be a good idea in the future.”
“I Was Afraid I Would End Up In The ER”
“I went to a church service, then stayed for lunch. I love potluck church lunches. They are usually delicious. I helped myself to what looked like a casserole that I saw a little old lady set on the table. I took a bite and started chewing. Something was wrong.
There was a chemical taste to it. Something was in it that was not food. It tasted like kitchen cleaner. I had to discreetly spit it out because I was afraid I would end up in the ER being pumped with charcoal. It tasted like how 409 smells.
Looking back, she may have had some dementia, or perhaps her eyesight didn’t allow her to read labels, and she grabbed the wrong ingredient. I did that once, accidentally putting a tablespoon of bleach in my potato salad instead of white vinegar (they were both in gallon jars on top of the fridge). I couldn’t even feed it to the chickens because of the bleach. Nobody’s perfect.”
He Wasn’t Sure If The Dish Was Joke Or Not
“I used to be a youth worker, and every month or so youth workers from all over the city would get together to chat over a potluck dinner. I wasn’t privy to the conversation which happened prior to this particular dinner, but I assume it went something like this:
Andrew: ‘I’m not sure what I should bring to the potluck tonight.’
Carl: ‘Doesn’t matter. People will eat anything at a potluck. Even… dirt with cheese!’
Sure enough, on the table was a dish labeled ‘Dirt with cheese.’
I looked it over carefully. It looked like Oreo Cookie Crumbs with grated cheese melted on top. Unsure whether the sign was a joke, or the dish itself was a joke, I steered clear. Not everyone did, however.
I was sitting near Carl and heard him say quietly to Andrew, ‘Wait for it….’
As someone in mid-sentence took a big bite of dirt with cheese.”
They Had To Create Another Category In The Contest Just For His Dish
“Once the women of the church decided to hold an all-male bake-off for July fourth. It was supposed to crown a patriotic potluck after-church dinner.
Though only a teenager, I was a decent cook and entered a cake. Well, the women were expecting around 10 cakes but only four were entered. One of which was by the pastor. Which was really horrible. Dry as can be, and too much baking soda.
The ladies were in a dither. There were four cakes and three categories. It was decided that the pastor couldn’t be the only one who didn’t win anything so they came up with a new category, ‘Best attempt by a non-baker’, and gave him that.
Just picture about 100 people with four cakes for dessert. And one doesn’t get finished. That is how bad it was.”
It Was A Thanksgiving Potluck
“I once worked in a government job and we were having a Thanksgiving potluck for brunch. It was not mandatory to bring anything, however, most people brought amazing home-cooked items. My boss’s boss’s boss, the head of the whole department, had either forgotten until the day of or for some other crazy reason, went through the McDonald’s drive-through right before and ordered 20 McMuffins. It was strange.”