It’s always nice to get a home-cooked meal from friends, family, or a loved one. That is until you remember that some people have very “interesting” ideas about food hygiene, recipes, and eating habits in general.
Someone asked, “What’s the weirdest habit you’ve witnessed in a friend’s kitchen?” and people shared the horrifying and amusing things they have seen. From terribly unsanitary practices to the strangest recipe personalizations, get comfortable, make sure you are done eating as you read through, and upvote your favorite examples. We got in touch with beetlebloop to learn more.
#1
Taking raw chicken and putting it directly in her flour canister to cover with flour to fry. I am still horrified years later.
Image source: Birdy304, Kristiana Pinne / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#2
Can I include my own kitchen? My husband has a habit of just putting used utensils in the freezer. Not washed, just licked clean (sometimes). Says the freezer kills the bacteria and he can reuse them as many times as he wants.
I do the dishes every day. Literally no reason for this weird habit 😐
Image source: BashfulBastian
#3
Keeping the water running at full speed while doing other tasks. As in for minutes. Not to achieve a certain temperature. And getting mad when I’d turn it off and passive aggressively turning it back on after I’d said it was wasteful and made me uncomfy. Rot in hell kimberly!
Image source: GingerRootBeer
#4
I had a roommate after college that said the best way to boil water was a ‘slow boil.’ He insisted on using low heat.
Image source: Sunnyday-777, Sergio Camalich / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#5
I’m not a friend, but I was a Tupperware lady in the 90s. I got to the woman’s house to set up for her party and she was in the kitchen talking to me. I see her grab the kitchen towel, wipe her dogs bottom with it And she says to me “She’s on her period!”
Then she went back to making her sushi rolls and kept using the same towel.
Image source: tammigirl6767
#6
Cut up raw meat using bare hands, then opened drawers, cabinets, and the fridge before washing their hands.
When she asked if I wanted to do weekly meal prep with her, I politely declined.
Image source: 0nlyhalfjewish, Usman Yousaf / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#7
My uncle left raw chicken out on the counter—for who knows how long —and it was covered it ants. I let him know. He rinsed the ants off, and put the chicken back in the fridge.
Image source: MasterBallsCK, JK Sloan / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#8
When my childhood dog would poop inside, and if it was…not solid, my dad would use a spoon to clean it up. Not a designated spoon that was the dog s**t spoon, just a regular spoon from the cutlery drawer. I did not discover this until he had been doing this for years. I was HORRIFIED and furious. When I told him it was disgusting, he got so defensive and said “well, how would you like me to clean it up?” I then listed many different ways to clean dog s**t. My mom also didn’t seen too concerned with it. I refused to use their cutlery until they no longer had any dogs and they had bought a new set. And quite frankly, I try to avoid eating there as much as possible because I have no idea what else my parents think is normal.
Image source: adoptdontshop1
#9
Maybe more wholesome than weird. At the grandfather’s house of my friend – he always kept a stock of homemade jerky chips in the freezer that were separated into servings. My friend had braces and loved jerky so grandpa made thin sliced jerky that wouldn’t get stuck in your teeth. I miss jerky chips.
Image source: DangerUnicorn_27
#10
Not a friend’s kitchen, but My mom thinks it’s weird that my husband and I use a sharpie to date everything that goes in the fridge pretty much. The expiration/best buy date is affected by when it was opened but it also helps us realize when something has been in there longer than we realize and should either be used up or thrown out.
Shredded cheese? Gets an opened date written. Lunch meat? Yep.
Image source: tkdbbelt
#11
I opened a friend’s fridge and it contained 30-40 cans of whipped cream and NOTHING ELSE. Family of 3.
Image source: Vampilton, Jason Leung / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#12
MIL insists on keeping cabibet doors above the microwave open. Why you ask? So the heat doesn’t build up in the cabinet and start a fire.
Image source: HelpMySonIsARedditor, Point3D Commercial Imaging Ltd. / unsplash (not the actula photo)
#13
I knew a bloke who thought you were meant to throw.out wooden spoons after each use he’d spend so much money on them. When we told him you could re-use them his mind was blown.
Image source: SkyMortar65, Louis Hansel / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#14
The dish cloth used once only. Do the dishes wipe down the stove top, counters, cupboard fronts then throw in the bin and get a new one. Must cost a lot.
Image source: PsychologicalBit5422, Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#15
I watched my coworker wash his potatoes with dish soap. Squirted the soap straight onto the potato, rubbed it all over with his bare hands, rinsed it, started chopping it.
Threw the chopped, unpeeled, soapy potatoes into a pot. Boiled them, mashed them without adding anything to them, then for some reason, picked the skin out of the pot of mashed with his bare hands. No milk, cream, butter, salt, anything.
Tasted like a sad, soapy pile of compost.
Image source: ninesandaces, Monika Grabkowska / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#16
I had an acquaintance whose place I went to a couple of times for parties. On both occasions, they brought out a blender to *blend wine*. I think one of the times I just saw them blend a single bottle but another time they blended two bottles together (to a weird result).
I think they fundamentally misunderstood what it meant to “blend wines” and thought that it involved the appliance. I was absolutely gobsmacked but didn’t know them well enough to feel comfortable with asking them why they did it.
Image source: wickerfolk, Diogo Brandao / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#17
Knew a guy that kept his chef knifes stabbed into the wall.
Image source: daggomit, Fernando Aguilar / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#18
My ex FIL thought traditional spaghetti with meat sauce was too “spicy”. So he would make noodles and top them with ground beef and ketchup.
Image source: Dottegirl67, Mae Mu / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#19
Putting vegetables to stir fry into a cold pan, then adding oil, then turning the pan on.
Image source: geckos_are_weirdos, Clem Onojeghuo / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#20
I worked with someone who told me that if she ever cooks and bakes for other people she will strip down to her underwear to do it to avoid any cross contamination of dog hair or other linty bits from her clothes.
Image source: MapleGoose, Huha Inc. / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#21
Friend of mine growing up had me over for family dinner; spaghetti. When everyone (5-6 of us total) were done, the mom scraped all the uneaten spaghetti on everyone’s plate back into the big pot.
Image source: 54sharks40, Krista Stucchio / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#22
My husband’s old roommate used to take a new dish every time he ate something then leave it behind in his room instead of putting it in the dishwasher. One day it occurred to my husband that there were like five dishes left in the kitchen and the rest were nowhere to be found, until he looked in said roommate’s room and found his mouldy hoard.
Image source: GadgetRho, cottonbro studio / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#23
Their shih tzu started sharting all over the place, they grabbed the dog and washed him in the sink and then didn’t clean or sanitize it afterwards.
Image source: Earsack_yeet_yeet19
#24
Well not me but my sister. She would go to this woman’s home to get her nails done. She did this quite often but it was usually earlier in the day when husbands and kids were away at work and school. One day the woman switched it up and asked her to come in the evening. This woman proceeded to start on my sisters nails and half way through she stops and starts making dinner. And then goes back and forth from making dinner to doing my sisters nails. NOT ONE TIME DID SHE WASH HER HANDS. Literally had nail dust and acrylic dust on her hands and nail polish remover and proceeded to chop and touch that poor family’s meal. 🤢🤮
Image source: Individual_Tune_4584, Giorgio Trovato / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#25
My old roommate would take a coffee cup from the night before with old coffee and milk in it and make a new one in the morning without dumping the old coffee out first.
Image source: symbolicshambolic, L.D.I.A / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#26
I was friends with a family that had 6 kids. The parents made everyone drink a full glass of milk with every meal, including guests. They would set out a gallon of milk on the table each meal, and it would just sit there until it was all gone, even if it took longer than one meal. I’ve always hated drinking milk, but those experiences really finished it off for me. I recently thought about it after finding one of my toddler’s old milk cups hidden in his room. The smell really took me back.
Image source: Emergency_Peach6155, Eiliv Aceron / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#27
My neighbors had to finish their plates completely, and I mean licked clean, because the dessert yogurt would be poured in the used plates. It was so gross having yogurt with a bite of potato. It is still a running gag with my family.
Image source: Bigkoala14, Louis Hansel / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#28
Old roommate used to cook her pasta like this: very small pot for a lot of pasta, fill the pot with pasta, add cold water just to cover it and then put it on the stove to heat. She did not salt the pasta either… plus she overcooked it to a degree were it broke by being touched by a fork.
Image source: AilaKnows
#29
This one is not as bad as some of the ones in this thread. But I have this friend, a grown adult male, who doesn’t wash his dishes with soap. I realized this after I had already eaten at his house several times. We were talking in his kitchen one day, and I watched him start washing a pan. He rinsed the food off with water and just put it up to dry??
Then, later on, he was at my house, and yelled at me for washing a pan he had given me with soap? He was apparently scared I was going to take off the finish or something?
The kicker is that I am immune deficient (I was born this way, it’s not AIDS or HIV) and he knows this, yet he doesn’t clean his dishes with soap?
I know everyone runs a household differently, but I feel like this should be kind of a universal standard in a first-world country as long as you can afford it.
Image source: dee62383, Tracey Hocking / unplash (not the actual photo)
#30
Growing my I used to go to this one friends house almost every day after school. This was a middle class family who made a decent amount of money.
Her parents let us have however much soda we wanted, but it was always the off-brand coke ONLY stored in the garage. I live in the desert so imagine walking home in 110 degrees in the summer and cracking a 90 degree coke. YUCK.
Finally I was like yo, you have an ice machine in your fridge can we please have some ice. For the longest time she’d tell me, “no, my parents told me ice is too expensive.
Eventually, she let me use their precious ice but I had to drink from their red solo cups which the entire family REUSED. Once they even flipped out on their maids because they threw away the dirty solo cups.
God that house was so f*****g weird.
Image source: serialchillin
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