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.
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Bored Panda got in touch with beetlebloop who made the original thread and they were kind enough to answer some of our questions. We wanted to know if there was perhaps some sort of incident that inspired them to ask about other’s experiences with strange kitchen habits.
“My sister-in-law had us over recently and offered us some tea. I thought she had inadvertently dropped the teabag into the mug without detaching the label and hanging it over the side. No big deal, right? But then I saw she had a whole bowl of used teabags she'd fished out of other mugs that all still had their labels attached too! My husband had noticed the same thing independently, and we debriefed on this as soon as we got home and agreed she was clearly deranged!”
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“I once witnessed my co-worker (who seemed perfectly normal) taking the basket of spent grounds out of our coffeemaker and dumping the entire thing down the sink. We did not have a garbage disposal so this seemed completely insane, to me and to all our other co-workers who were there. That moment lives in my head rent-free and springs to mind every time I dump coffee grounds out (not in the sink)!” they shared with Bored Panda.
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By this point, the original thread had thousands of comments, so we were curious to hear their opinion on why it ended up being so popular. “I think the thread became popular because eating is such a universal, personal, and visceral experience. It can be mystifying and/or horrifying to see people you thought you knew acting bizarrely and so differently from the way you do things. One other example that freaks me out is people who eat fruit rinds you're not supposed to eat. Like kiwi skins or watermelon rinds. Ugh!”
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I had a roommate after college that said the best way to boil water was a ‘slow boil.’ He insisted on using low heat.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.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.Taking raw chicken and putting it directly in her flour canister to cover with flour to fry. I am still horrified years later.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 ?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.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.Knew a guy that kept his chef knifes stabbed into the wall.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.I opened a friend's fridge and it contained 30-40 cans of whipped cream and NOTHING ELSE. Family of 3.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.Putting vegetables to stir fry into a cold pan, then adding oil, then turning the pan on.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.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.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.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.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.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.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.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!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.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.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.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.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.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. ??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.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.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.The dad of a guy I went out with in high school had, I swear to god, an entire wall stacked with Coca-Cola 12-packs. Must have been 8 by 8 feet. No one was allowed to drink any of the cans except for him. If we wanted Coke, we had to drink from the stale 2-liter bottle in the fridge.Cats on the countertops are SO unsanitary, especially considering the litterbox situation.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.I know someone who throws away almost nothing. Which wouldn’t be a terrible habit if it didn’t mean offering you the moldy lemon that has been sitting on the counter for god-only-knows-how-long because god forbid she just cut a new lemon. Tomatoes, peppers - anything. I try not to eat there. She is very well off and has never been poor (I don’t think her parents were incredibly wealthy, but they were at least middle-class), but she has this hoarder mindset especially around food.
Also she refuses to use chef’s knives and cooks exclusively with steak knives.My mom witnessed a distant friend empty her child’s potty into the kitchen sink. Needless to say we never ate there ever again.I had a roommate that I didn’t know well. We kind of ignored each other, and I didn’t want to ask too many questions. She kept 6 peach yogurt cups in a drawer in the kitchen (not in the fridge). I never saw her use any of them.
One day her boyfriend came over and found them. He asked why she had yogurt in a drawer, and she got kind of upset and told him to just put them back and leave them alone. After that I was even more curious, but even more afraid to ask.I knew someone who would cut the empty part of an egg carton off with a bread knife so the carton would be “full and balanced” next time they needed eggs. They would do this every time they used an egg.
I knew someone else that did not discard the egg shells when making scrambled eggs; I think this might be common in some cultures, but the way it was done was strange. They’d crack the egg into the skillet (Teflon coated skillet), drop the shell into the skillet, use a metal spoon to crush the shell, scramble the eggs with a metal fork, and use the spoon to move the mess around while it cooked. Their skillet was horribly scratched and the coating was flaking off. The worst part was they didn’t even bother to wash the egg shells before cracking the eggs and tossing them into the food.
A coworker would pour the remaining milk from their cereal bowl back into the milk carton to not be wasteful. His milk carton in the breakroom fridge was always labeled after we found out. He would also pour his cold coffee from his mug back into the pot to warm it up. I understand not wasting food, but at least use clean containers and label them if you’re “storing” leftovers.—this person’s habits is one of the reasons I quit eating from “serve yourself” set ups like pot lucks and buffets.
Not really a habit, but a terrible attempt at a “grilled cheese sandwich”: toast the wheat bread in the toaster. when it is done, butter one side of each slice. Place one slice of toast on a microwave safe plate, butter side down, place a slice of processed American cheese on the toast (add processed ham or turkey slices, potted meat, or Spam if you want), place the top slice on the sandwich (butter side up), microwave the sandwich for 30 seconds or 1 minute—try to enjoy the soggy mess and congratulate yourself for your culinary skills.Found out a friend uses the same sponge to clean his kitchenware, cat bowls and the dustbin/filter on the cordless vacuum.My best friends mom has two drawers with two similar, but not identical, sets of silverware. When you do the dishes you have to carefully sort the silverware back into the appropriate spot.
Also, she owns 117 cups. I counted.
Edit: For those of you asking, no, it is not a kosher kitchen. Or any dietary restrictions. They just have two sets.A bunch of us were hanging out at our mates place while his parents were out of town. We get hungry so he offers to make grilled cheese. He pulls out the cheese and I s**t you not I thought it was a block of butter carved into a skate park half pipe. We watched incredulously as he scooped the knife along the top in a semi circle motion. We all burst out laughing and he's like "what? That's how mum does it". LolololI've seen one friend dump the entire basket of coffee grounds down the drain instead of emptying it in the garbage first. And my SIL throws the whole teabag, label and all, into the mug, every time. Beastly!
EDIT: Clarified that she throws the teabag label in!I stayed for a week with an old friend. While visiting, we cooked a lot. I noticed something the first day and didn’t think much of it. The second day I thought something was up. The third day, he did it again and I asked if he was f*****g with me because it was so odd. Nope, he knows he’s got a weird a*s habit! He uses 300 grit sandpaper on his cutting board after every time he uses it. Not weekly or monthly. If he uses the board, it’s sanded, conditioned overnight, and oiled in the morning before he goes to work. I think he’s got some OCD because he has other bizarre habits too.Their silverware drawer wasn’t organized by utensil, everything was just thrown in at random.My grandmother would drop her ciggie butts and Sweet & Low packets down the garbage disposer.My husband will leave every cabinet door and every drawer he goes into open and walk away. I can go into our kitchen and know where he's been and likely what he's eating based on this. I remember my dad freaking out on us as kids if we did this. I now realize that I am my father's daughter because OMG is it annoying.“Washing” chicken before cooking it in a 350° oven…My friends father cooks pasta the following way. In the morning put the pasta in a pan and cover with water. In the evening, put pasta on the hob and bring to a simmer for half an hour to 45 mins.Maybe I’m weird, but going over to my best friend’s house as a teen they would make their sandwiches and eat things like chips directly on the counter tops. No paper towel or plate. It was a clean house, but still grosses me out.I knew somebody who used a sponge to clean their dishes that looked a good year too old.
It smelt like you would expect.
Also a not so uncommon thing I notice in *a lot* of people's homes is putting dishes in the sink with food still on/in them and letting them sit like that for days.
Throw away whatever you don't eat or put it in the garbage disposal and f*****g rinse off the dishes after you're done.
How hard is it?My ex-boyfriend's parents used to buy astroglide lubricant in bulk (think costco-sized containers of lube) and would for some reason leave it on their kitchen table. And it's not like they lived alone - at the time, all four of their kids still lived at home.
I didn't date their son long enough to know if this was a consistent habit or if they just accidentally left it there a few times, but it was pretty horrifying nonetheless.My weird mom soaking peanuts in milk and eating butter by the cube. I sure miss her.Friend bought their dream home. Multi-Million dollars, on-the-water, etc, etc. Walked into the most beautiful kitchen to find every single cupboard, drawer, shelf space, counter space, appliance, switch plate - every f*****g thing - labelled with a Dymo label. Must have spent hundreds of dollars on vinyl Dymo labels…A friend of mine keeps ALL her groceries in the refrigerator. Chips, flour, spices, boxed macaroni, cans of soup. Everything
Edit: many people assume she grew up with pests; her parents house was not only luxurious but completely spotless. Never even saw a spider in there. Last time I saw her she lived in an equally as spotless apartment. No crumbs in the toaster, spotless bathroom sink.
No pests, just paranoiaGlock in the fridge, not sure if it would mess things up, but I guess of s**t went down that’s probably the last place people would lookNo one was allowed to brush their teeth in the bathroom sink, or wash their hands in it either. You had to wash your hands in the bathtub and brush your teeth in the kitchen sinkMy MIL apparently has a thing against counter space.This is actually something common, but I find it really gross that people use sponges to clean their kitchens. Like, I don’t care how well you clean it out and try to sanitize it: its job is to literally pick up dirt and grime and suck it inside itself. There’s a reason they’re not allowed in food service settings.
Dish cloths are cheap and washable each time you dirty them. I don’t really understand why anyone uses a sponge in the first place. Someone who does: convince me lol.Not a friend but a roommate.
He would open a yogurt, eat 1 spoonful and then put the yogurt and spoon in the fridge open.
He did that with all kinds of food.
At one point the entire fridge was just that.Refusing to wash their cast iron because "soap ruins it" *retch*
It was visibly moldy and disgusting. It's not the 1800s anymore, you can put soap on your cast iron, and if you don't you're nasty.Mayo in the cupboard.My friends mom would eat raw beef every time she was cooking with it. This was 30 years ago and shes still alive and in great health. LolMy sister's friends reused water bottles. I mean they refilled the water bottles and put them back in the fridge like they were new. At one point my sister realized the top wasn't opening like a new bottle. But that wasn't how she found out. She spotted lipstick on the top. Ew.I was helping a friend clean up her apartment after sgmhe had moved out. It was pretty dirty once we got all her stuff out. I was cleaning her fridge and she said she didn't know you could take all the shelves out and wash themCracking eggs and putting the cracked egg shells back in the egg carton with the remaining uncracked eggs and back into the fridge they wentA school friend started snacking on raw ground beef. She said her whole family ate it like that.My spouse and I visited my 28 year old brother in his bachelor pad. Not a single drawer or cupboard organizational device. Silverware sat haphazardly in the silverware drawer. One other drawer held a plastic cooking spoon and spatula for the rare occasion that he’d make himself dinner that wasn’t frozen and thawed or just takeout. I don’t think he had any form of culinary knives.
Also no dish rags, hand towels, sponges, scrubbers, dish soap, or hand soap at the kitchen sink. Everything got stuffed in the dishwasher.
