50 Potluck Experiences That Traumatized These People

Someone made brownies with ground meat in them to a church potluck. My vegetarian friend discovered this when she bit into one. She was more confused and horrified about their existence than she was upset about eating meat-- it was the concept of this abomination itself that was disturbing and baffling.

I thought she had to be wrong. "You haven't had ground beef in years, you don't know what it tastes like anymore, it's probably something else." I tried them. It was beef. I was disgusted and really, really, really confused.

Years later, I found out that apparently this was a thing. Someone came up with this-- putting beef in brownies-- as a substitute for walnuts for people with nut allergies.

While this explains it a little, in theory, I'm still confused about why someone would assume that people who can't eat walnuts would prefer to eat ground beef brownies over just. Regular nut-free brownies.

Edit: Since this blew up, I shared it with my sister, who reminded me that she was also there for this and she had tried the brownies first, and that they were actually the reason she stopped wanting to come to church. "I started doubting the entire establishment," she says.

We had a lady who made her special pb fudge. But she wouldn't put it out with all the food. She would walk around with her Tupperware and offer the people she liked a piece. Not more than 1 piece you were allowed to take. If she didn't like you, you didn't get one. This went on for years.
The last year she worked there, we all decided to say no thank you when she approached us.
Oh and 2 of us brought fudge for everyone at the table spread. She was furious that we foiled her s****y efforts.

How about what someone did to the potluck item I sent in? My baked goods are quite popular with my husband's coworkers. Frequently I'm asked to make stuff for their birthdays, holidays and so forth. Well for Christmas last yr they did a potluck and requested I send in my caramel pecan pie parfait. Instead of one or two big bowls of it I put it in individual half pint jam jars so everyone would get some and could take it home if they wanted. I made two per coworker. I also sent in several extra just so people could take some home to kids or partners too. Now there's this one particular woman who works there and is a chronic a*****e. Her husband also was on the same shift. He happened to comment she should get the recipe since it was really good. Apparently that pissed her off so she grabbed the tray of the remaining ones and smashed them on the floor. Only three people had gotten their jar and nobody had got their other ones since most were saving it to take home. My husband didn't tell me till a couple months later. He knew how long it took to make them and the effort it took. I'm still pretty salty about it tbh.

Does Thanksgiving count? One year our small apartment complex came together for potluck dinner. A couple people had relatives, including someone’s older aunt. For dessert, one of the neighbors made a lime jello mold, but used weed-infused vodka. He was VERY clear about it to everyone. Some ate it, some didn’t. The older aunt knowingly had some. “Aw hell, why not?” She declared. That old auntie was the most engaging and entertaining person for like 20 minutes. Absolutely hilarious, owning the room with stories, and just loving life. Then she quickly snuck into a bedroom and immediately crashed out. To this day (if she’s still alive), I wonder if she considered that jello good or horrible.

I love telling this story.

I worked at a patient care clinic with mostly nurses.
One nurse brings mashed potatoes inside of a Walmart bag. Not inside of a bowl inside of a Walmart bag.
Mashed potatoes. Loose. Inside of a Walmart bag. That could’ve previously held raw chicken or some other gross thing. A NURSE.

I ended up posting about it on Facebook later, after having forgot we were FB friends. Oops.

My cousin’s wife wanted to make pimento cheese sandwiches for a Super Bowl party. Problem is she had no idea what went into pimento cheese and refused to go to the store because it “couldn’t be that hard.” So she mixed a bag of shredded cheese, an ungodly amount of mayonnaise, and for the little red bits? Maraschino cherry halves 🤮 Then dumped approximately a half cup of garlic salt in for good measure.

I thought they were a dessert because they were pink and couldn’t figure out what a pink sandwich would be. It was truly one of the worst things I’ve ever put in my mouth.

Has a guy bring in his “specialty corn.” It was legit canned corn in a crockpot with spices. Thing is, he tells us “ya, my wife took it to her pot luck on Tuesday, they didn’t eat it so I saved it on low in the crockpot and brought it here.” It was Friday. Corn was brown. Nobody ate it. He kept eating it saying it was so good. The following Monday his new name at work was Corn Cob Rob.

Once at a church potluck, a lady made chicken noodle soup, but instead of chicken it was raccoon. She didn’t tell anyone. We found out because her sons were laughing and we finally got them to tell us why 🤠👍🏼

I know the neighbor's cat pees on everything. I've pet sat for them. I saw that critter pee on the patio next to the grill.

Went over for dinner. Chicken asada on the grill.

Small piece of chicken went astray right on the patio next to the grill.

Neighbor put it right back on the grill.

I brought salad.

That's all I ate.

My Cambodian coworker brought chicken feet. I felt bad for him because no one would try them. I mustard up the courage and had one. It is the best part of the chicken. 10 out of 10 need to try.

At my previous job, I had a coworker that would frequently cook food because it was his “passion” and he would bring it in to share with everyone. On a few occasions, someone would get ill after, but infrequently enough that people wrote it off as a coincidence. This coworker goes out on PTO and asks another coworker to feed his 12 cats while he is gone/scoop the litter boxes. Unfortunately, it was discovered the coworker was cooking/serving us food in the same pans he was also sometimes using as litter boxes for his bushel of cats. When confronted, he stated he thought this was fine because he washed them after. We never ate his food again.

When I was in high school we had an "around the world" day and we were tasked to get in a group and make a dish from a chosen country. My group cooked at one girl's house... the condensed milk seemed a little weird but we used it anyways. As we were cleaning up we saw the can was 5 years expired but it was too late. My group was afraid to taste test it.

Almost every kid had explosive diarrhea within a few mins of Around the World Day ending. Some were crying. Nobody knew who poisoned the school but I'm suspicious it was us.

Grandma brought the 1 yr old fruitcake she kept in a glass bowl covered in foil out from under her bed to the family potluck.

When the foil came off everyone gagged as it smelt like booze and death and then she lit it on fire and poured cream on it and insisted everyone try it.

It was simultaneously super dry and sopping wet, tasted like hand sanitizer, and had the texture of cat litter.

Grandma's Jello salad, made with cottage cheese and celery

Edit - I love how half the answers are "OMG, that's disgusting", and the other half are "Yeah, I remember that monstrosity"

A sugarless cake. She realized too far into the process that she forgot the sugar and continued with the decorating. She placed it on the table and didn’t think anyone would notice the lack of sugar.

We noticed… cakes need sugar.

I once made a brain dip for a work afternoon tea on Halloween. It was a homemade onion & herb dip with paprika that made it pink & used a large brain mould. It looked quite realistic. Very few ate it because it looked too real

An office potluck - as everyone is eating, one of the girls says,"I'm sorry if you find ant cat hair in the green bean casserole. My cat kept getting up on the counter to nibble at the edges." Cue everyone looking at each other like WTF??

Casserole with a side of roaches.

Not even kidding. They crawled out of the bag she brought her dish in. I stopped participating in potlucks after that.

I came here to nominate myself.

At a Halloween work pot luck, I made dirt cake. Which was chocolate cake with chocolate pudding then a layer of crumbled oreos and brownies with gummy worms sticking out. Everyone was horrified. Those who did eat it loved it (who would like chocolate on top of chocolate on top of chocolate). Others couldn't bring themselves to eat it.

We had a Buche de Noel baking contest in French class in high school and one girl brought one in that when the teacher cut it had a bunch of hair baked through it. This was my first experience with “never trust what someone else baked at home unless you’ve seen their kitchen”