60 Dishes That Made People Lose Their Appetite Instantly

“Sometimes, you're going to fail. No amount of memorization or studying is going to ensure that your lamb chops cook to a perfect medium-rare every time. Sometimes you'll burn those cookies, or overcook the steak, or try to invent a dish with capers, scallops and grapefruit, only to have it fail miserably. And that's OK,” Shi writes.

“Food is all about trial and error, experimenting with flavors and techniques, and having fun while doing it. It's the only way to learn how to be a better cook. And those croissants I made from my raggedy laminated dough? They may not have been perfect, but they still tasted pretty darn good.”

Meanwhile, Elle Hunt writes in The Guardian that she has been a “terrible cook” for most of her life and has given herself food poisoning twice.

“My regular diet used to include microwaved scrambled eggs, children’s lunchbox cheeses, tinned lentils mixed with tinned tomatoes, bowls of garden peas, and the ‘complete food’ powder Huel. I alternated between the same two dinners for nearly a year, and the same sad desk lunch for two years. In short, I scavenged like a raccoon. I wrote cooking off as ‘not my thing’ alongside, say, basketball,” she writes.

However, she is not alone. Around a tenth of Brits “cannot cook a thing” while a quarter can only make three dishes.

However, Hunt’s situation changed thanks to a few mental shifts, and now she considers herself “pretty good at cooking.”

“See if you can identify the source of your belief that you are someone who can’t cook. You might uncover a false assumption – for example, that you don’t deserve to enjoy food, that any time not spent working is wasted, or that cooking is anti-intellectual or even women’s work,” she emphasizes. “It is exhilarating to realise that your identity is not fixed.”

She stresses that, for example, you can decide that you can cook, and then you prove it to yourself through small victories. In other words, we are all capable of adapting and evolving.

What are the very worst dishes that you’ve cooked, seen, ordered, or dared to taste at a potluck? Did they taste as bad as they looked... or worse?

What’s the biggest kitchen disaster that you’ve personally been responsible for, and what happened? On the other hand, what’s your biggest cooking win that you’re proud of to this day?

We’d like to hear all about your food-related experiences, so drop by the comments to share yours. Got any photos of your cooking fails and wins? Share them there, too.