Is This the Worst Recipe on the Internet?

A few years ago my boyfriend pulled out a book of recipes that his grandmother had collected over the years. One of them was a clipping from the newspaper from the 1960's for Glorified Perfection Salad. The ingredients were so disgusting that I laughed harder an harder as I read the list out loud. I just googled and this is the closest to it I've found. Thank God the dressing is "Optional" but who wouldn't want mayo with their jello!
PERFECTION SALAD:

2 pkg (6 ounces each) lime jell-o
4 c boiling water
3 c cold water
2 c finely shredded cabbage
1 c finely shredded carrot
1/4 c thinly sliced celery
1 c crushed pineapple, well drained
1 pkg (3 ounces) lemon jell-o (plus water called for on package)
OPTIONAL DRESSING:
1 c mayonnaise or miracle whip
1-2 Tbsp milk, (more or less to your preference)
1-2 Tbsp sugar, (more or less to taste)

I'm from NYC. Old school Brooklyn, to be exact. The Brooklyn of amazing Italian food. Many years ago (around 1987), a coworker of mine who ended her stint working with us, and decided to move back to her home town of St. Louis, invited me to a goodbye dinner party she was throwing for herself. When I arrived, her apartment was jam-packed with people, all standing, holding plates of pasta. That was the first odd thing. In my mind, a dinner party means a sit-down dinner. This was more like a cocktail party - people were chatting loudly, there was music blasting - except with plates of food, instead of drinks. The hostess spotted me from the kitchen, and ran out with a giant bowl of pasta smothered in a red sauce. She said, "I'm so glad you came. Now have a bowl of my mother's FAMOUS recipe! You're going to love it, since Brooklyn people seem to love Italian food. It's actually not my mother's original recipe. She got it from a cookbook from the BEST Italian restaurant in all of St. Louis." In my mind I thought, "I'm pretty sure Pizza Hut is considered an Italian restaurant in St. Louis, so that doesn't say much." Of course I said nothing of the sort out loud. I just handed her the going-away gift I'd bought, and thanked her for the bowl of pasta. She was abut to watch me taste it, because she was sooooo sure I'd love it, but then someone yelled from the kitchen that she had a call. When she walked away, I tasted the pasta. To say it was lousy would be an insult to lice. It was truly vile. I didn't even dare take a second bite. I was already regretting the one swallow. It was sort of.....pungent, is the best word, I think. It reminded me of a virgin Bloody Mary, with sugar added, poured over incredibly overcooked, very wide spagetti. There was not one thing RIGHT about it. I knew I could not cope with a second bite, and decided to try and find a way to discreetly dump it. Suddenly, I was glad this had turned out to be a weird, stand-up affair, because I never could have ditched a whole bowl of pasta at a formal sit-down dinner. I made the rounds of the apartment - I couldn't just go throw it away in the kitchen, because the host was in there on the phone. I ended up dumping bits of it into several flower pots around the place - enough to go back to the kitchen looking as if I'd eaten a fair amount, but had my fill. I headed to the kitchen to return my bowl, all ready to say, "This is delicious, but I can't eat another bite - I had a late lunch." I walked in just in time to find the hostess at the stove, pouring a quart-sized can of Sacramento tomato juice into a giant pot of overcooked noodles which had been drained. There was a sugar bowl without a lid on the counter, just next to her. Suddenly the awful taste made perfect sense. She noticed me, and got all coy, saying, "Hey! No fair. Now you know the secret ingredient! Don't go stealing my recipe!"

I'm from NYC. Old school Brooklyn, to be exact. The Brooklyn of amazing Italian food. Many years ago (around 1987), a coworker of mine who ended her stint working with us, and decided to move back to her home town of St. Louis, invited me to a goodbye dinner party she was throwing for herself. When I arrived, her apartment was jam-packed with people, all standing, holding plates of pasta. That was the first odd thing. In my mind, a dinner party means a sit-down dinner. This was more like a cocktail party - people were chatting loudly, there was music blasting - except with plates of food, instead of drinks. The hostess spotted me from the kitchen, and ran out with a giant bowl of pasta smothered in a red sauce. She said, "I'm so glad you came. Now have a bowl of my mother's FAMOUS recipe! You're going to love it, since Brooklyn people seem to love Italian food. It's actually not my mother's original recipe. She got it from a cookbook from the BEST Italian restaurant in all of St. Louis." In my mind I thought, "I'm pretty sure Pizza Hut is considered an Italian restaurant in St. Louis, so that doesn't say much." Of course I said nothing of the sort out loud. I just handed her the going-away gift I'd bought, and thanked her for the bowl of pasta. She was abut to watch me taste it, because she was sooooo sure I'd love it, but then someone yelled from the kitchen that she had a call. When she walked away, I tasted the pasta. To say it was lousy would be an insult to lice. It was truly vile. I didn't even dare take a second bite. I was already regretting the one swallow. It was sort of.....pungent, is the best word, I think. It reminded me of a virgin Bloody Mary, with sugar added, poured over incredibly overcooked, very wide spagetti. There was not one thing RIGHT about it. I knew I could not cope with a second bite, and decided to try and find a way to discreetly dump it. Suddenly, I was glad this had turned out to be a weird, stand-up affair, because I never could have ditched a whole bowl of pasta at a formal sit-down dinner. I made the rounds of the apartment - I couldn't just go throw it away in the kitchen, because the host was in there on the phone. I ended up dumping bits of it into several flower pots around the place - enough to go back to the kitchen looking as if I'd eaten a fair amount, but had my fill. I headed to the kitchen to return my bowl, all ready to say, "This is delicious, but I can't eat another bite - I had a late lunch." I walked in just in time to find the hostess at the stove, pouring a quart-sized can of Sacramento tomato juice into a giant pot of overcooked noodles which had been drained. There was a sugar bowl without a lid on the counter, just next to her. Suddenly the awful taste made perfect sense. She noticed me, and got all coy, saying, "Hey! No fair. Now you know the secret ingredient! Don't go stealing my recipe!"

lol, worst recipes? My mom has a 70s-era Betty Crocker recipe box, complete with questionable recipes. This bagel tiramisu doesn't hold a candle to those, fortunately, but it sure brought back some wacky memories.

I don't have an issue with the so-called "worst recipe"; those were done with good intentions and use of available ingredients. If you have the marsala, espresso, ladyfingers, mascarpone (which we all know is pretty doggone expensive sometimes) and chocolate for shaving - good for you, make it and have a great time doing so. Cooking has evolved over the years to not only include more cuisines from more countries, it has also evolved in the way we try out recipes from this site and others. Compared to the box of 70s disasters that my mom has... I think we're pretty lucky that we can evolve and expand our cooking knowledge and enjoyment.

Trashing this site, or any other, because of your personal biases defeats the purpose. If it's gross to you - it's pretty simple, don't make it. Food was never intended to be this divisive. It's intended to nourish and sustain us.

This is really elitist. Regular viewership of the Hallmark Channel outside of the holidays skews lower income and middle American. Maybe people who watch this program aren't surrounded by tons of Italian bakeries and restaurants that make tiramisu all the time like the Food52 staff are.

HUGE fan of all your work, Mayukh! i think the ramen noodles I tried to make once that instantly turned to mush upon hitting water was the worst recipe I've ever made, but almost most definitely from some fault of my own.

Food52 loses all credibility when it states, " It’s composed of ingredients that may make some of us bristle when we find them in a tiramisu recipe: bagels with shavings of chocolate grated on top; powdered, non-dairy creamer; cream cheese. All sound fine on their own. " NO, all do NOT "sound fine on their own." How is non-dairy creamer EVER EVER "fine"? Full of chemicals and zip food value. If you need a portable creamer, try non-fat dry milk. All real food!

When I see shrimp scampi recipes that tell you to cook the shrimp at a high temp for over 15 min..

I have tried this recipe because I thought it would be a nice, quick, family-friendly crowd-pleasing dessert, as Hallmark channel's typically are. I have to admit that I must have used the wrong kind of bagels (the recipe didn't specify which brand or flavor) because my Tiramisu cake turned out a bit gritty and more savory than I would have liked. However, if a recipe can save even a bit of time compared to "the hard way," then I say, "All is fair!" Besides, the kids still loved it and actually ate every last morsel. My advice-- use the right bagels, but good luck guessing which one it is!

The apologies from the Food 52 staff in the comments are nothing but BS. Just an attempt to CYA after getting some heat for another poorly written, uninformative garbage piece. I agree with the commenter who said that the author is condescending and biases the reader into presuming that this is a bad recipe. There is no way to read this garbage without coming away thinking that this author is looking down on this recipe - he has decided it is the worst recipe and he is mocking it. The same commenter said that the author is wishy-washy in his condemnation of this recipe. Commenter is correct. At the very least this writer could have some guts and take a stance instead of portraying the recipe in a negative light but leaving the door open for him to backtrack in case the public sentiment is against him. He is also arrogant. He takes great pains to "(sic)" what is written incorrectly ("forgive a few standard issue typos...") yet his writing is not perfect. The writer uses "internet's" - a made-up contraction for Internet is. Ridiculous! The defensive tone of the two employees who responded is an indication that they know this article was crap and they are trying to spin it. This was just meant to promote a discussion? The statement "meet the recipe that may have earned the title"'of worst recipe on the Internet is far from an unbiased, untainted statement. There is a judgmental tone to that statement. At the end of the article when the author asks readers to "set the record straight" he is indicating his acknowledgment that this is regarded as a bad recipe. The tone of the article reads as if the author agrees with the opinion that this is a bad recipe. Notable is the opinion that the recipe includes ingredients that "make some of us bristle". Some of us? That's an agreement with an opinion. There is no way to read this without surmising that he writer is in agreement with the opinion that this is a bad recipe; so bad that it deserves his passive-aggressive mockery. The comment from the employee, Nikkitha, that said "this would have been more constructive as a suggestion" is just a weak attempt to bully the commenter. The writers and editors at Food 52 never thought tontest this recipe and see how it is for themselves? These professional food bloggers need that suggestion from readers? Preposterous. The writer and editor(s) didn't want to test this recipe - they wanted to condemn and mock it. It's all there in the tone of the article and the responses from the employees. I am rapidly losing confidence in the quality of content coming from this site.

Kwanzaa Cake

Anything - I mean anything with instant pudding and/or "whipped topping" 😖

YAY! I get to be the one to post this gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we2iWTJqo98

I haven't found the worst recipe, but I have found what is probably the worst ethnic ingredient mistake. Hubby and I LOVE pad Thai, and decided to diy after I received a wok as a Christmas gift. We went to the Asian market for fish sauce, palm sugar, and other ingredients, in an attempt to make an authentic version at home. The fish sauce aisle was rather intimidating. We came home with what seemed a simple one, and got to work. As soon as we opened the bottle we decided it smelled a lot like butt and stank up the whole kitchen. After searching the Internet we decided fish sauce just smells bad and kept going while we held our breath and prayed it was a magical ingredient that wouldn't taste like it smelled. Our pad Thai turned out to be mediocre, and not worth the scary fish sauce we used. We have since (7 years ago) discovered that there is in fact less putrid fish sauce out there and we have used it, with caution, since then.

This would have been more interesting had you tested the recipe, and discussed the results. As is, this article doesn't seem to know what it's doing. It seems as though it wants to condemn/mock the recipe outright, yet makes wishy-washy comments lauding experimentation. It makes a point to call out basic typos in the recipe (really, this is low-hanging fruit). The article feels uncomfortably classed and gendered. Many "new" recipes are born out of the economic need to rework the originals that call for costly ingredients by using less expensive convenience foods. And yes, these chefs are women appearing on the Hallmark channel. I wonder what the reaction would be if a high-profile male chef had come up with a bagel-and-cream-cheese "tiramisu" recipe? I really expect more from f52 articles than this. If you're going to write about it, at least test the recipe for the readers, and remember that not everyone can afford to cook with/have access to expensive and, for some, hard to find ingredients.

Ick. Why would anyone want to call attention to such an abomination?