Raw chicken and pink mash: The 11 most woeful Come Dine With Me meals of all time

What makes a winning performance on Come Dine With Me? Is it the creative flair one puts into the decor of the room, with complimentary crockery and tablecloth? Or the little titbits you leave around your room for guests to pick through in a vain attempt to get a rough idea of what you do for a living? Regardless of the contributory factors, the obvious factor is the food that you serve. But that begs the question – how do people manage to fuck it up so regularly?

On the whole, the dishes served aren’t that bad, as people know to flick through the recipe book to something firmly within their capabilities, but occasionally there is an absolute screamer, and that’s why we’ve invited you here today.

11. Rob’s Tom Yum soup

In at number 11 is Rob with his seriously ropey rendition of a Thai Tom Yum soup. While it’s forgivable for him to allow the soup to reduce to nothing more than a pasta sauce having left it on the hob for a bit too long (sort of), the real crime here is that he didn’t then decide to compensate and add some more liquid to make it back into a soup.

He literally served them a pasta dish, with bland vegetables and chunks of chicken strewn amidst it. Rob, you put so much effort into your physique that we thought you’d pay the same attention to your food. What a sad little life.

10. Ian’s asparagus, rice and beef

“I hated it” – Ian, talking about his own dish lmaoooo.

Student Ian had a bit of a mare, first producing a starter that got a unanimous “no”, before producing what was described as tasting like “Gandhi’s flip flop”. Judging from the way it looks, this seems to be pretty accurate. I mean look at that beef – leather bags have been made with beef more succulent than that. It’s a shame – if he included a sauce it could’ve salvaged things somewhat.

9. Courtney’s pink mash

This really is fucking atrocious. Besides from the fact that it looks like someone has thrown up onto the plate, Courtney took it upon herself to continue with the pink theme and put food colouring in the mash. Come ooooon!

What on earth would possess you to do this? Mash isn’t really the most appealing looking food anyway for its stodgy consistency and pallid colour, but there was really no need to go and put food colouring in it, making it look 10 times worse. This mash lives within that special category where other terrible luminous foodstuffs such as Mountain Dew and pink sprinkled doughnuts dwell.

8. Natsai’s mountain of food

While Natsai’s menu wasn’t shaping out to be overly problematic, there were certainly some issues with the design and execution. For starters, her starter is supposed to be a soup but ends up as more of a houmous-like consistency. Not to mention it was served with crocodile meat, which somehow she just nonchalantly drops into the conversation.

Then a Lion King-inspired meal had her serving alpaca, kangaroo and zebra – she literally went for a joy ride around Bristol zoo with a shopping list – surprised she didn’t top it off a bit of roadkill that she found on the way home. Bizarre.

7. Victoria and Brian’s Irn-Bru float

Noooooo! It’s supposed to be an ice cream float, not a cream sink! Seriously though, there are not many items on this list that I wouldn’t even try, but this is probably up there. There really ought to have been some losses cut – everybody would’ve been happier if she were to just dash everyone a can of the Scottish stuff and call it a day.

6. Deanne’s chocolate mousse

After a decidedly lacklustre starter and main, Deanne really has to pull it out of the bag in order to secure the victory. Unfortunately, she’s gone with the notoriously difficult to make dessert. Everyone seems to make the same mistakes of either knocking all the air out of it when folding the ingredients together, or doesn’t give it long enough to set. Deanne seems to have unfortunately done both.

It’s saddening to see the mousse (milkshake?) drip from the spoons of the unfortunate guests. At least she’s courteous and offers a straw.

5. Annie Rose’s sausage trifle

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Oh for God’s sake. You’re making a mockery of Britain’s greatest export since Love Actually, Annie!

Sausages in trifle is an attention seeking move, so it wasn’t going to get anywhere higher than number five on the list. Actually, scratch that, we’re not going to even give it any more attention than that. Sausages in trifle, pshhh.

4. Craig’s sushi-en-naked-man

When you go to a dinner party, you expect people to be pulling out that silverware and china that only has a place for when you’re trying to show off or conveniently serve a large amount of people. What people are missing, according to Craig, is that the hairy human body itself is the perfect vessel for carrying goods for human consumption.

Maybe the sushi was okay? It doesn’t fucking matter. There’s trying to provide something to make conversation, and then there’s serving sashimi from the two small brown plates naturally sat on your chest. Poor move, Craig.

3. Edith and Martin’s raw chicken

The unforgivable. The worst sin you could possibly commit for a dinner party. It doesn’t score lower because it looks like a considerable amount of planning and effort has gone into the rest of the meal, but really.

Raw chicken could not only make all of the guests ill, but it’s relatively hard to do, right? I know there’s a fine line between cooked and overcooked, but that’s a line that’s safe to be crossed if it means that the chicken isn’t still almost alive.

2. Lee’s absolute shitshow

Yes, all of his dishes looked terrible, but the spectacle here is his attitude.

This may be evidential of the producers starting to get people on the show that would cause drama, in wake of the success of a certain Peter Marsh, but really this is an uncomfortable clip to watch. His dishes were all terrible: from the weird selection between starters to the “Poullet Pritchet”, and his demeanour leaves even more a sour taste in the mouths of his guests. Worthy of his place on this list.

1. Claire’s worst steak to ever be made

How could it not go to Claire’s “Steak Americana”? It’s honestly times like these that make you question whether these are real people on a real show. Seriously.

What went on in poor Claire’s head? Having watched the whole episode, she is really sweet and doesn’t cause any drama, but her cooking clearly leaves A LOT to be desired. Steak with budget barbecue sauce and preshredded cheese. CHUCKED INTO THE FUCKING MICROWAVE?! I’d pay to see how to other contestants reacted when they watched the show back and saw how she truly prepared the steaks. A car crash from start to finish.

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