It’s not uncommon to want a few red pepper flakes to add to your pizza or soup. Some people can’t imagine enjoying these dishes any other way!

This person might have taken things a little far, though. Not only did she add red pepper flakes, but she also continued to add them to their soup until the jar was completely emptied out! We’re impressed that she didn’t need another drink to wash it down with.

There are some eating sins that stand out because you can’t imagine why someone would try it in the first place. At least this one had a purpose.

Still, that doesn’t stop how incredibly sinful of an act it was to create this mixture. They’re not even the same kind of consumable item, it’s just a mixture of a drink and a condiment. We can only guess that with an entry like this, they must have won the game.

There are certain mixtures that are jarring because you’ve never seen anything quite like it before. After all, if you order a chef salad, you generally know what you’re going to get.

This college student decided that the recipe was missing a few key ingredients that we’re pretty sure most people wouldn’t consider. Not to mention, it wasn’t even a one-off snack either. It seemed to be a regular meal for this person.

Sometimes, the weirdest food sins come from a roommate. What better way to learn all of someone’s favorite foods than to share a kitchen with someone?

This included one particular concoction that’s sure to haunt our dreams. The first step was to microwave a pickle — to melt the cheese on top, of course. Once it’s done, don’t forget the ice cream dipping sauce. We can’t blame this OP for avoiding the kitchen with recipes like these.

There are some eating habits that almost everyone loves. For instance, who can say no to an Oreo dipped in some milk?

If you don’t like regular milk, you have some options. After all, there are plenty of alternatives — from almonds to oats — to keep things dairy-free. We would usually recommend that you try one of those before you jump to an eating sin like Oreos dipped in water — but to each their own.

Some people just have a favorite food they want in everything. Honestly, cucumbers aren’t terribly offensive when it comes to foods to work in.

The other half of this eating sin is what leaves us reeling. It’s almost hard to imagine exactly what this pasta must look like and that’s probably for the best. We also imagine that this must take much longer than just draining your pasta.

There are a lot of options if you want to break bread with something else. You could always add a spread or dip your bread into a soup for a kick of flavor.

What most people don’t turn to for a dip is the drink they’re enjoying. In this particular case, it wasn’t even something remotely compatible. She just continued to enjoy a roll soaked in nothing but Coca-Cola until she ran out. Luckily, this server was on standby with more.

There are some eating sins that you just can’t ignore. They’re just too eye-catching or, in certain unfortunate situations, too fragrant to ignore.

Every food sin described here is a nightmare, seemingly getting worse the further on you read. If that wasn’t bad enough, this OP said that each horrific dish came with colorful commentary that was hard to ignore. We would imagine that it would be hard to not let it bother you.

Fried eggs are a classic when it comes to breakfast. Not to mention, a fried egg makes a great addition to a lot of different types of meals if you need protein.

We’re not quite as sure that we would ever think to add this to fried eggs. For one, it seems like it could create quite an unpleasant texture. Even further, we’ve never taken a bite out of a fried egg and wished there was something sweet.

Once in a while as a kid, you might end up staying at a friend’s house longer than expected. This can give you a perspective into dinner time at their house.

When this person was young, they were caught at a friend’s house for dinner. They probably didn’t expect to have this experience when they agreed to stay for dinner. At this point, though, we have to wonder why they didn’t just serve all the food together anyway.

Table manners are wildly subjective. In one place, you might find that eating with certain manners is considered polite while in another place, it’s considered rude.

Still, no matter what you prefer to have at your table as utensils, there are some things it’s hard to imagine eating without them. Eating peanut butter with your hands seems like a great way to make a mess — and tearing peppers to pieces seems effective even if it doesn’t sound quite as efficient.

There’s nothing quite like a sandwich when you need a quick meal or even a snack on-the-go. Yet, you can’t put too much on one without committing an eating sin.

This family has quite the idea of what a great sandwich is. As a third party, this person can’t even think to try the sandwiches they munch down on. Separately, peanut butter or bologna isn’t that bad. Yet, together it’s frightening.

Even within your own family, you might learn some eating sins. Visiting other relatives overnight is a great way to get an insight into their personal eating sins.

This person was staying with their aunt and everything was fine until breakfast. While the food itself was unremarkable, the drink served alongside it was what really caught their eye. We can’t imagine enjoying a glass of mixed milk and grape juice with our morning eggs.

There are certain places that you’re expected to use proper table manners for the setting. You likely don’t eat dinner at a restaurant the same way you do on the couch.

That’s why this person was so taken aback to see how their friend ate salad when they went out. Their edit might be even worse, though. Not only does this seem like a drawn-out method for eating spaghetti, but it also seems like a dry and fairly flavorless snack.

As we’ve seen, there are times that it’s not what someone eats that makes an eating sin, but rather the way they eat.

When this person grabbed a few candy bars with their friend, they were ready to tear in. It seems like their friend had more formal plans for their snack, though. Forgoing holding the candy bar entirely, he used a knife and fork to eat it a bite at a time.

There’s nothing quite as highly debated as to why someone might want their steak well-done. While some swear by it, many find it cooks out a lot of the flavor and toughens the steak.

How you make a steak in your own home, however, is one thing. Going to a high-end restaurant and ordering a well-done filet mignon is another sin altogether — a sin so severe, in fact, that it seems to have almost brought the chef who made the steak to tears.

Waffles are great just by their nature of being waffles. Yet, you can improve them even further with the right toppings.

You have a lot of options here. While most people reach for syrup, you could use anything you want — from fruit to chocolate chips to whipped cream and more! Few people would probably reach into their fridge to grab mustard, though, and we can’t blame them for avoiding it.

Spaghetti is a staple dish that almost everyone loves. People might change up the specifics of how they make it or eat it, though. For instance, some people use the same ingredients with different noodles or add different spices.

For one particular person, eating spaghetti in milk is the answer, although we’re not quite sure that it’s the right answer. We’re hoping that this person only saw it once because it only happened once.

There are some citrus fruits that you eat piece by piece. It wouldn’t be weird to see someone peel and eat an orange while they walked down the street.

It would be a little strange to see someone treat a lemon the same way, though. After all, they’re so sour that they’re mostly used as an added zest or for juices, not as a snack to eat on their own. At least it’s a healthy snack!

We really have to step back and wonder about a few of these dishes — not necessarily because they’re bad, but simply for the creative and odd combinations that people come up with.

This sandwich snack is a great example. While it’s enough of a food sin that this sandwich exists and the recipe comes out every night, how it came to be is an even bigger mystery. How do you find out you like pepperoni, butter, salt, and cheese in such a specific order?

Not everyone who admitted to an eating sin was confessing on behalf of a roommate, family member, or friend. Some people had stories of their own to share.

As for this person, they knew that their eating habit was a food sin but was completely unapologetic for it. They’re right, though — most people would cringe to see someone eating mustard by the spoonful. At least it makes them happy and they’re confident in it.

There are some things that might not seem too bad but end up being even worse than you imagine. As for this one, we trust the OP’s verdict. Most people don’t mind cold pizza and some people even think it’s the best part of ordering pizza in general.

However, not as many people use the leftover pizza the next morning as a cool vessel for peanut butter. We don’t know what to expect out of this concoction but we aren’t going to try it ourselves.

There are some things that seem good in texture, even if they don’t sound that great in flavor. Any experiment with food is a risk, however.

While eating cereal one day, this person thought that maybe the texture they were missing was corn. Why they thought this, we may never know, but she tried it out all the same. The result wasn’t one that she or anyone who witnessed it wanted to repeat.

There’s something to be said for a sweet and savory treat. However, that doesn’t mean that anything sweet can go with anything savory.

Still, we can maybe see where this person was going with their logic. Yet, we don’t expect that we’d much like the end result. Apparently, the people around them aren’t very much of a fan of the concept either. We’re glad they found something they like, though.

There are certain things that you watch people eat that you can never unsee. Kids seem to have a knack for creating new eating sins every day.

When this person was in school, one kid always stood out to them at lunch. That was probably because no one else was doing anything quite as out of the ordinary as dipping their burritos in milk. Not to mention, the word ‘creamify’ is upsetting from every angle.

As we said, there’s something to be said for a blend of sweet and savory. The two opposite play off one another well to create a balanced overall flavor.

This is not a balanced flavor at all. Instead of mixing the sweet and savory items you might associate with this flavor combination, this person opted to dunk their Pop-Tart in a container of hummus. This is another one that leaves us wondering how it came to be.

As we said before, if you want to find new and interesting food sins, you’ll want to dine with your child, niece, or nephew. They tend to create the most imaginative meals.

That’s something this person remembered as they watched their son eat this concoction in the backseat after a McDonald’s trip. To start, he dipped the nuggets in his chocolate milkshake before finishing them off with sweet and sour sauce. That’s a lot of flavors working against each other.

There are certain foods that are supposed to be crunchy. For instance, you wouldn’t want to bite into a spoonful of applesauce only to be met with a crunchy texture.

However, some people do prefer crunchy foods over soft foods and might even edit the texture to suit their tastes. That would be fine enough but the way that this person adds texture to their scrambled eggs leaves us gagging. You aren’t supposed to eat the shell!

As we’ve seen, kids have some of the wildest culinary imaginations. Sometimes, they see merit in what most of us would turn our nose up at.

This kid technically didn’t alter his pizza in any way. You’re safe here from gross toppings or unpleasant pairings. Instead, the most striking part of the story is in how he ate the pizza one component at a time. We hope he likes it, even if it left this person reeling.

There are certain foods that really won’t taste yummy if you don’t take the time to season them. It can draw the line between a great or bland meal.

Chicken, especially, can turn out dry and flavorless if you don’t take the time to season it appropriately. Still, that’s exactly how this person’s grandma wanted to enjoy their chicken. We can’t say that we can think of too many people who eat chicken like string cheese either.

When you want to enjoy a nice slice of cake, you have a few different options as to what to use. You might want different types of icing or additions like sprinkles.

Usually, you keep the cake toppings on the sweeter side, although sometimes people might incorporate something salty or savory as well. Even if a cake includes a savory component, it doesn’t typically involve replacing the icing with a thick layer of mayo. We can’t blame the OP for skipping this recipe.

As we’ve seen, there’s nothing quite like a sandwich for lunch. It’s easy to make and if you’re committed to “eating sins,” they offer a lot of variety.

Ketchup is a fairly frequent addition to a sandwich. As for the watermelon here, we’re not sure it’s quite as popular. They even had a clever and apt name for it because we can’t imagine feeling anything but sad while eating a watermelon and ketchup sandwich.

Pancakes are another versatile option for breakfast. You can add a lot to them from sweets to fruits that will help shake up your breakfast routine.

On the other hand, that versatility isn’t limitless and we don’t recommend smothering your pancakes in ranch each morning. Yet, that’s exactly what this person’s sister favored for quite a while. We can’t blame this mom for letting her enjoy it — we just wonder how the pairing came up at all.

There are times that you do something to gross out your friends that’s just too successful. Sometimes, you might even gross yourself out in the process.

Still, you might want to consider that there’s a worse option, too. The food sin that you created to gross out your friends — what if you actually enjoyed it? Well, maybe “enjoyed” is a stretch but “alright” is still too much for a milk-dipped hot dog.

You can ask for anything on the menu at a restaurant. Many places even let you alter a menu item slightly as you want or need when you order it.

This person could have just gone with a regular Sprite and spared everyone their eating sin. Nevertheless, they didn’t hesitate to ask the person taking their order if they could add whipped cream on top of their Sprite. We have to wonder if it’s a regular snack or was just an experiment that day.

There are some things that you can’t use as ingredients — or, at least, you shouldn’t. For example, don’t use food that you’ve already chewed up in your dish.

That’s exactly what this person’s sister did, though. She would make a sandwich, of sorts, but the filling is the most upsetting part. It was another cracker that she had chewed up and spit back out to form on the dry cracker as the filling.

You can’t help when a craving hits. So, what do you do when you want to eat something specific but it isn’t available? Just wait it out?

We wouldn’t recommend going with the solution that this person’s friend came up with. It’s a good option in a pinch if you don’t have any other food around but we’re not sure it would quite satisfy a Taco Bell craving. It’s sweet that their friend wanted to help, though!

There are certain things that aren’t that bad but you can turn them into an eating sin. Apparently, sunny-side-up eggs make the list.

You can eat eggs in a number of ways that aren’t disturbing. You don’t need to slurp the yolk out of an egg and then slurp the white in. While we hope that they enjoyed it, it surely made for a distinct and unforgettable visual.

Peanut butter is a useful ingredient to have in your cabinet. From sweets to sandwiches, peanut butter fits into just about everything. Still, there’s a line.

There are certain places that you wouldn’t want to add peanut butter to — such as with your eggs in the morning. If you’re wondering how this person takes their eggs with their peanut butter, the options are limitless. Most people probably would shy away from this.

There have been a lot of food combinations that have given us pause so far. Yet, there are a lot of food sins that are concerning because they don’t involve only food.

If we saw this eating sin firsthand, we’d probably be pretty concerned, too! After all, when you enjoy a candy egg around Easter, most people know to unwrap the foil from the chocolate before chowing down. We hope that this snack didn’t have any consequences.

Cake decorating is a great artistic outlet and it’s an impressive skill to wield. Conversely, cake decorating and cake don’t always go hand in hand.

As for this person, their friend garnered quite a knack for decorating cakes. In fact, her cakes were nearly perfect in appearance. The only problem was that it was in appearance alone. As for the flavor of the cakes, she didn’t quite have a sense of what worked well together.

If you want to know if something is weird, you could always ask someone close to you. Sometimes, you don’t even have to ask.

That’s because oftentimes when our friends see us committing food sins, they’re more than happy to point it out. They might not even be willing to let you live down what you did, even if it’s better than most of the combinations we’ve seen on this list so far.

Part of eating isn’t just having the right food. You also need to make sure that you have all the utensils and plates or bowls that you need.

This person obviously didn’t have the plate that they needed. At the very least, they chose not to use a plate but rather opted to eat directly off of their keyboard laptop. We have to wonder exactly how messy this method gets after a while.

It seems like a great idea to share. However, there are times that no one will want what you’re offering because the offer simply isn’t that good.

There are few times that we can imagine one is in the mood for a jar of mayo by itself. We especially imagine that there are few environments less suited to a mayo snack as a sweltering California day, especially if the mayo has been out for a while.

There are times that it’s clear that someone doesn’t just commit one food sin. Sometimes, the eating sins are so deep that you can think of plenty of examples.

For this person, it was their friend with no sense for what foods go well together that came up with quite a few concoctions. After a while of Coke and cereal or ribs and ice cream, we’d probably do our best to not take note of their snacks.

Today, they’re usually a protected species, but in the 17th and 18th centuries, beavers were hunted all over North America for their pelts. Hungry trappers stuck out in the wilds didn’t want to waste any part of the beaver, so they ate the tails too.

It’s been described as having a gamey flavor, but it was pretty much just fat. It became a popular dish throughout colonial America — almost as popular as the beaver pelts they originally came from!

Not many people today would consider an eel to be a delicacy, but in colonial times, eels were considered to be such a desirable dish that people in New England would actually use lobsters as bait to catch them. Eel meat was eaten in a variety of ways, but a popular way to prepare it was in a pie.

If you’re keen on trying eel today, you might be interested to know that eels are still sold in shops in London and throughout England. Make a trip out there if you’re feeling brave enough to try something your great-great-great-grandparents had for special occasions!

You may have known that whale vomit has been a component of perfume for centuries, but did you know that in the 1700 and 1800s, it was a popular ingredient in many luxury dishes as well? It was used in beverages, served alongside eggs, or added to hot chocolate in not only America but also around the world.

Ambergris is actually very hard to find since it’s only produced by a small percentage of sperm whales. It forms on the ocean surface and floats, but will only rarely make landfall. Because of that, it’s been a very valuable substance for years.

You may not know that ice cream was first introduced in colonial America in the mid-18th century, but it was with the advent of ice houses where it could be made and stored. Ice cream was a popular dessert and even in the beginning, there were tons of delicious flavors available.

You may also not know that ice cream wasn’t all sweet at first — it was also flavored with eels, asparagus, or chestnuts, in addition to the normal sweet or fruity flavors.

You may not think of animals when you think of a substance like Jell-O, but its main ingredient is gelatin, which is derived from animal collagen. Colonists took this gelatin and made what’s called calf’s foot jelly, which is exactly what it sounds like.

Believe it or not, calf’s foot jelly is still made in parts of the U.S. and around the world. You can find plenty of recipes online, and if you add sugar, it becomes a sweet dessert. Something to try next holiday?

Lobster isn’t an unusual food nowadays, but that’s not why we included it in this list. In colonial America, lobsters were a dime a dozen, and eating them regularly was a sign of being underclass. As mentioned above, they even used them as bait for eels!

My, my — how the times have changed. Now, lobster is one of the most expensive kinds of seafood you can eat, and eels, well, let’s just say you won’t be buying a lobster to use as bait for one.

Before you get scared off by the name (or the description for that matter), consider that yogurt is just fermented milk. We tend to be adverse to the concept of sour milk, but it’s actually used for plenty of delicious foods. One of those foods was clabber, which was very popular in colonial times.

Before you toss your sour milk next time, check out some recipes for clabber. Colonists used to season it with nutmeg, cinnamon, or pepper. Sounds yummy!

Snakes have a long history of having an “icky” factor that keeps Americans from eating them, but that hasn’t always been the case. Remember that usually, colonists didn’t have the luxury of being picky, and they ate anything they could find. Well, one of those things was snake meat.

Snake meat is pretty much tasteless and has a similar texture to some types of fish, so you could see how it wouldn’t be terrible in a soup if you could get past the fact that the snake is a disgusting creature.

Remember how colonists couldn’t afford to waste any part of an animal? That included pigs, sheep, and cows — and for the first two, they’d take the leftover scraps and make what’s called scrapple. Essentially, it’s a meatloaf made from the ground up “extras,” like the snout, heart, brain, or eyes.

This picture is actually lamb scrapple, but it’s the same idea. Scrapple is still made today, although, for the most part, we don’t use every part of the pig, like we used to.

Move over Mimi Siku, pigeons aren’t that weird of an animal to eat! Plentiful birds with a good amount of meat on them, pigeons were often enjoyed by colonists who didn’t have modern sensitivities about what they were eating. Most of the birds we eat now are fully domesticated.

Just think of pheasant and you’ll see that eating a pigeon isn’t actually all that strange. It actually used to be an upper-class dish because of how much work it took to prepare.

Custard is still around today, and it often gets a bad rap for whatever reason. Some really like it, and then there are those that you couldn’t pay to eat it. Posset, the next item on our list, was another type of custard that colonists ate for dessert.

It was also made as a delicious, sweet drink that colonists enjoyed serving at weddings and special celebrations. It was a very popular dish that everyone was crazy about!

Nowadays, many species of turtle are endangered so it’s a little harder to find a soup made from them, but they didn’t have this problem in 18th century America. Turtle soup was a very popular dish among the rich and upper-class, usually made from snapping turtles.

Turtle soup was actually eaten up until the 1920s when better tasting and easier-to-prepare meats began making their way onto dinner tables around the country. Do you think it’ll ever make a comeback?

The quintessential soldier’s food, hardtack has been around for centuries in some form or another. Basically, an unleavened bread (almost a cracker), hardtack has been favored by navies and armies because of how long it will keep for and how it’s relatively easy to pack into a bag and carry.

Soldiers in the U.S. Army still get something like hardtack in their MREs (Meal, Ready to Eat), but it’s called crackers now. Some things never change, do they?

Not everything on this list is supposed to be weird or gross. Colonial Americans loved apple pie, even though apples are native to Europe. Apples grew well in the colonies because the fruit can survive the harsh winters, and Americans took the apples and made pies much like we still enjoy today.

Apple pie back then probably wasn’t as sweet as it is now, since sugar was often a luxury and very expensive. However, it was still seasoned with nutmeg or cinnamon, and we’re sure it was just as delicious as we know it is today!

Ok, so colonists didn’t technically just munch on a piece of hardened bear fat. However, colonists in wilder parts of the country would often kill bears for food, and they’d melt their fat down to make a shortening-like substance, which they’d then use for cooking and baking.

Apparently, it’s very good for frying, and it doesn’t go bad as quickly as pork fat, so some colonists even found it to be a better alternative. Bear fat is still used by some people for cooking and baking today. Who knew?

Many people today still love to have biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast, but it was still a very popular dish back in colonial times. It actually made its appearance as a southern dish shortly after the Revolutionary War, but it hasn’t changed much since that time.

This is one of the foods on this list that has stood the test of time. If something’s not broken, don’t fix it, as the saying goes.

Oh cool, you’re probably thinking, colonials enjoyed some condiments with their food? That’s no typo, though — katchup isn’t the tomato-based sauce we use nowadays. Katchup in colonial America was a sauce made from mushrooms, walnuts, anchovies, or oysters.

As a matter of fact, tomatoes were considered poisonous by many Americans during the 18th century, and a type of modern-day ketchup didn’t appear in America until around the time of the Civil War.

Sheep were incredibly valuable to families in the 18th century because of their wool, which could provide clothes for everyone in the household. However, once their wool became inferior due to old age, they were slaughtered and their meat — mutton — became their final gift to their family.

The rest of the sheep would often be used in a similar way to scrapple, but mutton remains a popular meat to this day. It’s technically meat from a sheep that’s over a year old.

It’s not just a nursery rhyme — pease porridge was a popular dish in colonial times because of how plentiful the ingredients were. Also known as pease pudding, it was made of boiled legumes with a boiled ham or bacon joint added for flavor.

Split pea soup remains a popular dish today, and it’s very similar to the way it would have been made back in the 18th century. Nothing beats it on a cold winter’s day!

Rodents are plentiful, and squirrels in America are definitely no exception. Colonists, particularly those in the unsettled parts of America, often trapped and ate squirrels roasted over an open fire. How on Earth do you catch them, though? They’re so fast!

Yeah, little buddy, we’re shocked too. Squirrel meat was served in pies, in stews, or simply fried. Squirrel-hunting was a particularly enjoyed pastime in Connecticut.

The next entry on our list is stewed swan, which we admittedly don’t see much of these days. Swans are usually seen as a symbol of nature’s beauty, so we hesitate to eat them nowadays. Colonists didn’t have those same sensitivities, so they’d often eat stewed swan.

When you think about it, a swan is pretty much like a goose, and those get eaten all the time. Apart from stewing, early Americans would also roast them. Something to try next Thanksgiving?

Syllabus, no relation, is the thing your college professor gives you at the beginning of the year that you probably never read. Syllabub, on the other hand, was a whipped cream dessert similar to custard that was a big hit among colonial Americans.

Surprisingly enough, you can still find various syllabub recipes today! Who’s trying it for dessert this week?

You may have heard of tripe before as an example of something gross your mother threatened to make you eat (mixed with liver probably), but tripe was quite a popular dish in colonial times. It’s the soft lining of animal stomachs like cows or deer.

Believe it or not, tripe is actually very healthy. It’s rich in selenium, zinc, and vitamin B12. Maybe that’s how colonists got their daily dose of vitamins.

Porridge was a very popular breakfast dish in the 18th century because of how easy it was to prepare and how plentiful the ingredients were.

Porridge is usually made from ground corn, but it’s really any sort of ground-up vegetable that’s been mashed up with milk or water. Oatmeal is a type of porridge, but not all porridge is made from oats.

Tragically, slavery was a part of life in southern colonial America, and slaves had to eat too. A popular food among them was ash cake or ash bread, which was a corn-based bread that was baked in a pile of ashes from a fire.

You can still find recipes for ash cakes today among outdoor enthusiasts, and it’s a quick easy meal to make if you’re camping or outdoors in the wilderness.

Another key ingredient in many colonial dishes was molasses — a thick, brown syrup that’s a byproduct of refining sugar cane into sugar. Molasses in rum was very popular until Great Britain passed the Molasses tax, one of the taxes which ultimately led to the American Revolution.

Once molasses started being taxed, many colonists found a different vice. Molasses has never been as popular in the U.S. as it once was because of it.

Have you ever heard of pokeweed? We didn’t before now. It turns out that roots, leaves, and berries of common pokeweed were used medicinally by both the Native Americans and colonists to treat various types of conditions — from a headache to a cough, and more. Of course, colonists also ate pokeweed.

Considering that this kind of herbaceous perennial plant is poisonous, though, people that used or ate pokeweed had to boil the shoots and leaves in water several times prior to consuming it. Very interesting…

Lower-class Americans, especially in the south, had food that was often made from pigs, and this included every part of the pig. Chitlins were cooked pig intestines, and they were a popular dish among the lower classes in the southern colonies.

You can still find chitlins to make today at butcher shops, and it’s often called chitterlings as well. It’s most often fried up or boiled, and served with vinegar and/or hot sauce. Delish!

As already mentioned several times, the lower classes needed to use every part of an animal to stretch out the amount of food they got out of it, and chickens were no exception. Out of the chicken’s organs, one popular dish was fried chicken livers.

Chicken livers are actually very healthy, and you can still find them today if you’re feeling culinarily adventurous. Serve them with sauteed mushrooms and onions for a tasty, different meal!

Opossums, which are native to North America, have the distinction of being America’s only marsupial, which means they’re related to kangaroos. This didn’t stop colonists from roasting them, however, and opossums were a popular game animal throughout the colonies.

Nowadays, the only time people see opossums may be at night or as roadkill, but they were once a popular dish in the 18th century. We wouldn’t recommend trying to bring back their popularity!

Even though we jokingly refer to them as trash pandas, if there’s anything we’ve learned by now, it’s that no food sources were off-limits for colonial Americans. Raccoons were trapped and use for meat as well as opossums and squirrels, although this was also mainly done by lower classes.

Raccoon is still eaten in parts of the U.S. today, and its meat has been described as greasy and similar to dark-meat off a chicken. It can be roasted, boiled, added to a stew, or just eaten with vegetables and a side.

Colonists ate a lot of cornbread, but you may not be aware that this delicious type of bread was actually adopted from Native American diets. Corn was a staple among Native American tribes, and it was ground up into a meal and used to bake bread all the time.

Colonists adopted Native Americans’ affinity for corn as well as a number of other fruits and vegetables they enjoyed, like squash and beans.

Pepper was an exotic spice first making its way to Europe in the 18th century, and anything that was in vogue in Europe was quickly adopted in the American colonies as well. Though we wouldn’t think of it as a spice for sweets today, that didn’t stop colonists from baking it into a cake.

According to Martha Washington’s book — Booke of Cookery — pepper cakes weren’t just delicious, they would last for months if stored at the right temperature. For a time without preservatives, that’s not bad!

You may have heard of sassafras tea, but in the 18th century, it was a normal part of people’s diet. They’d often add it as part of stews or creole dishes, like gumbo, and it was a regular part of Native Americans’ diet as well. It’s a leafy green vegetable.

What you may not know is that sassafras was a popular remedy for syphilis in 18th century England, so the colonies became a pretty big exporter of the leafy green.

We’ve seen multiple times already how the colonists liked to use every part of the animal, and the tongue was absolutely no exception. They’d roast it, boil it, or chop it up and fry it, and pretty much every animal that had a large tongue was fair game.

Nowadays, you don’t see tongue very much but it’s still grilled, fried, braised, or pickled and served in a variety of ways. When cooked correctly, it can be a slice of very flavorful meat.

Colonists sure loved their jellies made from various melted down animal parts, and moose were a plentiful animal. Put both those facts together and you inevitably get something like jellied moose nose. It was made by boiling the upper jaw of the moose, then taking the meat, and letting it sit overnight in moose broth.

You can still find recipes to make this interesting dish online, but it might be harder to actually find a moose. However, we see no reason why you can’t also make this from pig snout or a cow nose.

Salting is an ancient method of preserving meat for a long period of time; the salt acts as a natural preservative and meats that have been salted can last for months when stored in a cool basement. This is mainly how Americans used to store their food over the winter.

Salted fish is only one of essentially any sort of meat product that could have been salted. Americans also salted beef, pork, and venison to help feed their families through the long, cold winter.

Another decidedly lower-class dish was humble pie, or as it was otherwise known, umble pie. Basically, it was made from whatever leftovers there were of an animal (typically the innards) and mixed up with apples, sugar, and spices to make a meal.

Humble pie is actually a very old dish, with records of it existing back to the middle ages. The upper classes would feast on the meat of the animal, while the peasants would get what was left and make it into a filling pie.

Another type of mush (porridge) was hasty pudding, which was made from corn or flour, mixed with boiling water or milk, and eaten while warm. It was so named because it was quick to make, and it was a popular breakfast food both in America and in England.

American hasty pudding was usually made with ground Indian corn, not flour. Since corn wasn’t a huge crop in England, it wasn’t necessarily as popular.

Plum cake has been around for centuries, and it’s usually made with some sort of berry, although the specific ingredients vary by region of the world. American plum cakes were made with various types of fruit, so it’s probably what you’d consider fruitcake today.

It was also served at elections, so it came to be known as election cake. Before the Revolutionary War, they were called muster cakes because they were made for the men called to drill with the British Army. It’s had a lot of names!

Partridges are medium-sized birds, with a wide native distribution throughout Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa. During colonial times, these non-migratory birds were a popular choice when it came time for a nutritious meal.

Although this kind of meat isn’t a household staple nowadays, there are plenty of recipes you can find. The meat is supposedly delicate and tender — plus it’s quick and easy to cook! It’s full of flavor but not too gamey. And partridge happens to be a healthier option than most farmed meats!

A list about 18th century American cuisine wouldn’t be complete without mentioning tea. It started a revolution and a whole new country! Americans before the war really loved English tea, just like their brothers and sisters across the ocean. That’s why the tea tax was such a slap in the face.

Once the British started taxing tea heavily, Americans were done with the stuff. They replaced it with a beverage that they didn’t have to depend on foreign imports for, and we still drink it to this day…

Coffee is a decidedly American drink, although it was originally from Ethiopia. After Americans wouldn’t buy the King’s tea anymore, they switched to coffee, and it was off to the races from there. Before then, coffee was more time-consuming to make than tea, but they would enjoy a cup at a coffeehouse.

Coffee was a status symbol in colonial America; it wasn’t as expensive as tea, but it did require more effort to prepare. Ever since, coffee has been a staple in the American diet.

While fish is still a very popular dish of choice today, we bet that many of you have never tried sturgeon. It’s okay — neither have we. When the first English settlers in the New World founded the colony of Jamestown, they caught a gigantic sturgeon from the James River.

At that point in time, colonists had more than enough of this type of fish to go around. In fact, according to John Smith, “We have more sturgeon, can consume as humans and dogs.”

Pears were another plentiful fruit in colonial AmericaPerry is a fermented beverage made from pears, and it made its way over from England and France to the American colonies, where colonists enjoyed it every now and then.

For some reason, apple beverages are more popular than pear-based beverages nowadays in the U.S. We’re not sure why, but this perry stuff sure sounds delicious!