About three weeks ago, someone with the username ThymeandGarlic wanted to know what foods, if any, people purposefully prepare incorrectly. The user got the ball rolling by explaining that they make scrambled eggs differently than most. “I love to over cook them, and can’t eat them when they’re made properly. I think it’s because scrambled eggs were the first meal I ever made as a kid, and years of conditioning have caused me to like them the ‘wrong’ way,” ThymeandGarlic wrote. “Am I a maniac or do other people do this with other foods?”
Not surprisingly, thousands of other Reddit users were quick to chime in, and many of them had some pretty wild cooking and eating habits. For example, a user by the name of KantalopeKat explained that instead of eating cooked oats, she consumes them raw as a snack.
“[I] just put them in a cup and eat them with a spoon,” she wrote. “My husband always asks if I would like a feed bag…haha!”
Apparently KantalopeKat isn’t alone in her love of uncooked oats. Another user, Dwight_Schnood, replied that their three-year-old son also loves to eat the raw grains. “He started eating it whilst feeding ducks. Now he sits down at dinner and asks for bird food,” Dwight_Schnood wrote.
Believe it or not, oats aren’t the only breakfast food that Reddit users purposefully prepare wrong. As it turns out, many people also take some culinary liberties when it comes to cooking pancakes.
“My grandpa is a terrible cook so when he makes pancakes they’re always burned on the outside and basically raw batter on the inside, but they taste so good like that,” a user named belleandblue wrote. “He always asks: ‘How are they? Are they fully cooked?’ and we all just say yes because we purposely want him to keep making them like that.”
Apparently undercooking pancakes on purpose is a bit of a trend. Another user commented that their spouse was accidentally making pancakes with a raw center that their kids ended up loving, while a third user said they also like it when their pancakes are underdone. “Something about the raw batter made it feel like a cream filled pancake I guess.”
And while professional chefs are typically very careful not to under- or over-season their food, there’s a whole contingent of Reddit users who prefer to be heavy-handed with the black pepper. “If I’m cooking for just myself, I go very heavy on the pepper. Especially on red meat and soups,” one user wrote.
Another explained: “You should see my Bloody Mary peppering.”
As a third user noted, there really are no limits to the amount of black pepper you can use while cooking. “I’ve never actually had any food with too much black pepper,” they declared. And I’ve tried.”