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Chefs encounter some amazing ingredients during their time working in the kitchen, but that doesn’t mean they actually like them all.
Just imagine that one food you really hate, the ingredient that is sure to tip you over the edge – got it? Now imagine what it would be like having to prepare that ingredient all day long.
Sometimes chefs have to stand and smell foods they absolutely hate and sometimes they just encounter those awful moments of rotting ingredients and the pungent aroma they kick out.
With this in mind, ChefTalk have asked their community of chefs to share the worst kitchen smells they encounter on the job.
We’ve picked out 20 of the top ones – it seems that used grease is the big winner – and you can see more examples over on ChefTalk.
Chefedb
Steamed cabbage, ugh
Halmstad
Rotten potatoes have to be the worst. old meat and fish have nothing on a spoiled raw potato. just thinking about makes me gag a little.
Petalsandcoco
I cannot handle the smell of peeled hard boiled eggs.........I have to peel them really fast under running water.
Phatch
Asafoetida. At least before you cook it. Just having it in the kitchen is pretty intolerable.
katbalou
An open sink (grease) trap.
Chrose
I think of all the smells the one that made me gag the worst was the pan of individual orange creme brûlées that we left in a turned off oven for a week.
Gypsy2727
Kidneys on the boil..........YUK
Blueicus
Old skate. The ammonia smell is unbearable.
Jelly
I just can't stand the smell of lamb stock. I don't mind eating lamb, but when the bones are roasted and water is added - yuck!
Mezzaluna
Ugh... for me, it's tripe parboiling for Tripe a la mode de Caen or whatever. Smells like the worst bad breath you can imagine.
Onei
Has to be rotting meat for me, once I found some bacon sealed in a tub at the back of the fridge that had escaped my notice and had probably been there for weeks. The whole lot had to go including the tub.
Bazza
Rotten potatoes are bad but I think rotten weeping carrots are worse!
JefftheChef
Onion skins that have fallen off roasted onions in the oven. yuck!
Halmstad
I worked at really nice hotel and of course every sunday we did brunch. the grill cook had to poach an entire case of eggs every sunday morning. the smell of the water with the vinegar and a case of eggs cooked in it was something very special.
I HATE BRUNCH!
Left4Bread
They day after I cook Thai food in my studio apartment. I have to leave the apartment for it to affect me,
but when I come back I have to clean everything and throw open the windows. It's gotta be the fish sauce and jasmine rice.
Bughut
My Fridge today... The Stilton has been left in there way past its mature date
Zane
kippers
Chefelle
Sesame oil...I HATE the smell of sesame oil.
KvonNJ
I was in the war, I've smelled things I won't describe but you can imagine... and still NOTHING gags me like the smell I encounter when I open the barrel outside where we dump grease. Nothing. Rancid, used cooking grease in a 55 gallon drum in the sun. There is no smell on God's Earth that can match that.
CitizenSnips
lamb stock, well, oven roasting lamb bones being simmered.
