My 5 Worst Recipes of 2023

I posted a simple TikTok the first week of January 2024: My 5 Worst Recipes from 2023. Five pictures of five disgusting dishes that I recreated from five real congressman. This post went viral, quintupled my followers in just a few hours and exploded to a massive view count I could’ve never anticipated. It catapulted Cookin’ with Congress all the way to “mildly well known in certain weird circles of people who enjoy the theater of disgust.”

Here are those five horrific recipes that made spawned a hundred thousand nauseated emojis.

#5. Coke Salad by Rep. Jamie Whitten

Resident Evil food with a side of mayo. Texture was a major reason why this was unpalatable. Also the mayonnaise mixed with cherries.

#4. Milk Toast by Rep. Emmet O’Neal

Sopping wet bread flavored only by boiling milk, a pat of butter, and a sprinkle of paprika. I mean SOPPING. Not a lick of sweetness to be found in this dripping wannabe-bread-pudding.

#3. Jellied Chicken and Ham Mousse by Rep. Fred Bradley

I think my memory of this terrifyingly-named dish may be worse than the flavor at the time. One look and you know it won’t be good, but this oily, jello-filled mayo-meat salad feels weirder than you can imagine in your mouth.

#2. Peas and Peanut Salad by Sen. James McClure

One of the few from 2023 to send me to the sink. I couldn’t take more than a few bites, mostly due to the foundation of mustard jello. Peas & peanuts and mayo? Not terrible. Sweet, spicy, mustard JELLO + that combo? It’s unbelievable. I can literally not believe it was invented.

#1. Anniversary Horseradish Salad by Rep. Glenn English

Not only does it look like Watergate Salad gone awry, but it’s spicy and sweet and chunky in a way I can only describe as anti-food. It may look like Christmas but it tastes like neglect and feels like coagulate.

Click on the hyperlinks in the titles to see the full recipes — you do not want to miss out on the insanity that is the ingredient list for these dishes.

On to 2024!