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August 9, 2013

That Casserole Was Mean to Me!

I was going through recipes I had saved this month and saw one for a breakfast casserole that sounded good and thought I'd like to try some day.  I did a search on my computer and found a few more I had saved and thought I'd see if there were others on the 'net that I might want to save in my vast collection. (I save recipes, it's one of my online hobbies)  I saw this recipe at Allrecipes.com, a favorite site of mine: Christmas Breakfast Sausage Casserole.  The recipe got a four and a half star rating out of five, so I thought I'd skim through a few of the reviews.  The breakdown of the reviews was this:

Out of 1,230 ratings, 841 cooks loved it, 272 liked it, 85 thought it was OK, 22 didn't like it and there were 10 cooks who wouldn't eat it.

No matter how you look at it, that is overwhelmingly positive for the recipe.  Sure, there were a few who were tepid in their praise, some who didn't like it and only a few - less than 1% -  who thought it dreadful.   I rate movies on IMDb sometimes and even the movies I love only get a "9" because I've yet to see a movie that didn't have at least a few flaws in it.  I haven't made the casserole, but I would probably be one of the "liked it" crowd because I'm fairly conservative with my ratings of anything.  (That said, I'd give my ex-wife a "7" considering everything, probably a little generous but I wouldn't want to give her a rating of average - she deserves a few points just for putting up with me)

Now, I understand about ratings; it doesn't matter what it is, movies or mayonnaise, taste is subjective and varies from person-to-person. What I have problems with are people who like something but castigate others for not liking it.  It's one thing to dislike...say, a politician, but they should list the reasons, not dislike someone just because they're fat or skinny, black or white, gay or straight.  I'm a Cowboys fan and many people despise the QB Tony Romo, but they don't give a valid reason regarding his play on the field but criticize him for wearing his cap backwards or for dating starlets (before he was married) or liking to play golf. (they didn't want him to take ANY vacations or have a life outside of football.  Silly.)

One of the "most helpful critical reviews" on the casserole was by "hurryup2002" - posted on Oct. 12, 2003, which made me wonder if they were pleased with how fast the year had arrived or still wanted to gripe about the slow pace of time.  Anyway....

They posted this:  "This is not nice at all, i just want to let people know that this is the worst thing ever. It is not nice."

That's one of the criticisms that I wrote about above;  no reason for disliking it, no honest reason why they didn't like it, not that the cooking time was too long or too short or the bread was overly soggy w/ putting it in the fridge overnight, that it was too salty/not salty enough, etc.  No, "it is not nice."

Not nice?  When they put it in the oven, did it scream at them "Hey dummy! Set the oven at 350, not 400 deg.!" or "You don't need to eat me...you're a little too fat as it is." "Don't add any salt, the sausage has it already, ya doofus!"  ???

What's not nice is my review of that review, but it was nicer than I wanted to be.

1 comment:

Carolea said...

This made Me laugh. Now I'm going to spend the whole day wondering the how and why!