It was a reader, Pat Bryant, who came up with the idea of a World’s Worst Recipe competition, as a break from all the newspaper columns about the best recipes. Pat had a nominee: it was in a 1933 cookbook distributed by Dyson’s Flour, which suggested using their product to make Tinned Sardine Fritters. But these, I have to say, look quite acceptable compared with some of the monstrous formulae you have unearthed from your shelves.

For many of you, it is the vile dishes of your youth that linger. Anistatia Miller wrote in not-so-fond memory of a Spam construction her grandmother made at least once a month in the Fifties; it comes from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook of 1949 and is called Mock Crown Roast. It really should be preserved in the V&A:

Mock crown roast
Ingredients: four tins of luncheon meat (Spam), orange marmalade. Method: cut the meat in half, then make four vertical cuts three quarters of the way through each slice. Coat each slice with orange marmalade. Bake until lightly browned. Stand the meat on end to form the crown in the centre of a platter. Serve with new potatoes, canned asparagus spears and pineapple rings topped with strawberries.

A 1915 edition of Mrs Beeton was nominated in disgust by the Burrows family: I’m not sure, though, that they often make Brussels Sprout Salad or Fried Veal Tendons. Nor do I think that John McMillan has tried many of the offerings in Out of Alaska's Kitchens (fifth edition, 1961), which includes this treasure that, in this era of nose-to-tail eating, looks almost fashionable:

Moose nose, jellied or boiled
Ingredients: one fresh moose nose, two or three cloves of garlic, salt and pepper. Method: clean moose nose by skinning or by dipping in scalding water and scraping. Remove all hair. Dice meat and cover with water. Add salt, pepper and garlic. Boil until tender, remove and chill. Serve cold in broth, which will be jellied.

There was no stand-out author among your nominations, though there were lots of harsh words for celebrities including, most frequently, Gordon Ramsay, Robert Carrier (remember him?) and Nigella Lawson (“her pomegranate ice cream comes out as pink permafrost,” wrote Michael Booth).

Sarah High sent me a list of eight bêtes noires, including: “Recipes and presenters (who have a bevy of assistants) stating that the preparation should only take about five minutes. Meanwhile, I am still peeling, coring and chopping a kilo of apples one hour later, never mind the washing up!”

What exasperates lots of you in recipes is imprecision. “Whose hand do they mean when they say a handful?” You also dislike the assumption of knowledge: “‘Simply confit the duck legs . . .’ (You what?) Or ‘take one litre of court bouillon . . .’” This is a fault, says Sarah High, of Nico Ladenis in his book Nico.

It was hard choosing the World’s Worst Recipe. Susie Vereker’s nomination of Robert Carrier’s Sardine Stuffed Lemons, which ruined one of her first dinner parties, was a strong contender. But in the end, because a bunch of you put it forward, Delia Smith's bizarre Baked Fish Fingers was the winner. This recipe comes from her first cookbook, How to Cheat at Cooking, published in 1971.

You may think it harsh to mock the Goddess Smith for her juvenile mistakes. Later she became famous by convincing us not to cheat — she told us to spurn processed food and enjoy fresh, natural ingredients. So lots of us felt betrayed last year when she published another How to Cheat at Cooking book, in which tinned and frozen ingredients were back on the OK list. The new book did not repeat this classic, which makes you wonder: why not just buy a fish? And grill your own mushrooms, for goodness’ sake:

Baked fish fingers
Ingredients: 14 oz frozen fish fingers, salt and freshly milled black pepper, one tablespoon of lemon juice, 6½oz can of tomatoes, drained, a medium-sized onion, sliced thinly, 7½oz can of grilled mushrooms, 2oz of grated cheddar cheese,butter. Method: pre-heat oven to 350F (gas mark 4). Butter a fireproof baking dish and arrange the fish in it. Season and sprinkle on the lemon juice. Cover the fish fingers with tomatoes, onions and mushrooms. Sprinkle with the grated cheese and put a few dabs of butter here and there. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

alex.renton@thetimes.co.uk

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