We all have them. Those disgusting little secrets. Those weirdly delicious indulgences about which we're ashamed to tell even our significant others, late-night hodge-podges made up of fat-laden or chemically-infused ingredients that defy all nature and good sense. Even a prince of French cuisine like Jacques Pepin admits to a weakness for his mother's braised lung recipe, or mou au vin rouge, in his recent autobiography, The Apprentice. It's a peasant's dish that would probably offend all but the most rustic of palates: "cubes of beef or veal lungs cooked with onion and the sediment left in the bottom of a red wine barrel." Uh -- yum?

For me, it's creamed chipped beef -- or as it's more colloquially (and unappetizingly) called, shit on a shingle. The best I can determine, it was one of those WWII-era inventions that made the most of limited rations and distracted palates: every single member of my family has eaten it for breakfast, thanks to my grandparents and their economic but indulgent cooking (and probably my grandfather's army days -- shit on a shingle is military slang for the stuff).

The ingredients are as follows: butter, flour, milk, and dehydrated, salted beef, sliced into shriveled little squares and sold for pennies an ounce -- a close cousin of Spam. Pour the heated mixture over toast or biscuits, and if you're really adventurous you'll shake on some pepper or hot sauce.

Yup. Shit on a shingle. Despite its name and yes, its appearance, my mom still makes it for me special when I go home; there's nothing like it, mild and mushy as it might be, to warm and fill my tummy when I'm craving comfort food. Even cooking it can be a redeeming experience, and I've found that I'm not the only one who has a disgusting yet delicious recipe.

There's some fun history on the dish you can check out via Wikipedia and a Navy cooking website. But a good creamed chipped beef requires knowledge of a rather important culinary technique that, I kid you not, holds a steadfast place in French cuisine: the bechamel sauce. What is the "cream" of creamed chipped beef if not bechamel? Basically, it's milk cooked down with a roux of butter and lightly browned flour -- a mixture that is actually quite hard to thicken properly, and requires attentive heat moderation and stirring. I realized many years down the line that the chipped beef I used to prepare for myself as a kid actually taught me a lot about the basics of classic sauce making -- imagine!

When I asked the LAist staff about the grossest, and yet most delicious concoctions (can you even call this stuff food?) they indulge in, the amount of email response was incredible. Here are just a few examples of the weird stuff they love to eat -- what are your delicious yet disgusting delicacies? (This is where you durian-lovers would jump in.)

Elina Shatkin, former film editor and current LA Times staff member: "When I was a kid, my favorite Saturday morning breakfast as I was watching cartoons and before my mom had woken up was a tub of sour cream (usually Knudsen's). I would spoon it straight from the tub -- yeah, I'd eat a whole tub -- while watching my favorite cartoon ever, 'Gummi Bears."

Beth Kopley: "every few years I make tuna casserole...the kind with canned mushroom soup, frozen peas and (this is the main feature), crushed potato chips, both mixed in and on top. After I eat it, I fall into a salt coma....then I decide I'll never make it again, until the next time."

tony pierce: "the girl of my dreams - when we were together - used to make me this many sunday mornings which of course made me return the thanks in a variety of obscene sexual favors:
3 cups of cooked grits
6 slices of bacon, chopped
2 sausage patties, chopped
3 eggs over easy
in a good-sized bowl she'd lay in some of the grits, then a layer of bacon and one egg, then more grits, then the sausage and one egg, then more grits, then the egg on top. Seasoned with pepper, served topless. Disgusting Grit Bowl i think she would have called it."

Corey Podell: '"White Trash Broccoli: frozen chopped brocholi mixed with at least one stick of butter and two huge squares of velveeta cheese in an oven dish, covered on top with crumbled
ritz crackers and more butter and cooked to its full high fat, high calorie, heart attack glory."

anti: "cap'n crunch with ice cream instead of milk. it help if the ice cream is soft. tacos with ketchup instead of taco sauce."

Elise Thompson: "Sugar tortillas: heat a flour tortilla over the flame on the stove, butter and sprinkle with white sugar. Cut up a banana, put in bowl. Sprinkle with brown sugar, pour milk over and eat it with a spoon like cereal. God, why didn't anyone call children's services?"

Lisa Brenner: "when i was a kid: i would put a polly-o string cheese on a paper plate and microwave it until it melted and crisped around the edges. then i'd eat it with my fingers. when i was in my 20s: i bought a sandwich pocket-maker and made grilled cheese and scrambled egg triangles for dinner and warm fluffernutters for dessert. once i hit 30: feeling that premade frozen hot dogs in blankets were too expensive, i branched out into pressurized crescent rolls and now make my own in the toaster with sliced up hebrew nationals wrapped in dough bits. sometimes i wash trader joe's hot & sweet mustard on the inside before baking."

Lindsay William-Ross: "I'm guessing many others have eaten frosting straight out of the can as a "snack." The grossest can of anything I ever ate was a can of International Coffee Viennese flavored coffee powder. Yes, in powder form. Shudder. Why, I'm not sure. I also used to--and prefer--eating Chef Boyardee stuff cold out of the can. The little half-sized ones made great snacks."

Zach Behrens: "this is what my mother makes and it goes within minutes at parties:
one casserole dish
1 rectangle package of cream cheese
1 can of hormel chili (she does veggie chili for me)
1 rectangle package of jalepeno jack cheese.
layer 1: cream cheese on bottom of casserole dish
layer 2: squish chili beans in hands and cover cream cheese
layer 3: layer of cheese on top (don't shred it, but cut little rectangles). put in oven at some good temperature and wait until cheese is golden brown. take out and serve with tortilla chips. it's nasty addicting good! i've yet to have this vegan yet, but it's def. doable."