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Poached zebras and exploding turkeys. Four Melbourne foodies regale David Sutherland with their favourite festive flops.

NDUTU Safari Lodge sits in the heart of the Serengeti Plain in northern Tanzania. Tourists visit the remote cluster of thatched buildings to watch the abundant wildlife. In 1996, a young Anthony Herzog was helping his father, a tour guide and part-time chef at the lodge, prepare Christmas dinner.

"It was traditional to roast an eland (large antelope) or impala for the 40 or so guests," says Herzog, former sommelier at Richmond's Pearl and currently front of house manager at Seamstress in the city. "But that year my father decided to serve some of the local freshwater crayfish."

Herzog and his father spent several days catching the crays, eventually filling three 44-gallon drums with the big red crustaceans. They added freshwater to help the crays survive and purge their systems of mud.

"We told the guests to look forward to fresh crayfish and there was quite a bit of anticipation building," he says. "The trouble was, one evening just before Christmas we got back from a tour to find the African workers at the lodge, who we'd asked to look after the crayfish, had misinterpreted our instruction."

The three drums were bubbling away merrily on open fires with the crayfish inside: the workers had thought they were helping by cooking the crayfish for dinner that night. Herzog's father, a former big-game hunter, snuck away from the camp early the next day, far enough for the gunshot not to wake the sleeping guests.

"We ended up serving zebra," says Herzog, quietly pointing out that zebra is protected in Tanzania. "We told them it was beef. And by the looks on their faces as they chewed away at this stuff instead of crayfish, they thought it was the worst beef ever."

Most hospitality staff who've worked on Christmas Day have a horror story or two to tell.

Peter McLeod, known to many as the godfather of modern pub dining, and who recently took over the culinary reins at the Empyre Hotel in Castlemaine, had run the kitchen at the Hotel Spencer for three years before opening on Christmas Day for the first time. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, a staff member, about to leave the Spencer's employ, decided to have a prank at the hotel's expense and didn't write down a number of large bookings for Christmas lunch. One hundred and twenty-eight people turned up to a 90-seat venue expecting a meal.