[Got a new food you'd like to review? - - - - Kiwi Berries Submitted by Jeremy Griffin I'd like to think that the kiwi berry was the result of a cross-pollination accident between a kiwi and some sweet New Zealand berry. I hope it happened on its own in nature's strange glory, by adventurous bees or brisk spring winds. A more likely scenario is that the kiwi berry is the result of bored and overpaid New Zealand genetic-fruit scientists tampering with God's plan. The grape-sized lime-green fruits have all the punch and vigor of a kiwi fruit wrapped in the convenience of a berry. Gone is the coarsely haired rind and in its place is an edible skin not unlike that of a muscadine. The interior is reminiscent of the color and texture of a kiwi, only with tinier black seeds around a tinier white starburst. The taste is far less tart, though—somewhere between a fig and a blackberry. I imagine the mutation process providing many failed attempts before the current result. Surely somewhere there's a laboratory filled with nightmarish atrocities of fruits misshapen and foul. Like the scene in Alien Resurrection with all the horrifying failed Ripley clones, the kiwi berry, too, must have had several botched representations—each with a more grotesque and testicular appearance than the last. The kiwi berry might only be a gateway experiment, though, only a step in a process that will eventually lead to the discovery of some sort of über-fruit, which will no doubt look like a peach but taste like a cheeseburger. - - - - Wrap-itz Omega-3, Calcium,* Submitted by Bree Barton One day, I realized I was sick and tired of eating boring tortillas. When I grilled a quesadilla or made a healthy lunchtime wrap, I didn't want it to be average; I wanted it to be exceptional and exotic. I wanted—no, needed—a tortilla for the new era, an era of cultural pluralism and identities that are ultimately flexible. Tia Rosa was dead to me. It was the package that first caught my eye, a colorful conflation of graphics, text, and so many exclamation marks I felt instantly enthusiastic! There, behind the overwrought plastic, was a tortilla unlike all the rest. In fact, it wasn't a tortilla at all; it was a Wrap-itz Omega-3, Calcium, and Fiber White Wheat Wrap by ¡Tam-x-íco's! Overwhelmed by conflicting emotions, I bought a package. Tammy Young, founder of ¡Tam-x-íco's!, is evidently in the throes of a midlife crisis. Like many other middle-aged women, she's suffering from a major identity meltdown. But, unlike other frustrated forty-somethings, who express their rage by inflicting injury on husbands, luxury cars, expensive wardrobes, and small children, Ms. Young has turned her fury onto her tortillas. The result? Tammy's tortillas are confused. It's their confusion that makes Wrap-itz Omega-3, Calcium, and Fiber White Wheat Wraps by ¡Tam-x-íco's! so endearing. They are obviously bearing the brunt of many impossible questions. Are they white? Are they wheat? How the hell can they be both? Just as I find comfort in Tammy's tortillas, I find inspiration in ¡Tam-x-íco's! Tammy. She continues to reinvent herself. Someday, Tammy's legacy will reach across the nations, beyond drug lords and child prostitutes and border patrols and mariachi bands, past the great gulf and the Rio Grande, until the very name of Tammy is forever joined with the great country of M-x-íco itself. On that glorious day, Tammy will perform pure linguistic fusion, uniting her identity with that of Mexico in perfectly punctuated, admirably accented harmony. * As much as an 8-ounce glass of skim milk. - - - - Barbecue-Flavored Mealworms Submitted by Darrin DuFord Have you ever been to a zoo where you are encouraged to peek into the monkey cages and then, at lunchtime, the cafeteria serves you flame-grilled monkeyburgers? That's the kind of perversely confident "we're at the top of the food chain" outlook that the Montreal Insectarium exercises once a year at their annual insect tasting. I figured that, since I've kissed lipstick made of crushed-up cochineal bugs (like it or not, most lipsticks are made from them), over the years I've been priming myself for a dish of honey-roasted crickets or caterpillar ceviche. But how do I pull off a wine pairing without looking like an unrefined slob? Fortunately, the insectarium spared me such dinner-table anxiety, because they canceled this year's tasting. I had to settle for a box of dried, barbecue-flavored mealworms from the gift shop. Such a setback was like expecting roast suckling pig and ending up with a bag of fried pork rinds, although the literature inside the box promised that its contents occupied a loftier place on the gastronomic totem pole: "Mealworms are the stars of our insect tastings and can be prepared in lots of different ways. They are generally used to replace nuts, raisins or chocolate chips in many recipes." Before I threw them into cookie batter, I felt I should sample a few straight from the box. They were weightless and resembled Cheetos that forgot to puff up. So wispy were the mealworms that I needed three or four in my mouth at a time to actually feel like I was chewing on something, and that's when I met with a fiery saltiness followed by a surprisingly luxurious finish of tobacco. Perhaps an up-and-coming competitor to Nicorette? - - - - Generic-Brand Nicotine Polacrilex Lozenges Submitted by Whitney Collins I spend a lot of my precious time telling people what not to tell me. Don't tell me Kentucky's not South. Don't tell me we're out of beer again. Don't tell me a dog that's lost its hind legs and has to use an ass-cart to wheel around the park isn't embarrassed. And please, people, don't go telling me that generic-brand nicotine lozenges aren't food. Because they are. You could easily congeal them in a nice tomato aspic. You could pour a few hundred in a Ziploc, add some raisins, and whammo: trail mix. Why, you could even wrap them in bacon and pass these delicious little fuckers off as diver scallops. When I quit smoking seven years ago, I got on the Nicorette and never looked back. Sure, I spent three or four years of my REM sleep dreaming about Camel Lights and Marlboro Mediums and 35-foot-long menthol Capris, but I never took a puff in my waking hours. No, I just chewed from the moment I got up until the moment I fell asleep, sometimes even waking with my beloved matted in my hair. That was until I developed a bad case of TMJ, and what felt like a peptic ulcer, and also got knocked up. Then, for 10 solid months, I was nicotine-free. It was cute for a while. But don't tell me that a new baby won't make you think about smoking. Crack? Maybe. Weed? Likely. Parliaments? Definitely. And that's how I met the lozenge. Tired of having enough jaw power to chew my femur free from a grizzly trap, I went to Walgreens with a screaming baby on my hip, passed by the gum, and grabbed a box of generic lozenges. Genius on my part. Warning: The first few you try will taste slimy, mossy. Like an Altoid plucked from the bottom of a horse trough. But after a day or two you'll go back to Walgreens and ask if they sell these things in an I.V. drip. Whatever you do, do not buy the name-brand version. Commit is awful. Nothing more than an aspartame disk with a few flecks of junior-varsity nicotine. The generic is a true smoker's delight: like a pig-in-a-blanket. Except, instead of a biscuit, the blanket's an R-rated peppermint. And, instead of a cocktail wiener, the pig's a cigarette butt. Dee-lish! - - - - Popcorn-Soda Combo Submitted by Mandy Durham To keep my energy up after returning from maternity leave, I decided to start keeping healthy snacks at work. I bought a giant box of 94 percent fat-free Orville Redenbacher's butter-flavored microwave popcorn and brought it today. I decided I would eat a bag around 3:30, after I went to pump my boobs. I was really looking forward to eating the popcorn. At 3:15 I pumped and then I went to the break room to use the microwave. Directly over the microwave, someone had posted an article entitled "Microwave Popcorn Linked to Lung Disease." There was a picture of a shelf lined with Orville Redenbacher popcorn. I decided not to read the article. I popped the popcorn and ate part of it, but then I felt very thirsty and I think my lungs felt itchy. I wanted a cold A&W root beer. I went back down to the break room with a dollar bill to get the root beer. The machine would not take my dollar, even though it was very flat and crisp. I tried at least eight times. I went across the hall to ask the computer-services guys if they had change. Daryl gave me three quarters and Rick gave me one. I tried to give them my dollar bill, but they wouldn't take it. It was kind of awkward. I went back across the hall, but when I put my quarters in the machine they just came right back out the slot at the bottom. I only tried three times, because it seemed apparent that the machine was broken. I felt pretty pissed. I went back across the hall to give the quarters back to Daryl and Rick and told them the soda machine wouldn't take my money. Daryl asked me if I liked Dr. Pepper, which I do, not as much as root beer, though, so I said yes. He reached under his desk and handed me a can of Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper. I noticed the can said "Limited Edition." It was warm, because it had been under Daryl's desk. I said thanks and opened it and took a drink. It was gross. I was not surprised. - - - - The Half-Dill Pickle Submitted by Michael Dickerson Has there been a food trend in the past 10 years lamer than the "half-dill" pickle? Partially cured, comprehensively flawed, it is an abject failure in both concept and execution. Served primarily at upwardly mobile sandwich shops hellbent on becoming bistros, the half-dill betrays the pretensions of its purveyors with all the subtlety and manufactured ambiance of icicle lights at midday. Leaving aside the inherent cowardice of such an enterprise—its unwillingness to commit, its existential flip-floppery—let me address the thing itself. Cucumbers are delicious. As are pickles. One fresh and full with the bloom of youth, the other seasoned and spry with the spice of a life well lived. The half-dill, on the other hand, is a man without a country. Neither bracing nor briny, its flavor exists only in an indefinite quantum state—with a finish more elusive than Sasquatch—and, ultimately, satisfies nobody. Taxonomically speaking, it is more abomination than appetizer. A cuke divided against itself cannot stand. Even when compromise works well and everyone leaves the negotiating table having been fed, no one is fully satisfied and all have a bad taste in their mouths. The taste is similar to that of the half-dill pickle. - - - - Mache (Lamb's Lettuce) Submitted by Marco Kaye For far too long, arugula held a bitter stranglehold over our salad bars. Then frisée entered and quickly exited our lives as the latest trend in roughage. Now there's a newcomer, with a name that rhymes with squash. It's mache, also called lamb's lettuce. Mache attempted a debut five years ago, on NPR, but the green hasn't caught on until now. The reasons for this are twofold. First, many of us were blindsided by the watercress takeover of '05 to '06 (which was met with a resounding "I guess just dump them into the microgreens" attitude). Second, mache-cultivation techniques have improved a lot. As each successive movement in art is a reaction against the previous mode, mache represents a collective shift away from the tart greens that populate those mesclun mixes. It tastes sweet and just slightly nutty. The tiny green leaves are attached seven or eight on a stem. It looks like several children's mittens tied together. And it's just as delicate and airy. It plates beautifully as well, the way a discarded child's mitten creates a forlorn oasis of humanity in a city street. I first tried mache with crab, cornichons, and preserved lemon. Obviously, I was not in my house. I didn't know it that night, but I had a feeling. I'd been waiting for a new lettuce. Could mache be it? The next week, my girlfriend found bags of the stuff at Trader Joe's. We tried it with chicken, capers, olives, and carrots. The chicken crushed the small, childlike "hands" of the mache, but it was still a successful salad. Mache has found its place in the sun. I predict it will go mainstream within the year. To those who have been waiting for the next hot salad green, put down your heads of Boston lettuce and gracefully pick up some mache. - - - - Phillips Pasteurized Crab Meat, Handpicked, Claw Submitted by K. Kraft After several consecutive late nights of drinking, I'm fairly fatigued and my heart is in my stomach. She's really been confusing me as of late. She loves me, but fears that I'm going to move away in a year and break her heart, and for this we should end our relationship now. I talked her off the ledge, but I feel like we're coasting in a sort of purgatory. We've known each other only two months and have moved the relationship along too rapidly. I think she's rebounding. Today is a Sunday. Sundays, I use Phillips Crab Claw Meat effectively as a vehicle for Old Bay, breadcrumbs, whiskey, and other crab-cake filler. It's good. I once attempted to eat an entire one-pound can of Phillips Pasteurized Crab without any accoutrements. By itself, the crab-claw meat exhibits a sharply diminishing marginal utility. Sex with her is great; we've always had strong chemistry. She's beautiful and super-fun when we've been drinking. Naturally, the kids complicate matters. - - - - Sugarless Tropical Twist Submitted by Sam de Silva While browsing through old journal entries, I came across this snippet from Monday, September 26, 2005: The expectations of my family are more suffocating than I thought they would be. On a brighter note, Tropical Twist Trident gum now comes in an "E-Z close" pack ... It's the little things. Seriously. This stuff is superb. - - - - The Hot Brown Submitted by Kristen D. Erickson The Hot Brown, Louisville's culinary claim to fame, was first created at the Brown Hotel in 1926. And anyone who has had a chance to sample this Southern not-so-delicate delicacy is no doubt still clutching his or her stomach in anguish. It starts with toast. Thick toast. And then about a pound of turkey piled high. Next, the Mornay sauce, which is part cheese, part roux, and all thick and gooey. In an attempt to health this thing up, tomatoes are added. This is all put under the broiler until browned, and then it is served hot with bacon on top. At first, you enjoy it. The cheese sauce, glistening, bubbling, calls to you. The bacon? How can you resist its tasty goodness? You dive right in, making sure to get a bit of everything in one bite. But this is not a sprint—it is a marathon—and, about halfway through this ginormous monstrosity, you hit a wall. A wall of cheese. You will crash. It will not be pretty. - - - - Penne à la Vodka Submitted by Larissa Williams You know how it is when you meet your roommate's mother. At first, you're like, "It's so great to finally meet you! You two could be sisters! You're so much like your daughter!" etc. But then you're all, "I forgot that I really don't like your daughter, and having two of you around is about as fun as eating glass." And then the shards of glass criticize your hair and the new curtains you put up in your bedroom. So your roommate's mother throws a dinner party at your house. She knocks on your bedroom door and asks you to come out and "be social for a change" and maybe "put on something a little less casual." So then you join a contingent of your roommate's friends and relatives for some bullshit pre-meal board game, but what you really want is to take the pot of boiling water and tumbling penne noodles off the stove and douse the next person who says "Ooh, I rolled doubles!" Instead, you hang sulkily in the kitchen and watch cup after cup of your own (expensive!) vodka get dumped into some sloppy red paste bubbling away on the burner and think, "Does all that alcohol really burn off, or will this evening devolve into a belligerent charades matchup?" Then you sit down at the table, and there is a sprig of thyme deftly balanced atop each person's pasta heap. (The pasta is served in bowls bought in real-life Italia, your roommate's mother crows.) But the thyme is from the garden out front, and all those herbs have the lingering midpalate tang of cat pee. You eat your first mouthful of penne à la vodka, a mob of noodles and sauced sauce, all the while trying to surreptitiously leave the table and turn down the thermostat from its (un)comfortable home at eighty-fucky-five degrees. With their eyes rimmed gooey black with makeup and their fondness for unnerving heat, your roommate and co. must be descended from ring-tailed lemurs. After dinner, some light reading. Your roommate's mom does the aforementioned reading aloud to a room of rapt guests, who have "never heard of this David Sedaris. What a funny guy! Too bad about the gay thing." You silently reflect upon this hell of your own making. Her mother leaves in three days. You have enough leftover penne à la vodka for a week: they've filled the fridge with portions individually wrapped in tinfoil with the date written out in script—"August Thirteenth Two Thousand and Seven," in purple marker, for Christ's sake. "But only eat one at a time, dear. You don't want to get too sexy around the hips." - - - - My Son James's Favorite Snacks Submitted by Lisa Domby "This place doesn't have a name. It's in the old Johnny's Sporting Goods, but they don't sell crickets here anymore." Takis Fuego (rolled corn chips, fire flavor): "These things taste way crunchier and way spicier and way awesomer than Doritos. The guacamole ones smell good, but they don't taste good." Paleton Patolin paleta de malvavisco (chocolate-covered marshmallow with gummy eyes and mouth): "This thing looks like a weird clown, but it tastes pretty good." Duvalin Avellana/Vainilla dulce con leche descremada (hazelnut and vanilla skimmed-milk candy): "Mom, what do you think is in this stuff? It feels like melted chocolate." Paleta de vainilla (vanilla popsicle): "This thing has a good flavor, but why did they put three raisins on the top of it? They should be chocolate chips. Or I thought they would be vanilla beans. Can you bite the top off? But don't take too much, because the other stuff is good." Jarritos Toronja (grapefruit soda): "This isn't made out of real grapefruit, because I hate grapefruit, but I love this." Hall's Chela Limón (beer-and-lime-flavored cough drops): "They don't have this flavor at CVS. That's why I like to get them here." Babidinos Paletadinos sabor tamarindo enchilada (tamarind lollipop): "This is my favorite thing to get. This thing is really chewy and spicy. You can't eat the whole thing, because it's too spicy, but you can save it in the refrigerator for a really long time. If you don't put it in the refrigerator, ants will get on it." - - - - Green Figs Submitted by Audrey Harris Their price varies based on the weather and how vulnerable you look at the time you stop by the Pakistani fruit stand at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 14th Street. This rainy morning, with no umbrella and only a twenty in my wallet, a basket set me back $3.99. With bright yellow-green skin and stubby stems, they look like pert baby-alien heads. Their brains are soft and strawberry-hued and pornographically sweet. Recipe for green-fig tartlets: Cut store-bought phyllo dough into rounds with a cookie cutter. Sprinkle with sugar. Top each round with a green-fig half, pulp side up. Smear a little goat cheese on the fruit. Roast for 15 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Top each fig with a roasted, salted almond from the handy bag in your pantry. - - - - Dwight Yoakam's Chicken Fries Submitted by Jonathan Holley A product of the Bakersfield Biscuits Brand, Dwight Yoakam's Chicken Lickin's Chicken Fries come approximately 12 to a box, which costs just a dollar. These are similar to the chicken fries available at Burger King, but of inferior quality. The bright red, orange, and yellow packaging of Dwight Yoakam's chicken purports that they are "inspected for wholesomeness" by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The packaging is evasive regarding the results of said inspection. Were these fries deemed wholesome? It seems impossible. In my 1997 analysis of the chickenesque, I famously hypothesized that Nabisco's Chicken in a Biskit crackers would forever maintain position as lowest rung on the chicken continuum. Today, Dwight Yoakam offers irrefutable counterevidence and collapses my former worldview. - - - - Naked Submitted by John Zackel The Walk of Shame, as it used to be called back in the 20th century, is typically defined as one's walk home after a sexy night spent at a lover's. The "walk" part of it is pretty self-explanatory, but the "shame" part comes in because you don't take a shower in the morning. Your breath, as Vonnegut so nicely put it, smells like mustard gas, and you don't have any deodorant, and your hair looks like one part Flock of Seagulls and one part wet dog. During this Walk of Shame, your chance of encountering a distant relative, a TV news reporter filming stock footage of homeless people, or, more likely, every person you've ever known, increases inversely with your attractiveness at any given moment. "Hey, So-and-So," someone might say from across the street, waving you over. "You look like shit!" You quickly try to smooth out your hair. "Thanks, Father Thomas," you might answer. He'll sniff the air as you approach. "Have you been having relations before marriage, So-and-So?" "No, Father Thomas," you'll answer, crossing your fingers behind your back. "I have to say, So-and-So," he'll say, "you smell like booty." "No, sir!" you'll pipe up. "It's just this Naked All Natural Antioxidant Juice Smoothie I have with me." And you'll hold up the Naked All Natural Antioxidant 100% Juice Smoothie you purchased for a whopping $4 (!) at the gas station across the street from your lover's house. "Well, I'll be a monkey's grandson! That Juice smells like a [slang term for a horribly vulgar sexual act, named after a city in Ohio]!" You'll nod aggressively, unscrew the plastic cap, and take a swig of antioxidant goodness. You'll make a satisfied sound, then hold the plastic recyclable bottle up to the light of day. "Just juice!" you'll shout. Father Thomas, or whomever you might be talking to, will gladly accept your fervor, pat you on the back, and ask you why your generation is so accepting of homosexuals. Before you offer an informed, convincing explanation of why Father Thomas is a bit of a hypocrite (if you know what I mean), you'll take another swig from Naked All Natural Antioxidant 100% Juice Smoothie and decide right then and there: Healthy Never Tasted So Good. - - - - Dongpo Rou Submitted by Benjamin Gaulke This pork dish, literally "Dongpo's meat," is named after the great 11th-century Song-dynasty poet Su Dongpo, who, as a bureaucrat and engineering genius, was responsible for the construction of a causeway across the West Lake, in Hangzhou. Supposedly, he fed the workers his eponymous delicacy in order to give them strength and energy. The other, probably apocryphal, genesis story of this dish is that Su one day was bored and decided to stew some pork. He then got distracted by a game of chess and left the pork in the pot for too long. He returned to find the meat incredibly tender and succulent. This was a benign disaster matched only by Louis Pasteur's failure to cover the petri dish where he subsequently discovered penicillin. Every Chinese person I have ever eaten Dongpo rou with has insisted that it is very healthy and good for me. Considering that it is a solid cube of pork and more than 50 percent fat, I completely disagree. Dongpo rou is the most disgusting and delicious food I have ever eaten. Timid Americans often refuse it, which means more for me. I have pounded down three of these 3-inch cubic, greasy delights in a row. A friend of mine claims that Dongpo rou tastes like brownies. If so, it is the perfect combination of meat and dessert. I marvel at the sophisticated origin of such a seemingly philistine dish; it would be like discovering that Einstein invented the Hot Pocket. Su Dongpo was a truly great man. - - - - Listerine Whitening Quick Dissolving Strips Submitted by Micki E. Grover From the company that single-handedly taught America that your mouth ain't clean till it tingles like hellfire comes the best new candy in years! Listerine has taken the modern obsession with vanity and given it the stick-to-your-gums charm of a Butterfinger. Imagine a Listerine-flavored Jelly Belly that whitens, too. The strip is as delicious as it is functional, and, by placing on it a four-week maximum-usage restriction, Listerine has cultivated the "get it while you can" hype of short-lived edible oddities like the McRib or the Cadbury Creme Egg. Only one element in Listerine's marketing campaign confuses me, and that is the claim that the strips dissolve within 5 to 10 minutes. I'm still finding sweet, sweet morsels from yesterday's strips; why not take a hint from your friends in the gum business and call them "longer-lasting"? Listerine, you silly fools, people want more for their dollar, not less. Great for getting paper-white chompers on the go, freshening your breath after your midday hummus break, or just swallowing directly, Listerine Whitening Quick Dissolving Strips are the only thing I have to look forward to during the slow afternoon hours at work. I just hope nobody calls. I can't swallow my saliva when I have these things in my mouth. - - - - Odwalla Strawberry C Monster Fruit Smoothie Submitted by Jacob Barron In their quest to supply lonely office workers with a weapon to combat the threat of weather-weary immune systems, the Odwalla juice company seems to have forgotten to remove the stems from any of the strawberries before juicing them. - - - - Kasugai Muscat Gummy Candy Submitted by Scott Sand The package states, "Its translucent color so alluring and taste and aroma so gentle and mellow offer admiring feelings of a graceful lady." I don't even know what that means exactly; I'm just glad the candies inside the package are wrapped individually, the only thing preventing me from devouring the whole bag in two big handfuls. The package also says "Muscat 100%," then something in Japanese. I don't know what they mean by that, either. The third ingredient, after sugar and corn syrup, is concentrated Muscat juice, but they also contain artificial Muscat flavor. I wish I could read Japanese. At least I can read the English, like "contains milk ingredient," which is in a bold font. Too bad for the lactose intolerant, because these rule. - - - - 4C Sugar-Free Totally Light 2Go Submitted by Max Zaenglein The idea is to rip open the tiny packet and pour this fine powder into your water bottle, giving your water flavors that regular water can only dream about. Having only recently discovered that a pomegranate is a fruit and not something one treats with medication, I was curious, to say the least. It tasted like a liquefied Fruit Roll-Up, and left a sticky coat on my teeth I had experienced only once before, by eating 50 or so packs of Nerds candy. Although I was disgusted, my curiosity was again piqued: what did this stuff taste like before it made contact with water? Not fully brave enough to pour it directly onto my tongue, I took a quick sniff at the now almost empty packet. The remaining powder shot up my nose and I can only assume that it exploded, because I had to close my eyes to prevent them from shooting out of my skull. The taste is nasty, but snorting it is fuckin' awesome, if you can handle the ride. - - - - |