Cibus Molestus

Reese's Peanut Butter Whoppers

2009-06-21T23:24:00.000-07:00

I wasn't aware Whoppers were actually intended for consumption. I'd assumed they were produced and sold solely for the purpose of covertly flinging at people in movie theaters. I'm pretty sure you couldn't even purchase them outside of movie theaters until the last couple of years.

So, while I will admit to a slight anti-Whopper bias, I think we can all take my word for it when I say that these are a terrible, pointless waste of everyone's time. If I needed a malted peanut butter ball, I would wad up a slice of toast and dip it in Skippy. Also, if peanut butter milk balls was in any way a good idea, they wouldn't need to co-brand with Reese's, because that is a brand name that conjures up waxy brown flakes, at best.

Staring into a box full of off-tan circles is enough to convince the few stubborn minded folks. And you know that It doesn't taste like peanut butter, exactly. I guess it's a cheap imitation or maybe Mexican bootleg peanut butter or something.

Also, my feeling is, when the box art can't even make a product look appealing, there is pretty much no chance of the food inside being tasty. And the balls themselves are a grody tan, with inexplicable brown specs. Not exactly inspiring. They have this weird flavor curve too. The 1st is revolting, then the next 5 or so are kind of addicting, then they abruptly go back to being nauseating, but somehow not disgusting enough to make you stop eating them. Weird.

The Taste of Costa Rica

2009-06-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

The Taste of Costa Rica
A couple of my friends honeymooned at various points of interest across Costa Rica recently, and were kind enough to share with me some of the local flavor. I'd been expecting something of a banana-based flavor setup, maybe with some notes of spider monkey, but it turns out many of their snacks have what I'd call a 'dollar store-y' sort of flavor.

Cuba Libre Ron & Cola
When I imagine the phrase 'Ron & Cola' I like to think that a dude with a bad 70's pornostache and OldStyle t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off just shows up at your house with a can of Coke that's 80% cigarette butts.

Unfortunately, this is just pre-made Rum & Coke, but it is notable for being less soul-crushingly wretched than its American counterpart, the Club Cocktail. It's also somehow less alcoholic than a Club Cocktail, despite being twice the size. Proving once again that you can't beat American quality when it comes to quickly getting trashed on your lunch break.

Tronaditas
The quality control of snack vacuum packing in Costa Rica kind of concerns me. I'm pretty sure the Tosty factory is actually just one old lady with a FoodSaver sitting in a garage in San Vincente. The name 'Tronaditas' is definitely the best part of these. I was half hoping that when I opened the bag I would be greeted with sweet synthesizer music and Bruce Boxleitner.

As for taste, these are surprisingly not bad. They seem to be composed entirely from compressed salt, because they posses no chip flavor whatsoever. Luckily, the lime flavor makes this bearable, and even tasty, in the same way they make Coronas and tequila shots seem like delicious ideas.
Based on their +10 powers of Additional Tastiness, you'd think a straight up lime would be heaven itself, instead of a quick trip to the intersection of acid, bile, and pain.

Meneitos
It mentions on the package that these are made with corn, and it turns out that's not a great vegetable to be putting in your faux Cheetos. They're not bad, exactly, just kind of weird. It's like eating a fluffy Frito. Not horrible, just...unnerving.

Sponch!
Screw the snack, Sponch is the best word I've ever heard. It's the sound of a wet sponge impacting with your face at 40mph and breaking all your bones. It's what happens when you crossbreed a spaniel and a conch snail. It's the weird bloated paunchy area creepy old ladies have right above their vag.It's Costa Rica's #1 contribution to US culture, and I thank them for it.

Pringles Restaurant Cravers

2009-06-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

I like it, this flavor laziness. It's one step closer to food in Jetson's-style capsules. Hey, fatass! Want the great taste of a hamburger, but you're too lazy to drag your ass all the way down the street to the BK? Well have we got the chip for you! Just like a juicy thick burger, but hard and flat and sad. Enjoy!

Cheeseburger
This is my favorite, because it's at once the most ambitious and most retarded. If there is anyone out there who honestly believes that a stack of pringles are truly going to taste like a thick cut of beef with all the fixin's, then I do not want to meet them. Or have them in any way involved in preparing my food.

Pringles pretty much got away with repackaging dill pickle chips here, because really, how the fuck else are you gonna play this one? Add to that the dearth of dill flavored crap in the U.S. (outside of actual pickles) and who the hell is going to dispute you on this. Personally, I think they could have been cheesier, which is always a good plan for your chips. Instead they unfortunately went with a weird somehow wet-tasting ketchup flavor that especially does not belong on anything crunchy.

Mozzarella Sticks & Marinara
Unnerving. They do kind of have a weird watery marinara flavor, and they are surprisingly fried-tasting , but again not very cheesy. Which really, there's no excuse for here.

Even though they're not bad, I couldn't eat more than a few of these, just because a food item calling itself 'Mozzarella Sticks' really shouldn't be allowed to not be cheesy. It'd be like Duran Duran only having one Duran. I guess they'd probably be ok with some sort of cheese dip, but what kind of sad, misguided person dips a Pringle?

Onion Blossom
These Pringles had only one job, to be onion-y, and they fucked it up. They have a dash of onion, an unnecessary amount of horseradish, and that's it. This is not what I need from a chip. Horseradish is appropriate on Arby's food only. And there's really no excuse for not making something oniony enough, considering onion flakes cost roughly twelve and a half cents per silo. After maybe six of these things, I totally forgot what flavor I was even eating. Thanks for wasting my time, Pringles.

Skittles Crazy Cores

2009-05-20T23:42:00.000-07:00

Skittles are the latest in the long line of formerly delicious candies gone completely batshit insane. Well, probably not the latest, but definitely one of the most enthusiastic. I think I see a new kind of Skittle every other month or so, and always flavors that I would have never ever thought of, nor asked for. In no universe do Skittles need to be mint or choclatey. The ones I'm looking at today, however, are unique in that they are shockingly non-disgusting.

This is doubly impressive considering what a terrible idea they are on paper. Approximating any one flavor in candy form is difficult enough-combining two is just asking for disaster. Plus, the two-in-one thing is only cool when doled out sparingly. Take watermelon Jelly Bellies, for example. They're an enjoyable little bit of visual spice in an otherwise normal assortment of beans. But try buying a bag of just the watermelon ones sometime and see how long it takes for you to stop marveling at the cute little red centers and start stuffing them in your face by the handful. Novelty wears off, is the point these Skittles seem to be missing. But on to the flavors:

STRAWBERRY WATERMELON
These sucessfully recreate the flavor of strawberry Runts. I know I shouldn't even count that, since it's a single flavor, but in the special ed class that candy's become lately, I say contrats.

BLUE RASPBERRY LEMON
Very Curaco Lemonade, served in a glass that was washed, but not rinsed. Or maybe the secret ingredient is Lemon Dawn. Hard to say.

CHERRY LEMONADE
Little cough dropy, but definitely cherry. Actually, I think they just stole a vat of the Luden's Cherry Throat Drop syrup and called it a flavor. I'm not sure what sets the lemonade flavor of this apart from the lemon in the blue raspberry Skittle, but I didn't taste soap on this one, so maybe it's that.

MANGO PEACH
Look, I know mangoes are very exotic and decadant and all but can we just stop? Actual mangoes are disgusting and the recent onslaught of mango flavored shit is ruining things I would otherwise eat. None of it tastes like actual mango, anyway. It's always the same vaguely tropical, little bit coconutty/little bit dollar store perfumey melange, and nobody needs that in their cereal.

MELON BERRY
Yes, very good, but which melon? There is a big difference between honeydew, watermelon, and cantaloupe, for openers. And that's to say nothing of all the weird melon subspecies floating around Green River, Utah, which is apparently the Melon Capitol of the World. Although not the fun kind. I imagine that would be somewhere in Brazil. Not that any of this matters, anyway, because this Skittle is just fruity and nondescript. In case you're interested, Green River holds an annual Melon Festival, where they crown a Melon Queen, although again, not the fun kind.

Despite my earlier praise, when eaten individually, these aren't any great treat. But when scarfed down in big fruity handfuls, they're actually pretty enjoyable. In a plastic-y sort of way. Basically, they taste more or less like a regular bag of Skittles, so I don't know that that's actually anything for the marketing team break out the champagne over.

Willy Wonka's Tinglerz

2009-02-15T23:51:00.000-08:00

Once again Willy Wonka brings to us creepy candy that no one has ever, or would ever ask for. What I don't understand is how someone who is essentially the personification of innovative and wonderful candy has somehow failed to come up with an edible candy in like, 15 years.

I enjoy a good Gobstopper as much as anyone. Runts are great too; little candies that're fresh from the Barbie farmers' market Mmm-mmm. In fact, most of the old Wonka candy is solid. SweeTarts, Nerds, Bottlecaps, this is all classic shit. In fact, even some of the things that seem like bad ideas are actually good, such as Fun Dip. Bags of colored sugar and weird medicine-flavored sticks doesn't sound like a winning combo, but in my grade school days that was the equivalent of high grade cocaine. Anyone on the playground could get trailer trash Pixie Stix, but if you rolled in with a bag of Fun Dip, it was a going to be a special day.

So, that bit of history out of the way, back around to my original candy. The major problem with the Tinglerz is that in our universe, ol' Wonka has somehow never been able to make chocolate happen. Yes, the candy that defined his empire, propelled him to the heights of candydom, and was supposedly his magnum opus is also the last thing you ever want to take home a lifetime supply of. It's absurdly sweet, and barely tastes chocolatey at all.

This has actually been bothering me for years, come to think of it. Why is it that even third world Easter bunny manufacturers can produce a more convincing chocolate flavor than this? Not to mention that Wonka is owned by Nestle, and I would imagine there's gotta be somebody on that factory floor who can explain to the suits why everything they makes tastes like it came out of a My Little Pony's ass. Chocolate is a confection that has been around for centuries, it shouldn't be that hard. I'm not asking you to figure out the secret ingredients of Coke after all, the Mayans were sipping hot chocolate in 460 A.D., using nothing but cacao seeds and virgin sacrifice.

Also, and most important of all, it looks like a bag of chocolate coated herpes. Really. I imagine this is what turns up on Wonka's dick after banging the Oompa Loompa Paris Hilton. Maybe that's why the name sounds like something that would make more sense on a vibrator package.

So chocolate-coated pop rocks is not an appealing idea visually. But this candy has other problems, too. Firstly, one does not chew Pop Rocks. They all explode at once, totally negating the entire point, which is to enjoy finding them hiding in your teeth hours later when you're going down on your significant other and she runs screaming from the room, trailing little popping noises from her nether regions. No, Pop Rocks must be savored, like a fine, tingly wine.

But you can't keep the Tinglerz in your mouth for more than 30 seconds, because no one needs to taste cheap chocolatish failure for that long, and you end up with a mouthful of brown goo. Individually, these texture issues wouldn't be a problem, but when you combine foods that aren't meant to coexist, guess what, it is. I don't know what the hell to do with these. I ended up kind of keeping them in my mouth for a few seconds before chewing, thereby giving me the worst of both worlds: crappy chocolate coated teeth, and unpleasantly poppy food.

Honestly, I see these candies as a cry to let the chocolate go from the Wonka empire once and for all. They're the confectioner's equivalent of the senile ramblings from the old guy who's always wandering around the park in slippers and a plaid vest. It's time we put this franchise out of its misery, because god only knows what STD based candy they'll make next.

Tire Tread

2008-12-08T23:46:00.000-08:00

Well. It appears I have discovered the solid cousin to the diet Moxie soda. MORE'S THE PITY.

These are impressively horrible. I mean it. I can only imagine that these remain on store shelves solely to please old folks, and that worries me terribly, as this shit is clearly not meant for human consumption.

THEY ARE STRONG. This licorice does not fuck around. It really does taste exactly like the Moxie, right down to the painful burning sensation after you take your first bite. They're really not that bad until a few seconds after you swallow, which means there's really nothing you can do to save yourself from the horrible experience that is the Tire Tread. But then again, when the first ingredient is 'beet syrup', you can pretty safely assume you're not in for a taste treat.

The Great Japanese KitKatastrophy part III

2008-11-16T21:00:00.000-08:00

White

Although I'd sworn off albino chocolates after the yogurt horror, I gave these a chance anyway. They're the officially 'white' flavored Kit Kats, altho for some reason they have a picture of a maple leaf on the box. So, suspecting maple but fearing something less pleasantly Canadian, like beaver or Mike Myers, I forged ahead. Adding to my disturbing-flavor concerns was the texture of the things. They were lumpy. Clumps of unidentifiable crap clung to the bottom of the bars, not entirely disguised by the milky coating.

My concern now shifted from unidentified Canadian flavors to chunks of actual Canadians. It could be some sort of soylent green for modern times, like a really shitty remake that's been 'hipped up' for today's audience.

Turns out, however, they are maple, really REALLY maple, on top of the painful sweetness of the white chocolate. The flavoring was STRONG, much like the Maple Prez. In Japan the men are real men, women real women, and the maple is mind-blowing.

Interestingly enough, the chunks weren't related to the maple flavor, but were little bits of wafer that got stuck on the bottom, which I suppose does make them somewhat cannibalistic, which is pretty cool.

Strawberry

Jesus god these are revolting. While this does make me feel better about the American version of strawberry candy failure, I am frankly NOT happy I had to go through that taste experience again.

These may actually be worse because, in a moment of misguided realism-related fervor, the coating has little strawberry bits ensconced in it. Which sounds reasonable, but looks like a scale model of a highly communicable skin disease (which btw, is a phrase you should never ever
Image Google). I don't know that rosacea KitKat would've necessarily tasted worse, but it's never-the-less not a parallel I need to be drawing while the damn thing is in my mouth.

Sakura

This is one of those flavors which you immediately recognize as being disgusting, but carry right on eating it anyway. I can't say for sure what it actually tastes like, there's definitely sweet waxy undertones, but they're lighter than usual, and accompanied by something that tastes like chocolate covered feet.

While the flavors are all fairly unpleasant individually, the whole effect is not bad. Everytime I ate one, I knew that it was bad, but I kept wanting more of them. It's a destructive behavior microcosm Kat! Just like a Lifetime special, only with less Patty Duke.

Wine

These are really interesting. They start innocently enough with that bland waxy flavor that has become synonymous with KitKat in my mind, and then move on to an actual wine flavor. Seriously. Not a fine vintage, granted, more like the solid cousin of wine in a box, but still. They're neither hideously sweet nor terrifyingly strong. Amazingly, they're an entirely acceptable, if somewhat baffling flavor of Kit Kat.

I keep trying to picture the setting in which a wine KitKat would be the sophisticated choice. The only situation that springs to my mind is 'trying to get laid in Candyland'. Presumably you smoke candy cigarettes afterwards.

Thanksgiving Soda

2008-11-16T20:53:00.000-08:00

Sam's Club Cider Apple Burst & 7-Eleven Apple Ginger Snap

Extreme Cider Apple! It's totally the experience of a crisp fall evening in front of the fire X100! Give it to your Grandma and BLOW HER MIND!! WHOOOOO!

Who the fuck is this drink for? Does anyone want extreme sparkling apple cider? On top of which, it's caffeine free, which I'm pretty sure automatically revokes your standing as an extreme beverage. Also it looks like cloudy urine. But what pisses me off most about this drink is that it actually DOES taste just like apple cider. Only carbonated, which is vile and the exact thing I do not look for in apple cider.

Where is this amazing flavor accuracy when they're dealing with flavors I actually am interested in tasting? There's 9 million different permutations of berry flavored drinks on the market, and not one of them can reasonably approximate the flavor of even one given berry, let alone several put together. But somehow WalMart's crack team of popologists can pull off cider apple.

And what's really incredible is that the Thanksgiving flavor line of soda gets even worse, in the form of a 7-Eleven Apple Ginger Snap Big Gulp. None of the words in that flavor have any business on a bottle of pop. They all appear to have escaped from the cookie isle, and I do not like it. As far as taste goes, it's much less impressively disturbing than the Apple Cider, inasmuch as it doesn't really taste like anything. It has a very watery apple juice base, with a hint of something that says to me 'mistook a vat of industrial cleaner for the Ginger Snap flavoring', and to top it off, there's no carbonation to speak of. If there's anything that bothers me more than cookie flavored pop, it's cookie flavored pop that doesn't even try. I pronounce Cider Apple Burst to be the superior crime against beveragekind and we move on.

All the Jell-O in My Life

2008-11-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

In which we discover the point at which there ceases to be room for Jell-O

There is something intrinsically hilarious about Jell-O. I don't know if it's because it used to come in such disturbing flavors as Celery and Tomato, or because housewives dutifully ensconced everything from salad to tuna in the aforementioned and called it dinner.

And while I, personally, have never enjoyed actually eating it, I do get a great deal of amusement out of making it, or at least, attempting to make it. Lacking an amusingly flavored gelitan this time around, I instead decided to go for sheer volume. That's right. I was going to combine one box each of every flavor of Jell-O I could find, and thus create Super Jell-O.

First thing's first:procuring the Jell-O. I went to every grocery store in a 400-mile radius (which actually only totalled 6 stores. Hey, I live on the fucking prairie.) and came up with 18 separate flavors of Jell-O. It's important to note here that I only bought actual Jell-O brand gelitan, because if I got into store brands it would never end. Also, I wanted this to be a quality gelitan monstrosity, thankyouverymuch.

Here's the full list of flavors I ended up with:

Apricot	Berry Blue
Black Cherry	Cherry
Cranberry	Cran-Raspberry
Grape	Island Pineapple
Lemon	Lime
Mixed Fruit	Orange
Peach	Strawberry Banana
Strawberry Kiwi	Wild Strawberry
Xtreme Sour Apple	Xtreme Watermelon

I have always wondered about this...Who can really tell the difference between Apricot and Peach? Do we need both these flavors? I know they've both been around for at least the last 20 years, meanwhile fifty other flavors have come and gone. Honestly. Perhaps we could just settle for one of those, and invest some of that flavor-specificity in extricating an actual fruit or two from the mess that is Berry Blue. I really hate Berry Blue. There are no blue berries. Even actual blueberries are purple. The fuckers.

As far as the actual construction of the super Jell-O goes, I decided to just multiply the basic instructions by 18 and go from there. This was the first indication I had that this would be maybe more to deal with than I'd had in mind. 18 packages of Jell-O yielded more than a liter of powder, and one hell of a sand scupture.

And to this I was to add 4 LITERS of water. Rather more than I had been expecting, and certainly more than would fit in any of my standard issue kitchen containers. Clearly, this called for something special. Something big. This called for... the crisper drawer. Figuring if I ended up with more than that there was no possible way I'd get it in the fridge, I just went ahead and poured the whole mess into one of the refrigerator drawers.

Fortunately for both me and the fridge, that turned out to be just perfect. Full of the satisfaction that only comes with a completely pointless job well done, I left it to set up overnight. Surprisingly, it did actually set, more or less. Well...mostly less. It never did achieve the solidity of normal Jell-O, instead preferring to hover somewhere between lumpy juice and runny salad. (Sorry, running out of metaphors here.)

The unexpected problem arising from this the next day was that it was nearly impossible to dispose of. It was too solid to pour down the drain, but not solid enough to lift out of the drawer and throw away. I spent a good half hour trying to scoop it up and throw it in the trash before I gave up in disgust. By this time, the kitchen counter looked as if I had been disassembling a mob hit, and the Jell-O was starting to melt into nastily viscous little piles of sticky shit that I knew would never, ever entirely wash off.

And that is to say nothing of the smell. It was disgustingly sweet, and permeated every inch of the fridge, including much of the food therein. The bread sitting on the shelf above the Jell-O tasted like the aftermath of a Care Bear circle jerk. It took a week before I could eat something out of the fridge without sniffing it in fear first.

And what did I learn from the experience? Not a goddamn thing. I did discover that every flavor of Jell-O together tastes pretty much like any one flavor of Jell-O by itself, but I don't know how useful that information will be to me in later life, so eh. It was however, an amusing experience, and a good waste of an evening, which really is all I ever ask for in life.

Moxie

2008-11-16T19:59:00.001-08:00

This particular beverage hails from the days when sodas were called phosphates, and they had to carbonate molasses cause they didn't have anything else. The intimidating duotone man on the label claims the beverage has been in existence since 1884, which means that it was probably the Ingalls girls' treat on those long sleigh rides to the nearest town's general store. Seriously, check the dates. I personally would've gone with the candied squirrel intestines or something, but pioneers can't be choosers. Actually, if I'd lived on the American frontier, I would've contracted smallpox and died at my first opportunity. In the womb, if possible.

If you've ever actually tried Moxie you'll have no trouble believing it was created in the 1800's. It tastes like something your local midwestern museum would serve as part of their annual ' In the Days Before Electric Lightsavaganza' festival. It smells like something you'd find in a 20's drugstore. Something with 'Bromide' in the name. Something that doubles as a cure-all for everything from cholera to losing all your oxen in an attempt to ford the Green River.

The taste itself is hard to explain in terms of actual flavor. It's more of an experience. A horrible, painful experience, comparable to drinking molten tar. This stuff was so strong I couldn't even drink a full swig of it. I had to sip it like it was a tea party. My mouth tasted like burning shoes days after trying this crap. I actually forgot about the bottle in my backpack for a couple weeks, and then tried it again, thinking once it'd had some time to calm down and think about why pop shouldn't taste like getting kicked in the face, it'd maybe be palatable. Wrong. It was just as vile without carbonation. Maybe worse, because there were no bubbles to numb my poor taste buds. And this was just the diet Moxie. Woe betide the fool what takes on the full-strength Moxie.

Maizena

2008-11-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

I see this at every grocery store, in a cheerful assortment of flavors, but I've never seen anyone buy it. I now know why.

It's sort of the low budget equivalent of Qwik. It's made with milk, comes in the same basic flavor assortment, and ever has a cheerful little mascot. The difference is, this is made with corn starch. Now, doesn't that just sound like a bad idea to you? I don't think I've ever used corn starch in my life, and definitely not in a beverage.

According to the instructions, one little packet of this whips up to a full five servings of piping hot corn drink. I opted to just make half the package, which was way more than enough for your average 2.5 kids, I feel. Especially considering no kid in their right mind would drink any of this.

It was barely even a beverage, honestly. I ended up with violently strawberry scented Pepto-Bismo colored water on top of the cup, and a good half inch of corn starch silt at the bottom. The powder got this weird skin over it as soon as it touched water, and flatly refused to dissolve, no matter how much I stirred. So I eventually I gave up on that and just tried to drink around the clumps.

What was kind of cool about this, is that even though it smelled insanely strawberry-y, it had no strawberry flavor whatsoever. Really. It tasted like nothing in particular. Kind of corn starchy, really, but no surprise there. It was definitely unpleasant, but I say if you're purchasing corn starch beverages, you probably know what you're getting into, so hey. No harm no foul, Maizena.

Candy Racism and Process at Work

2008-11-16T19:48:00.000-08:00

You may've noticed that I generally avoid using American candy for these reviews. This is not because I'm a terrible candy racist. The reason I don't bother with my own country's confections is because in recent years the major US candy companies have lost their fucking minds, and cranking out dozens of completely retarded candies that are on the market for all of two weeks before slinking off in shame.

And rather than being entertainingly bad, these flavors are simply not worth bothering with, either in print or as edibles. I don't need to write a review telling you that eating a Limited Edition Giant M&M is the modern equivalent of the experience of eating a handful of M&Ms. You can figure that out on your own, I hope. If not, for godsake, I don't want to know about it.

Raspberries 'n' Creme / Strawberries 'n' Creme Hersheys

This could have been so much better, or at least less awful. Raspberries are delicious and underrepresented in the world of confectionery outside of Blue Razzberry shit, which we shall not speak of.

Even so, I don't want to see them getting their moment in the sun in bad candy. It tastes like cheap white chocolate, no surprise there, with grainy little bits of generic sweetness. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two flavors. They're both unimpressively unpleasant, and I have to wonder why Hershey's even bothered with both. Did they honestly think people's candy bar palette is refined enough to distinguish the between the two? Everything about these bars says 'slapped together the night before launch'. They even reused drawing of the splash on the packaging. You'll have to do better than Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation, to fool me, Milton Hershey!

Junior Mints Inside Outs

I just hate to see this. One of the best things about being one of the less popular, non-flashy candies is that you're generally pretty safe from the various revamps and marketing gimmicks that plague the more popular candies. But for some reason, Junior Mints have now been dragged into the jaws of progress, and shat out as Junior Mints Inside Outs.

Despite the amusingly suggestive name, I can't even enjoy the absurdity of these. They don't taste like much of anything-bad chocolate goop coated in crusty sugar, and they certainly aren't much to look at, appearing, as they do, to be giant wads of bird shit. Junior Mints are tasty and should be left alone. For fuck's sake, nobody messes with Skor bars, or Mary Janes. Leave the classics alone!

Milky Way Slammer

2008-11-16T19:47:00.001-08:00

To me, that sounds like a porno move, not a beverage. And not a particularly appealing move, either. Actually, I've been sitting here thinking about it so long that I've kind of grossed myself out, so I'm going to drop the porn metaphors, and just say that this is a very bad drink.

Not so much because it tastes bad, but because it actually does taste like a Milky Way bar. But it's a liquid. I felt unpleasantly like I was partaking in a candy bar that had, in fact, already been digested. This is not fun at all, and, in retrospect, even less appealing than the porn idea.

Dominade

2008-11-16T19:45:00.001-08:00

Crystal Light for the S&M set, I guess. It was only 99 cents for two gallons worth of mix, making it the beverage of choice in the cost-conscious dungeons. My only hope is that they marketed it like Sunny D.

"Let's see, we got a glass of my cum, your own urine, brown stuff...Hey! Dominade!

Congelli - Rompope flavor

2008-11-16T19:22:00.001-08:00

Every once in awhile a food will catch my eye with its mild wackiness, but then turn out to be a festival of complete and utter what-the-fuckery. The Congelli is one of those magical foods.

It's hard to see in the picture, because of the eye rending yellow-on-white color scheme, (which, in retrospect was a sign I probably should have paid more attention to) but both the English and Spanish flavor for this gelatin dessert is 'Rompope'. On the rare occasions these naturally enemy languages agree, you know you're in for a treat. Whatever this stuff was, there was no room for doubt-it would taste like fresh squeezed/picked and or/congealed rompope. Who the hell could resist a treat like that?

Personally, I prefer to be surprised by my scary foreign foods, but my roomate, (who has actually learned from my experiences), checked into what exactly a 'rompope' was while we waited for it to clot. I mean set. As it turns out, rompope is the unspiced, Spanish version of eggnog.

I was a little disappointed on hearing this, because I am frankly not a fan of any type of nog, much less de-spiced nog. In fact, I refuse to drink even the seasonally mandatory American egg nog because I do not believe in alcoholic beverages that are thick, creamy, or in any way bear resemblance to cum. Unfortunately for me, I'd already bought the Congelli, so there was no help for it. I was duty-bound to fully experience the rompope.

My first indication that maybe this was not a great idea came as soon as I started mixing, inasmuch as, it looked exactly like dog vomit. But as I'd already wasted four cups of milk on this shit, there was no turning back.

After mixing, the directions said to 'pour in molds and chill for 4-6 hours, or overnight,' but since I have nowhere near the patience nor the attention span that would require, I stuck it in the freezer. It set up a couple hours later, no worse for the wear, if you don't count its intensified semblance to Lassie's last meal.

I don't know what those brown spots in it are, but I once saw some vanilla ice cream that listed 'bean specks' as one of its accomplishments, so I'm going to go ahead and say that's what the mystery spots in this are. Bean specks. Yes.

So, now for the true test-what exactly does rompope taste like? Will it be the vaugely spiced pancake batter flavor of American eggnog, or would it be a less spicy version, more along the lines of taupe house paint? Or even some here-to-fore unimagined permutation of bland, cream colored food? Only the taste test would tell...

Now, even as I write this, there is something about the rompope that nauseates me. Honestly, I have a hard time looking at the pictures. It's not that it was even that disgusting. There's just something about it that really makes me want to throw up. Not necessarily even in an unpleasant way. It could be like when you're sick, and the only thing you've eaten in the last 72 hours is lukewarm 7-up, which tastes exactly the same coming up as it did going down. It might even be a little better on the return trip, because then it's like a visit from an old friend you didn't think you'd get to see again. At least, not in that part of town. But my point is, that while I don't like to think about it now, it really didn't taste all that disgusting.

The problem was its texture. It was rather..rubbery. In fact, when I tried to stick my spoon in it, it just bounced off the skin of the pudding. Having never been deflected by my dessert, I tried dropping the spoon onto it, which resulted in some pretty decent airtime.

I tried bouncing other small objects off it for awhile, including a pen, coins, and a statue of a boy's first communion.

I tried a little surfer guy too, but he didn't work too well. Eventually the top of the rompope was so covered in lint and dirt from all the crap I was throwing at it that I had to tip it onto a plate and eat off the bottom.

It tasted more or less how you'd expect eggnog Jell-O to taste, bland, christmassy, and fairly unpleasant. All in all, I'd say Spanish eggnog is basically the same as its US counterpart, insofar as, it's not worth bothering with. The springy squid-like texture pretty much ruined any chance it had at being eaten, but I bet you could make some awesome molds with this stuff. I don't know if it was made out of a higher quality of horse hooves or what, but this crap really holds its shape. You could probably construct the most elaborate gelatin structures ever with this. Hell, you could just carve it into whatever shape you want. For that, I declare the rompope the most amusing non-edible foodstuff on the market. Gracias, Congelli!

The Great Japanese KitKatastrophy part II

2008-11-16T18:56:00.000-08:00

Orange & Creme

As promising as the image of an Orange slice coming all over a KitKat bar was, these were a tragically less than orgasmic experience.

They were actually like a sort of opposite orgasm, where instead of getting more and more enjoyable, these started off bad and built to a hideous crescendo of unpleasantness, culminating with my convulsively spitting the whole revolting affair into the garbage.

Milkshake

You ever had Whoppers? Great, this is that, only shaped like a stick. You can put it between two Whoppers and have a little milkshake flavored sex-ed set up. You may as well, there's no other excuse for having these things around.

Matcha with Azuki Beans

Ok, this one I know:matcha is green tea, and azuki beans are sweet red beans which are famous for not making you gassy. Which I suppose is a nice feature, although what candy is known for its gas producing prowress? Not even novelty fart candy, really. I fed a bunch to our dog once, and got nothing. And if you can't even make a dog farty, you have no business allying your self with the internal gas industry.

Anyway. I was pretty excited about these, because there was a little drawing of green KitKats on the back of the box, which pretty much guaranteed that the actual bars themselves would be green. Imagine! Little green KitKats! You can play that you're eating miniature uranium bars that make you mutate and destroy the city, or that they're martian candy, and use them to lend credibility to your abduction story, or leave them in the living room and claim the dog ate a birthday cake. The possibilities are endless!

As you can see, they did not disappoint. And while it's hardly worth mentioning in light of the how amazing these things look, I will say that they do taste a little like green tea. In that strange watery way that green tea flavored things have. It's not something you can really eat much of, but it doesn't matter, because what they lack in snackability, they make up for tenfold in comedic possibility.

Watermelon

It is long past time we as a species stop trying to make things watermelon flavored. Watermelons DO NOT HAVE A FLAVOR. THEY DON'T. And attempting to assign them one via red dye #40 and industrial food flavoring is not going to change that.

Personally, I move that we start using 'watermelon' as a texture. Think about it: really wet, but still structured, and rather grainy. What word describes that? Nothing! Think of all the good watermelon could do for the English language. We'd have the perfect one-word description for all sorts of things like....well, like...Watermelon. I guess there's not a lot of call for that specific texture. I still think it would do less harm as a texture than a flavor, though. Especially where KitKat flavoring is concerned.

Yeo's White Gourd Drink

2008-11-16T18:54:00.001-08:00

I can still taste the horror of this one. Actually, it sat in the back of my refrigerator for a couple of months before I could even work up the courage to open it. This is because I've never tasted a gourd in any form, much less as a beverage, which seemed like the worst possible medium for my first gourd-related experience.

And even though I was expecting the worst, I was still taken aback at the pure unmitigated wrongness of this drink. There are no currently-existing flavors to describe it. It had kind of a peanutty-old sock flavor, a little bit like soy nuts, only gamier. Gordish, I guess. I don't know. Not helping was their decision not to carbonate the damn stuff, so you could experience the gourd flavor in full effect, without any tangy bubbles to distract the taste buds. The harnessing of CO2 for beverage purposes is one of man's greater triumphs, and makes even the most retarded store brand pop not just drinkable, but enjoyable. Thank you, Carbon, Oxygen.

The can proudly proclaims itself an 'Authentic Asian Drink' which I feel is pretty obvious, considering that if it was an American pop, the can would have something along the lines of 'XXXTREME ALPINE MIST POWER GOURDO CODE BLANCO BLASTOFF!!!!' spalshed across it in fonts of varying color and extremeness.

But even after all the aforementioned, the thing that really amazes me about the White Gourd Drink is that I didn't get it at an Asian grocery store. I found it in a major chain market, which means that of all the canned beverages floating around the entire continent, this was one of the most mainstream ones available, and therefore chosen to be stocked as a regular item at a major US grocery store. What the hell else is over there that didn't make the cut? The mind boggles.

Bella Vita Pasta

2008-11-16T18:50:00.000-08:00

Why is the pasta brown? Actually, it had more of an unsettling reddish cast, sort of a russet. The only colored pasta I've ever seen has been that way because of flavoring, or novelty reasons. Which are both perfectly acceptable circumstances for colored noodles, so I wasn't too worried about trying these. I figured since they weren't shaped like penises, they had to fall under the heading of 'flavored' and further surmised that the reddish cast meant 'tomato' and gave not another thought to the possibly sinister nature of these noodles.

God was I wrong. These were unbelievably bad. They weren't flavored, at least, not any flavor that I know of. They tasted dirty. That's the only way I can describe it. And they were dry. Rather than being bendy, as regular noodles generally are, these all but disintigrated when I tried to scoop them into a bowl. To top it all off, cooking frankly did not improve their color. If anything, the sickly orangeish-red color they became was worse than the original color. I say this is God's punishment for trying to remove the delicious carbs from pasta. Shame on you, Bella Vita.

Vimto

2008-11-16T18:49:00.001-08:00

This is much less exciting than it sounds. The foreign entry into the 'red' flavored soda category, this tastes much like Big Red, Faygo RedPop, Barq's Red Creme soda, and every other red flavored pop you can get at the finer gas stations and aged hotel vending machines. The sickly sweetness of corn syrup and red dye No 40 are present throughout, with notes of that indefinable but distinct flavor of cheapness and failure. No one ever actually has a thirst that only a red soda will quench, they just drink it because it's the only thing that's never sold out at 3am in Akron.

Milo

2008-11-16T18:47:00.001-08:00

I think I bought this just because of the winning-in-the-special-olympics dude on the front. The drink itself is purportedly a 'nutritional energy drink', but I can't say it did anything for me, energy-wise. I had been hoping the drink would do for me what it had done for Milo, but with an excess of neither caffeine nor sugar, and a taste comparable to those gritty Carnation Instant Breakfast drinks they used to make, I could find no convincing reason for this drink to exist.

Not that the actual breakfast drinks made much sense themselves. Carnation made such a big deal out of the fact that they were the perfect breakfast for important, on-the-go people who didn't have time to fuck around with a waffle before running off to decide world policy, but honestly, have you ever tried to drink a glass of that stuff when you're in a hurry? It's like trying to chug a glass of damp chalk. At least a you can eat a granola bar on the bus without having to worry about people spitting in it if you take your eyes off it for a moment.

Let's Pretz!

2008-11-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

Roast

I admit, I was kind of hoping these'd be a very non-specific meat flavored variety of roast, but alas, they were just toasty. Which was tasty enough, until it occured to me that 'toasted more' isn't actually a flavor, it's what happens when the guy manning the oven falls alseep.

Realizing I was eating a box of what are essentially little mistake sticks took some of the majesty out of my Roast Pretz experience, and I was left feeling like my snack sticks had somehow pulled a fast one on me.

Deception and lies aside, these were decent. Not very exciting, but, as I was to find out in my later Pretz experiences, sometimes that's the best you can hope for.

Salad

While these unfortunately aren't quite as amusing as the name suggests, they were easily my favorite Pretz .

They taste more or less exactly like cheap croutons, but with a slight tang. It's something on the order of the French dressing you'd get at a Bonanza. This may not sound terribly inspiring, but trust me, in light of the flavors to come, it's completely five-star. Rock on Salad Pretz.

Ebi (Grilled Shrimp)

I actually tried these last, because I was seriously afraid of them. As I've mentioned, I'm a total food wuss, and as such, I am completely against all forms of seafood, on the grounds that decent, self-respecting, edible animals do not wave their eyes around on stalks. Eyes belong in the head. In it. And as I've been avoiding seafood with much success for approximately 25 years now, I wasn't even sure what I should expect with these things. How do I know what shrimp tastes like? I don't.

Now that I've eaten them, I still have no idea what any kind of seafood tastes like, because I refuse to believe shrimp actually tastes like dirty peanut butter socks. I ate maybe a half a Pretz and was tasting (read: regretting) it for the rest of the day.

Even more disappointing was that the individual Pretz didn't have little grill marks. Way to break my heart, guys.

Maple & Butter

They aren't fucking kidding about the butter part. If there was a way to compress and dry butter into crunchy stick form, then baste it with butter, and finally roll the whole mess in butter dust, it would still have nothing on the orgasm of butter happening in these Pretz.

I have no idea if there was even any Maple flavor at them all, I was too busy listening to my arteries clog. These things caused me actual pain to eat, and I'm sure I will never enjoy buttered toast again. I only even made it through about a fourth of one of the four packets in the box. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined artificial Maple & Butter flavor capable of inflicting actual pain when eaten, but today, I stand corrected. Hoh-lee shit.

Cheeky's

2008-11-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there were two tasty cookie brothers, born of the union of an Oreo and an E.L.Fudge (you know, I didn't realize that E.L.Fudge=Elf until I was in college? Isn't that sad?). These cookies had happy little faces, and were named Giggles, which sounds more like a horror movie than a food. Or maybe a horror movie about food. But anyway, they were very tasty, and unfortunately, did not make it out of the '80s.

Except they did! They snuck off too...I can't even remember where these are from, but not the U.S, and hid there in little cookie-sized bunkers, waiting for the time to arrive when they could emerge from their isolation and reclaim their rightful place along side the Mallowmars and Chips Ahoy.

But years and years of inbreeding while in hiding had terrible consequences....grape consequences. That's right, these things are grape flavored. They have excitingly purple filling and taste like the worst thing you can imagine. Cookies are just not meant to be artificially grape flavored. I adore the taste of fake grapes, it's by far my favorite flavor of anything, but this is just wrong in an unfixable way. Largely because there is no way you can prepare yourself for it. It's bad in a way you simply cannot imagine unless you've experienced it personally.

I mean, what other cookie has ever been grape flavored? None, that's what, and with damn good reason. If it doesn't go with chocolate, it doesn't belong in a cookie, that's my new motto.

Bamba Peanut Snacks

2008-11-16T18:24:00.001-08:00

There's a baby on your package, with a picture of the snack arranged so that it looks like a gigantic log of baby poop flying out of the baby's ass. Does this sound like smart food advertising to you? Well, it did make me buy these things, but that doesn't say much.

These were like little healthy, peanutty, kosher, Cheetos. Only they didn't really taste much like peanuts. So they were mostly just puffed air and sort of a soybean oil flavor. So all in all, a pretty depressing snack. But hey, their mascot's a baby that can play basketball! Not a lot of babies can do that,

Blue Mountain Country Cock Soup

2008-11-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

Seriously? Not that 'rooster flavored' makes a lot more sense, but what flavor do male chickens have that isn't covered under the 'Chicken' heading? Even if there is some subtle nuance that falls outside that category, wouldn't 'poultry' probably pick it up? Did we really need to get this specific? Especially on a package already adorned with some fairly phallic carrots, and the suspiciously testiclesque onions. And that's not even mentioning the mountain in the background.

Hogs Heaven Mini Pretzels

2008-11-16T18:08:00.001-08:00

These were actually just normal, if excessively salty, pretzels. But I had to try them, based on the tagline at the bottom of the bag. Put Some "More" South in Your Mouth" What?

Most of the south that comes to my mind is not anything I would want in my mouth, much less quote-unquote more of it. And they weren't spiced or flavored in any way, sooooo....I still don't know exactly what the Southern aspect of these things was.

Which leaves me wondering what the hell did they sneak into these pretzels that makes them "more south"-y. It has to be something, right? Otherwise why the hell would that be their slogan? Where did it come from?? God, I hope it's not related to the brand name...I have the most uncomfortable feeling that I just ate something that was fried up in pig anus oil. Ugh. Not knowing what's actually in my scary food makes it immeasurably worse than it probably is. I watched all those 20/20 exposes John Stossel and his giant moustache did in the early '90's. I know there's all kinds of crazy behind-the-scenes shit going on in my food, I just don't like it when I'm given cryptic hints to that effect. Just let me enjoy my pretzels and my denial in peace, thankyouverymuch!

McVities Milk Chocolate Digestives

2008-11-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what exactly a digestive is, but this is the heaviest package if cookies I have ever encountered. There's only like, six cookies in it, but it's a serious brick. You could chuck it at someone's head and do some actual damage, then eat the evidence. It's the perfect, tasty crime!

From the name, I had imagined them being something like a fiber grenade. As soon as you swallowed one, it hit your colon like a fucking fiber bomb, and just blew that shit all over the dining room table. Much to my disappointment, they were pretty much just ordinary cookies. Maybe a little grainer than most, but nothing that sent me running for new shorts.

Sigh.

Mini Cakes Red Velvet

2008-11-16T13:09:00.000-08:00

I found this in the freezer section of my local Wal-Mart for 49 cents, which is about as bad a sign as there is. But! This was a tasty little cake! And it actually was red!

I don't know how or why, but these little guys rock. My compliments to whatever impoverished peoples are cranking these things out for 6 cents an hour. Keep 'em coming, kids.

Yan-Yan

2008-11-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

Black sticks, white dip. Hahaha.

Yeah, they didn't taste good either.

The Great Japanese KitKatastrophy...

2008-11-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

Melon

Exactly as it sounds. You can't imagine it? Well that's because it should never have happened. I don't understand what possesses companies to make things taste like melon. Melons don't even taste like melon. To their credit, the Japanese really know how to make their chocolate taste like melon.

Unfortunately, this is a little like saying you can magically turn cows inside out. It sounds interesting, but is not necessarily something you'd want to experience it in person, at least not without some sort of protective rain gear.

Yogurt

Well. Thank god this one was just a fun-size. I was expecting something akin to the yogurtish coating that makes even raisins (nature's cookie and bagel ruiner) tasty. But what I got was very, very different. I'm not sure what exactly these were coated with, but 'not yogurt' just about sums it up.

They were sweet. Nastily, cloyingly, filling-damagingly sweet, kind of like the weird sweetness of white chocolate x1,000. And sort of off-tasting, like they were rotting somehow, despite having been teased into existence from the least organic substances the planet has to offer. All in all, I got no semblance to yogurt out of these, other than that they're both white and unpleasant. Fail.

Cafe Latte

I don't understand how we can not have these in the US. Not because they're particularly tasty, but because every other goddamn food here that can have coffee added, has.

These guys were pretty much exactly what you'd expect if Starbucks made crappy chocolate. A bland, watery milkish coating over nondescript little wafers. Very non-offensive. Not too coffee tasting, because we don't want to scare the kiddies. I predict it's only a matter of time on these things' American debut.

UPDATE!
Since I haven't been paying much attention to American candies lately, as they've been getting progressively dumber and dumber, I missed the Limited Edition Coffee flavor KitKats.

Unsurprisingly, THEY'RE BAD. They taste like the air in one of those coffee shops that middle aged women hang out in. Usually these places sell a lot of unbearably cute knickknacks and rubber stamps and shit of that nature.

Takagi

The main problem I have with buying weird Japanese candies is not that they are generally pretty bad (I like that), it's that I don't write down what I order, and when a big 'ol box of foreign candy shows up at my door a couple weeks later, I have long since forgotten what actual flavors these things are supposed to be. At any point in time I could biting into a squid 'n chicken foot creme, and I'd have no idea.

This one, at least, has the romanization of the flavor name written on it, although I'm not sure why that would be, considering. I'm not complaining, however. At least I can look this one up, or I could if I wasn't so lazy. From the picture on the front, I'm guessing some variety of persimmon / pomegranate type affair. The heart motif all over the outer and inner package made me a little nervous, because maybe animal heart flavor is a routine candy additive in Japan, I don't know.

But these actually turned out to be pretty ok. They were dark chocolate, of which I heartily approve, and some weird tangy flavor creme that you could hardly taste anyway. So if it was heart squeezings, at least it was from one of the tastier-hearted animals.

Spam Spread with Pineapple

2008-11-16T12:39:00.000-08:00

It looks like cat food, it smells like cat food, and it comes in one of those little cat food tins.

I would write this off as a labeling mix-up at the Fancy Feast factory, if not for the tiny pineapple chunks imbedded in it, which, frankly, did not help matters, and just made me wonder if there was a pineapple related accident over one of the mixing vats. Hopefully this accident created some sort of half cat half fruit supervillian. Possibly he could threaten to steal the world's supply of kosher dairy products, and the Jewish Hero Corps could save the day. Maybe.

Jewish Hero Corps Mac & Cheese

2008-11-16T10:13:00.000-08:00

This makes me feel really bad for Jewish kids. I mean, you're already down about the lack of cool holiday figures, the last thing you want to see is a set of the most embarassing superheroes in creation blasting across your pasta box.

The characters themselves seem to have been engineered for maximum stereotypicality, too, giving us such protectors as Menorah Man, Dreidelgirl, and David, the Star of David...man. Presumably the Forsaken Foreskin is bringing the Jewmobile around so they can do battle with the evil Dr. Surf n' Turf.

How they plan on beating him, however, I'm not quite sure. The menorah guy seems to have some sort of generic flame/blaster power, ok, fair enough, and Dreidel Girl can spin really fast, deflecting most attacks, but only from her boobs down. I would think that leaving her head wide open to attack is not the best way to rush into battle, but maybe she gets dizzy really easily and spends the whole attack barfing on the sidelines when she does the full body spin. As for the mighty Star of David, he has a shield and the dynamic punching fist pose, so I guess he's just an all-around kosher badass. Whatever. Even I can admit they make some sad, forced sort of sense.

But what the fuck are the three in the way back doing? The blue chick has 'SQ' on her shirt, and the only thing I can come up with for it is 'abbreviation for square.' I think the Jews have all their basic clip art shape needs pretty much sewn up in the whole star thing, though, so it must mean something else. For my money, it stands for 'Super Queer' 'cause for a girl, she's got a mighty serious case of man-face. It's no coincidence her wand bears more than a passing semblance to a french tickler.

Ditto for the dude right across from her and his rainbow belt. The thing on his chest looks like one of those floppy fabric frisbees that were briefly popular in the early 90's. And if there's anything less manly than a soft, non-dangerous frisbee, of all things, I can't think of it. So I'm going to say those two have some sort of GLBTmeASAP sort of love affair going on, which makes the MW girl either their slave, or the lonely unfuckable 'smart' character of the group. Her one true love is the study and progression of kosher cheese products.

As for the actual mac & cheese, eh. It was ok.

Coca-Cola Chocolate Flavor Rage

2008-11-14T20:33:00.001-08:00

I can understand if you're not familiar with this one, I don't think it ever made it past its test market of Midwestern towns with a population of <1000. The proverbial "they" tend to test things out on the prairie, where the denizens are unlikely to report any majorly hilarious failures to people who actually matter.

"No, I'm serious, it was chocolate flavoring, and you put it in your Coke! I saw it with my own eyes!"

"Sure you did Ed. Did the green men bring it? You sure they didn't anal probe any of your cows this time?

"You leave my cows' asses out of this! I'm tellin' the truth! Rip to rage!! Rip to rage!!"

Spotted Dick

2008-11-14T20:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know this isn't funny to anyone outside the US, but let's all just get together here be immature for a moment. I actually somehow missed this when I was in England, but fortunately the Cost Plus World Market is here and ready to rectify the oversight.

I admit the only reason I bought it was juvenile laughs, but amazingly, and as is usually not the case when I'm buying food for comedy purposes, this was really quite tasty. It turned out to be similar to a giant muffin. In a can. The can part took a little getting used to, since a large can-shaped muffin is not the most appetizing thing to sit down to, but all in all, enjoyable, *and* microwavable!

Sac Sac Orange

2008-11-14T20:27:00.001-08:00

I don't know which is better, the name Sac Sac, or the illustration of the orange totally blowing the aforementioned all over the can. I was a little afraid to open this because it came to me from Japan, and we all know about bukkake. Maybe orange juice is the newest permutation in ejaculation fetishry. God knows I'm not in on that particular grapevine.

All in all, the drink turned out not to be that scary, although after the Day Babies, I really don't want anything suspended in my beverages, natural components of the fruit or not.

Bubble Gum Soda

2008-11-14T20:22:00.000-08:00

The Hubba Bubba soda, of course, is from the 80's, and can therefore be excused as another wacky relic of a mentally damaged decade. Although I do think the diet option was a nice touch, if you're concerned about your figure, but just can't resist the gum-flavored refreshment of Hubba Bubba.

No, what worries me is the Shasta, which I picked up just this year, albeit at a Pamida, something else I thought disappeared in the 80's.

Shasta has appeared with this drink to fill a need which does not exist. Two, actually. The first, for pop that tastes exactly like bubble gum, which we've been over, and the second, tiny little cans. Why? Who do you know out there that simply cannot handle a full 16oz of pop? I'm seeing 7up and Coke doing this now too, and it worries me. Has there been a gigantic upswing in the midget population lately? Does Coke know something we don't? Are they trying to get on the midgets' good side before the revolution?

These are the things that worry me late at night. But in summary: bubble gum has no business coming in liquid form, and in this I also include fluoride flavors that you get at the dentist's. Everyone asked for the bubble gum one time, and then spent the next 20 minutes sorely regretting it. Gah.

Day Babies Grape Gel Drink

2008-11-14T20:20:00.001-08:00

I was already sold on this by the obvious Gundam Wing guy ripoff and his I-mean-business thumbs up, but imagine my delight to discover that this was no ordinary drink box, but in fact, a jelly drink. To the uninitiated, this may sound like a harmless feature. Perhaps the liquid is slightly Jell-Oish, or like a Squeeze Pop. How novel! How fun! you say to yourself.

Such is not the case. The actual texture of this beverage can only really be described as 'aborted fetus-ish.' This is much, much less appetizing than it sounds. To be fair, it did taste like grape, but who the hell cares, it feels like drinking fetuses. There is not a flavor in the world which can mitigate a feeling like that.

About Beverages

2008-11-14T20:17:00.000-08:00

Ah, beverages.

I LOVE beverages. They may be the one thing in my pointless meandering little existence that frankly makes it all worthwhile. Some people create things of great beauty and inspiration, some find themselves in helping others, I really really like Diet Dr. Pepper.

Konjac

2008-11-14T00:40:00.000-08:00

What's great about these is that they have already killed one small child, and will kill you next.

Actually, after eating a bag of them, I can actually see it. The things do kind of spread out in your mouth and try to sneak down your throat.

But much more important than that is that they are the exact texture and consistency of mucus. No kidding. Cheerful flavored mucus that comes in little heart shaped cups. Lovely!

Chocolate Velamints

2008-11-14T00:02:00.000-08:00

If you are a normal person, right now you're saying, 'Velamints? I thought they stopped making them around the time I cut my rattail off, and stopped dressing like the unholy offspring of a cocker spaniel and a barber's pole.

If you don't recall, before that punk Werther brought his caramels and slightly pedophilic commercials showed up on the scene, these were *the* old people mint. Proudly taking their place along side Skor bars , Reisens, and those unidentifiably flavored blue disks everyone avoided in the pick-a-mixes.

They're back these days, and while they are fairly tasty, the inner paper wrapper bears this disturbing legend. I can't take a mint out of the box without feeling vaguely molested. Really, 'fits perfectly in your mouth'? glide back again? I know I've seen those same phrases trying to sell me a dildo.

Brownulated Sugar

2008-11-13T23:55:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when you shop for food at the local wholesaler-reject store.

Although, it does make a sad sort of sense. Of course us poor people can't afford extravagances like brown sugar. So we have to get by with plain sugar that's been brownulated, a highly technical process that I'm guessing involves brown crayons and a cheese grater.

Do not use it to make tapioca.

Do not use it to make pink lemonade.

Conguitos

2008-11-13T22:46:00.001-08:00

I'm told they come in vanilla too, but I recommend the chocolate, as it really gives you more racism for your dollar. What I wonder is why this food hasn't yet been carried to its logical extention, that being to assign a flavor to every ethnic group on earth.

This would get tricky in the US, what with us all indiscriminately mingling and fucking and having our little neopolitan babies, but let's just call us whitey for flavor's sake. Is white chocolate too obvious? Or does its bland but indefinably cheap flavor and waxy consistency elegantly express what mere words cannot?

Does China get sole claim to Puppy-Flavored, or does it go to Mexico, because the Aztecs ate it first? And what breed do you go with? A light, sugary Poodle? Brandied St Bernard? Is it time to bury the hatchet and enjoy a nice Soy-braised Akita Inu?

All I know is, it's high time we're able to racially discriminate based on flavor.

Also: As if the candies themselves somehow aren't unbelievable enough, they actually come with a keychain of their mascot. I'm not sure where these are sold, but I'm going to go ahead and put a guess at 'that weird store with banjos and that one guy who's always wearing the Davy Crockett hat.'

in praise of bad food and worse beverages

2008-11-13T22:20:00.000-08:00

First, a word about me and food.

I have a deep-seated psychological terror of any food that was not a regular part of my diet by age six. And while, given the infinite nature of the human psyche, it may never be truly possible to uncover the deep-seated reason for my fears, if I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be 'My mom worked nights.'

And so, until the age of 14 or 15, my dad was responsible for the feeding of his only child. And while I'm sure he didn't want to totally destroy up the one shot he had at retiring early on his offspring's dime, he is at the core a guy, and as such, his philosophy towards mealtime was 'as long as no one comes down with scurvy, I'm doing my job.'

So I grew up on a diet of exclusively microwavable foods that consisted of no more than three ingredients total. With salt and pepper counting as one each.

Even now that I'm a mature, tax-paying, college educated adult, my diet consists of basically three groups: the Death Starch Foods (bread, pasta, giant dandruff-style mashed potato flakes, violently neon orange crackers, etc) the Freeze-Pop group, and Comedy Food, which is not, in fact, for eating.

And since I get such entertainment out of this last group, I've decided to share my experiences with you, the bored nerd trying to avoid work. It's the least I can do.