food I fear


Over the years, I have encountered food that is PURE EVIL. It chills the soul, it's so bad. Your tongue crawls into a corner of your mouth and shakes for days. Anyway...here are some of the..."Food(s) I Fear!"
Hummus

I was at Andy's birthday party, rockin' out. One of the night's entertainments was drink-mixing. I mixed myself a freakshow drink (non-alcoholic, because the devil-water makes you stupid), and topped it with a wedge of cheese on the glass rim. This made a bit of an impression on the other party-goers. Anyway, this guy whose name I think was Steve says, "Try my hummus! It's good!" Steve is a nice guy, but he unleashed a mountain of untruth, uttering those words. I tried the hummus on a cracker. My brain classified it as: mashed potatoe-like substance, and pure B.O. funk (B.O. stands for body odor, in case some poor soul is trying to muddle through this with an online translator...hmmm...(heheh)...shambling bugs viewed the wheelbarrow with lust). Anyway, it was terrible. Steve said that if I could handle a drink with a cheese garnish, I should be able to handle hummus. It makes sense in theory, but in practice, no. Later in the night, while playing a card game that involved giving and taking orders, I had to eat more of the wretched stuff. Yurk.
Insanity Sauce

This stuff is dangerous. It will cause you to appear insane. Mark found it in his parent's cupboards. It has a goofy-looking label, and some sort of warning. Rod was the first to try it...at first, it did nothing, lulling him into a false sense of security. Then...WHAMMO!...Rod was in a world of hurt. He lived on Hurt-World for about twenty minutes, constantly bathing his tongue in cool water.
Vegemite and Promite

Thanks to the generosity of Taetia Zysshe (a genuine Australian!), I am now the proud owner two jars...one is Vegemite, the other is Promite. I knew Vegemite only by reputation...we'd never had the pleasure of meeting. Remembering my limburger experience, I opened the Vegemite outside. Fooled by the "vege" prefix, I thought it would be green, and rather like aged spinach jelly. Nope. It looks like shoe polish, and it smells like rancid...oh, so utterly rancid peanut butter. I decided not to taste it...yet. Then I opened the Promite (which seems to be a Vegemite knockoff, and claims to be "delicious"...the Vegemite container says nothing about how it tastes)...it smelled like the Vegemite, but it had a mean molasses funk. It triggered some sort of primitive defense mechanism in Mark...he took a whiff and immediately started batting the air, apparently trying to "kill the bad thing" hovering in the air around him. He then complained that the smell was stuck on his olfactory nerves, and expressed a desire to have an immediate olfactorectomy. I don't know if I'll ever work up the courage to...(shudder)...eat some of this stuff.
Edensoy (Vanilla flavor)

One day, I saw a co-worker drinking one of those box-drink things. It was Edensoy. It's a soybean-based, milk-like drink. Well, my friends and I got some, and we all tried it. It's grundy stuff...it's kind of like the milk left after a bowl of sweetened cereal, but much more watery and bland. It also has a very...um...distinctive aftertaste. Also, the box reminded us of a feminine hygiene product. Oh, and my co-worker said the original flavor tastes like a potato. We took pictures of our little taste-test.
Limburger Cheese

Folks...I could write a book about this one. Everyone knows it's supposed to smell bad...but how many people have actually had the...experience? Andy, Rod, and I are three new initiates in the Limburger Awe and Horror Club. This is foul, foul, stuff. I knew the bacteria used to make it is also commonly found between human toes. Didn't phaze me. I knew it wouldn't smell great. Not a problem. We opened it (just the first airtight plastic seal...the first of 4 seals!)...and immediately decided it was nasty. It smells like equal parts of: fecal matter, rotten flesh, bile, and toe grunge. Oh, and then I tried a bit of it (it was Andy's birthday...I owed him some entertainment)...it actually wasn't so bad, as long as I didn't breath...but when it hit the back of my throat, the WAVE OF NASTY hit me hard. After some frantic spitting I raced into the house and gargled with Scope (which did a very admirable job of killing the taste). I can't adequately explain to you how horribly foul this stuff is...so feel free to try it yourself! Try to do it outside though...Heaven help you if some of that filthy cheese gets loose in your house!

Here's a little illustration of the event...I think I made it with MS Paint.

Applebee's Fresh Lemonade

Recipe: Obtain 1 container of lemonade frozen concentrate. Add two teaspons of water. Stir. Serve to customer, and laugh your head off as he or she doubles over and gropes for water.
Algae Strips

It looks kind of like thickish green cellophane. It's a strip of compressed, dried algae. What does it taste like? Well, if you've ever tasted the contents of a vitamin E capsule, imagine something about 10x as strong and a lot less pleasant-tasting. I'm sure it's horribly good for me...but I'd rather eat paper than this "food."
Castle Crest Snack Crackers

This is more like a "Food I'm Nervous About"...these crackers (Cheddar Cheese, Chicken, Ranch, and Sour Cream & Chives) are a buck a piece, are about the size of a smallish cereal box, and taste just fine. They're too cheap to be safe and yummy...they probably grind up alley-cats for filler or something.
Western Tater Chip Dip

I'll own my mistake here...I talked my friends into buying this stuff for one of our get-togethers. I was tired of getting the same sour-cream and onion stuff...I told them that it might be good. I was wrong...very very wrong. It was like...well, take french fries, a hot-dog, and lots of ketchup, put it all in a blender and hit puree. Pour into bowl, scoop some onto a chip, take a wiff, and throw it away. It's putrid. Although, Mark pointed out that it wouldn't be too bad on a hamburger. It certainly doesn't belong on a chip.
Pesto

This is another SFC cafeteria specimen. Ok. Here's how I imagine the stuff is made: take spinach, puree it, and let it sit out in the sun for a few days. That's pesto. It's got a horrid, rotting vegetation stench that follows you around like a pet. It's nasty, nasty stuff. I think drowning in it would be on my "Top Ten Worst Ways to Die" list. (note: my stepmom pointed out that pesto is not spinach. Well, whatever it is, it's close enough to spinach that you wouldn't notice the difference.)
Squid in Cayenne Juice

That isn't the exact name, but close enough. One night, as a few buddies and I searched for movie-watching food, I decided I didn't want the same old junk. We went to the "ethnic" section of Meijer (they sure have their share of frightful food) and started looking around. We found Squid in Cayenne Juice. I bought it, thinking it might be a neat little gourmet sort of thing to put on chips. Back in the dorm, when I pulled the ring on the tin to open it, it broke off. I (minor idiot) squeezed the top to break the seal. It ruptured a bit, and a HORRIFIC odor rolled out. It smelled like rotten fish, but somehow worse. Then, Mr. Brains decided to really open it. He went into the kitchen, and attacked it with some utensil until it exploded. We tortured each other with it for a while before I threw it away.
Meijer Cherry Cola

Any two-liter that costs 50 cents has got to be bad...Meijer Cherry Cola is a great example. It's got sugar, carbonated water, coloring, preservatives, and RAW, UNADULTERATED HUGE AMOUNTS OF CHERRY EXTRACT!!! It's also got so much (or perhaps just extremely cheap) coloring that it stains cups. I shudder to think what it does to one's insides. Eric Bockelman introduced me to this product. He will pay. (Additional Note: After further testing of the Meijer pop line, I've concluded that it's all really pretty awful. Surprise.) Update My sources say that Meijer has changed the Cherry Cola Formula. Now it's a sort of normal cola (Caramel Brown!) color. I guess it doesn't stain your guts anymore. I'm still afraid. Once bitten, twice scared, you know.
Potted Meat Food Product

Ingredients: Chicken, Beef Tripe, Partially Defatted Cooked Beef Fatty Tissue,Water, Salt. 2% or less: Natural Flavorings, Dried Garlic, Vinegar, Dextrose,Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrate. Ok...first of all, beef tripe is cow intestines. Second, how do you defat fatty tissue? By the way, a tin of this was given to me for my birthday by Mark Plozay. It makes a nice paperweight.
SFC Cafeteria Caviar

Yep. Caviar. In our cafeteria. I tried it. It was horrible. It was like vinegar, concentrated fish oil, and borax. I brushed my teeth twice, and still had the taste in my mouth when I went to sleep that night. I'm not sure if it was a good representation of caviar, but I'll have to be heavily coerced to try it again.
Pork Brains with Milk Gravy

Wow...this is probably the worst so far. This is another Mark Plozay discovery. He's sort of taken it as a challenge to find the most disgusting food in a tin. Whenever he finds something truly awful, he buys a few and gives them to people he thinks deserve them. Jerk. Anyway...pork brains. When shaken, the contents make an absolutely revolting glurpy noise. This is the only food so far that actually makes me nauseous if I think about it too long...hats off to you, Mark.
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