"Dear Food Thoughtz:" Gothic Diets

Dear Food Thoughtz,

I am quickly and steadily approaching a mid-life crisis. So I was looking at my life, contemplating whether there was anyhting I should have done otherwise or any things I feel like I have missed out on. After having thought about it carefully, while listening to my favourite Sisters of Mercy album, I have concluded that I really regret that I never had a "goth" period in my life. Whereas my other terrible life-decision cannot be remedied, I feel like I can still become a goth (even though my wife thinks I am too old for it). Anyways, I was wondering whether you have any food suggestions for the gothic lifestyle? Should I eat at all? Should I become a vampire? Should I just lurk around Hungarian pig slaughters? All suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Trentagenarian Trent (Reznor)

Dear TT(R),

First of all, your wife is right: you are too old for it. There is no age in which you are not already too old to go through a goth period.

As for the food, is it weird if I recommend pomegranate seeds? They look kind of gruesome and bloody with the benefit of only being one of those things. I guess if you were really going to commit to a gothic lifestyle, maybe I would recommend drinking a bit of blood. I don't know the first things about goths or what they do with themselves or whether they have any interest in blood at all, but as someone who suffered from routine bloody noses as a child, I can say with confidence that blood doesn't taste all that bad. I can't imagine why I would ever try the blood of another person or animal, but when you accidentally swallow some of it or when your nose is bleeding so furiously and you can't get to a kleenex and all you can do is tilt your head back and let it dribble down your throat... yeah, it's not all that bad.

Still. My recommendation is pomegranate seeds.

I don't know what goth or gothic means, so I just put this pomegranate
inside of a gothic hallway.

The Burger

It’s January, 2009. I’ve arrived in Nashville after eating my entire box of Purdy’s hedgehog chocolates and half of the box intended for my sister (and then demanding that she share the remaining chocolates with me). Days later we were on our way to Atlanta, and during the drive I was haunted by a single thought: that I really, really wanted to eat a burger. Before this time, I don’t think I had ever actually eaten a proper burger. I had definitely just had a plain beef patty, possibly with melted cheese, but I don’t think I had ever had it inside of a bun. And so we did it. We found a burger place in the Little Five Points neighbourhood, and to this day, it remains the best burger I have ever tasted.

Here it is: the infamous Atlanta burger. The fries weren't much to look at, but goddamn was that ever a good burger.

After that first Atlanta burger, I was hooked. Six years later, I just can’t stop eating burgers. I eat them every chance I get and I eat them everywhere. I’ve eaten them all across Canada. I’ve eaten them in Spokane and, more importantly Colville.* I’ve eaten them throughout Europe (usually a pretty disappointing experience) and in various airports. I just got home from eating a burger for dinner, and all I could think about afterwards is when and where I would eat my next burger. In short, burgers are always my number one go-to choice in any restaurant. It should go without saying that I always get my burgers without any dressing: just a plain patty with cheddar cheese and the bun. Sometimes I wonder if the chef gets annoyed with my order. They probably do, but I always hope that they don't because I am never asking for weird additional items, just that most of the ingredients be left off the burger. At the end of the day I guess I don't care all that much about how the cook feels because going out to eat is all about being selfish and treating yourself, and not caring about the people who are catering to your whims.

I've been eating at Hero Burger a lot this year, mostly because it's so convenient, but also because it's
decent enough. My only complaint with Hero Burger, and the other burger chains like it (of which 5 Guys is
hands-down the best option) is that they're way too expensive for what you actually get. For the same price, you
can almost always find a much better burger, with the added bonus of better seating and service.

I was recently asked why it is I’m okay with eating burgers, but not sandwiches. After all, aren’t they the same thing? Doesn’t a burger meet the most basic requirements of being a sandwich? I guess they do, if your definition of “sandwich” is as basic and simplistic as just an item placed between two bread-objects. In that sense, sure, a burger is just a sandwich. But in that case, should it follow that just because I love spaghetti bolognese I should like fettuccine alfredo? They are both, when it comes down to it, just pasta and sauce. Does it make sense that because I like apple pie, I should necessarily also eat some gross meat pie? Don’t they meet the same basic requirements? I mean, they’re both pies. They’re both composed of some filling inside of a closed pastry.

Maybe these seem like unfair comparisons. “Pasta and sauce” isn’t really a category of food in the same way that sandwiches are, and there’s of course a marked difference between a sweet dessert pie and a disgusting savoury pie (although I would also like to note that I don’t really like very many other sweet pies, with the exception of strawberry-rhubarb, and even then, I would always go with an apple pie if the option is available to me). Another issue is that I have already voiced a strong opposition to sandwiches, but given my love for and devotion to burgers, maybe I ought to reconsider this. But should I? No. That would be ridiculous. You would have to be a mad man to consider a burger a sandwich just because its mode of delivery is a bread product.

This year in Toronto has been an especially good burger year for me, but I have yet to find a burger in this city that even comes close to that original Atlanta burger. The second best burger I've ever had was in Montreal, at Burger Ville (actually Burger de Ville), which is a weird chain restaurant in Quebec that serves truly delicious and truly affordable burgers. The only downside is that the interior is not very nice, and it's not a place where you would like to sit and truly savour your burger. There are other places in Montreal that are great, but their burgers aren't quite as good. I especially like Patati Patata, which serves mini burgers (I always get two and a basket of fries). In a lot of ways the burgers aren't actually that good. They're thin and kind of dry and there's too much of a bun-to-burger ratio (to be fair, this might be fixed with more fixings), but overall it's a great little restaurant with adequate burgers.

Here's me eating the first of two baby burgers at Patati
Patata in Montreal. This picture was taken during
my sister's visit. For some reason this was a
really ugly time for me. Not, like, emotionally trying. I
just looked really ugly that week for some reason.

There's honestly not a whole lot I have to say about burgers. In a lot of ways, they're the perfect food: they're fast, they're portable, they're delicious, and they're filling. But it should be mentioned that burger quality is never assured. I have eaten some terrible burgers in my life. As a general rule, I hate seeing anything in the burger other than plain ground beef (such as chopped onions or seasoning), even if I like additional flavours (such as chopped onions or seasoning). I don't like to see any red meat. One time I ate a treacherously undercooked burger and it was traumatizing. But when they're good, they're great.

Here are some different burgers I have eaten.

Here are more burgers that I have eaten.

*Important because as everyone should know, even though Rancho Chico’s is also in Spokane, it is generally considered by all to be the only place to eat in Colville, whereas Spokane also has The Onion, which has pretty decent burgers. So imagine my surprise when Rancho Chico’s in Colville was actually closed on Independence Day and we were forced to go to that weird … what is it? Ronnie D’s? Sandy’s? That weird drive-in fast-food place in Colville. It was great! It was so American!

A burg is enough when my hunger needs sating

And my tum has no voice but the voice of complaining
So many tastes for my tongue to discover
Ground beef, melted cheese--marinating thereunder 
Some burgers I've tasted, some still a wonder
Some were delicious, others better pass'd over
Yet my hands shall not tremble, my bite shall not falter,
My hunger shall not weary, my tastes shall not alter
Those buns and these lips of the loved and the lover.

Self-Contained Shell Lasagnas

If I know anything about Robert Burns—beyond the fact that he inexplicably has his own day—it’s that he once wrote a poem with the line “best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley”, but as neither mouse nor man, my best laid schemes almost always stay on track. Except this one time when I tried to make self-contained lasagnas in large shell pasta. It was a disaster. A delicious, terrible, ugly disaster.

Okay, but let me just give you an overview of my thought process here: I love spaghetti bolognese, and I like lasagna fair enough, but how amazing would it be if everything that I loved about these two dishes was contained in a single, large shell (I mean, obviously not a single shell; of course I ate about ten of them). Right? Like, if I cooked a bunch of large shell pastas, and then lined the interior with cheese (probably cheddar, but parmesan or mozzarella would work fine as well), and then filled the rest of the shell with bolognese sauce, and then grated more cheese on top of all the shells and then baked them. Right?! Has anything ever sounded better to anyone?

So finally, when I was in Grand Forks for reading break last year, I did it. And … it didn’t really work out the way I thought it would. First of all, I forgot the interior cheese lining, which was a huge mistake because the end product didn’t have nearly enough cheese. But it was also a lot harder and a lot messier to stuff the shells than I thought it would be. And in the end it just looked terrible. It was so disgusting. It looked like a fake organ display in a low-budget haunted house. But I ate it anyway, and they were pretty good. Maybe they weren’t as good as I was anticipating, but still a pretty solid meal.

Right? Look at how terrible this looks. Who could ever
want to eat this? But eat it I did.

I made the same dish again this summer and ate so much of it that I couldn’t move for a full twenty-four hours. This time I remembered to line the shells with cheese. It was still really messy, and the dish didn’t come out of the oven looking particularly appetizing, but yeah, I would say it was a pretty good meal. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily worth the effort, because it’s certainly not significantly better than just regular pasta topped with cheese, and in fact I’m not sure if it’s better at all. But anyway, I still have half a box of large shell pasta which have virtually no other application, so I guess I am just going to have to make this again.

The best-laid schemes o' shells an meat

So oft are destroyed

An'lea'e us nought but grief an' defeat

For want of promis'd joy!

Armadillo Potatoes

This afternoon I read an article that someone posted on facebook about how you're eating food wrong. There was a picture of this delicious potato that looked like an armadillo. I was intrigued and needed to try it. I went out and bought potatoes. I tried it. And you know what? I'm not doing it wrong. I have been eating potatoes correctly my entire life. These armadillo potatoes weren't that great.

They ended up looking pretty good though, right?

Basically I just sliced them up as best I could while ensuring that each slice was still connected to the body of the potato at the bottom. Then I brushed them with olive oil because I got a free pastry brush on the street about a month ago. Then I sprinkled kosher salt on them (admittedly too much). And then I popped them into the oven for what felt like eternity, but was realistically more like an hour and a half, which is still way too much time to spend preparing a potato.

I think one of the reasons I didn't really like these potatoes (but don't get me wrong, I obviously still did really like them; they just weren't as good as pan-fried potatoes) is because I'm not all that crazy about olive oil. These potatoes might have been much better if I painted them with butter instead. I don't know. In the end they kind of just tasted like exactly what they are: potatoes painted with olive oil.

They also seriously took way too long.

Tonight I fashioned my potatoes like armadillos

Nothing relevant rhymes with "armadillos."

NB: I have labeled these potatoes as "Food I Have Tried But Would Not Try Again." Obviously I have so many more potatoes ahead of me in this life time. They just probably won't be these armadillo potatoes.

Borscht

Look. I don't need you to tell me that there is no discernible structure of reason or meaning underlying my food choices. I know that already: I am a rogue palate. But early on in my life I constructed some general guidelines that served as justification for certain decisions regarding what I would or would not eat. At the broadest level, these include rules like "no mixed food" and "individuals servings of one food cannot come into contact with other individual servings of another food." There are multiple and obvious exceptions to these very general rules: I love spaghetti bolognese, I love hamburgers, I'm generally okay with baked goods which are typically, by nature, a mix of various ingredients. But perhaps the most surprising and flagrant exception to these rules is my love for and devotion to borscht.

Borscht from the USCC. Thank you, graduating class of whatever.

Before we get started, a general note of caution to all the Ukrainians out there: what you refer to as borscht is not borscht. It is two different colours of puke layered on top of each other. When I say borscht, what I am referring to is Grand Forks Doukhobour borscht and nothing else. I also have no patience for that watery vegetable substance that I believe some non-Doukhobour Russian peasants incorrectly classify as borscht.

Grand Forks borscht is made up of 100% cream, 100% cabbage, and about 30% of other vegetables, like potato and carrots, equaling 230% of all of the deliciousness in the entire world. Sometimes there is also dill. Given the makeup of this soup, there is 0% reason for me to like it. I hate cabbage and I don't think that dairy has any place in a soup. But for whatever reason, it just works. I can't figure out if it's because I started eating it at an age before I began to develop a capacity for reason, or if it's just because it's that good. Probably a little from column A and mostly from column B.

There has always been a tradition in Grand Forks of arguments amongst Doukhobours about whose baba makes the best borscht. As someone with no Doukhobour ancestry, I can say with objective and indifferent certainty that the USCC ladies make, hands down, the best borscht in Grand Forks--no exceptions. That borscht is delicious. This is not to say that there aren't other perfectly acceptable borscht recipes floating around Grand Forks. There are. Of course there are. The Grand Forks Hotel used to throw together a decent borscht, there's always some nice looking borscht for sale at the Farmers Market, Megan makes delicious borscht, and every once in a while there will be a great (both in volume and quality) jar of borscht in my mum's fridge, courtesy of one of her friends. All that aside, none of these will ever compare with the borscht on offer at the few and far between borscht feeds at the USCC. I have long maintained that the only reason Grand Forks Secondary School should continue to exist is because inevitably the grad class of whatever year will organize a borscht feed, and hopefully it will coincide with my visit home.

Here's a picture of some borscht that I
discovered in our fridge at home. A
very welcome and pleasant surprise.

It would be unfortunate to finish this post without mentioning the delicious, thick, pillowy Doukhobour bread that accompanies borscht. That bread is the best. It is so good. It's so much better when slathered with about an inch of butter that then melts into the borscht when you dip it in. Pro Tip: the only way to eat borscht is to sop up all the liquid with two slices of break from the outset, and then finish up the stew-like, cabbage-heavy remainders.

There is nothing in this world that I love more 

Than the borscht prepared by an old Doukhobour. 

Frankenberry Cereal

I've been lusting after a box of Frankenberry cereal ever since I can remember. There were always advertisements for it on American TV channels, but as far as I could tell, the cereal was either never sold in Canada or my mum refused to buy it for me (which seems somewhat unlikely, considering the amount of Lucky Charms I used to eat).

But tonight all of my wildest dreams came true and I bought a box of Frankenberry cereal that was on-sale at Metro. This, along with Count Chocula (another cereal that seemed to only be available to American audiences, but one that admittedly never appealed to me in the same way as Frankenberry), are back for a limited time, presumably coinciding with Halloween. These were part of a monster-themed collection of breakfast cereals produced by General Mills in the 1970s.  Others in the series include Boo-Berry and Fruity Yummy Mummy, both of which I would really like to try, but which I think have been discontinued even though they were briefly revived in 2013.

You can see here that there are about 3 marshmallows
to a bowl of cereal. Pathetic, but also kind of welcome
because the marshmallows are not very good.

 Despite what any sane-minded individual would think approaching this cereal, Frankberries are actually delicious. They taste really similar to Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries (also, as far as I know, not available in Canada, but one of my favourites). There are marshmallow bits in there, but I can't figure out why because the cereal-to-marshmallow ratio is terrible.

I guess if this cereal was readily available all of the time, I probably wouldn't eat it--at least not very often. It's good, but it's not as good as Lucky Charms or even Honeycomb or Golden Grahams. It's still a pretty good children's cereal. I like how sweet it is because even though it's good, it's too sweet to have more than one bowl at a time, which is always the problem I have with Lucky Charms. I'm really glad I went for it tonight though, because wanting to try this cereal is something that has been bothering me since I was about four years old, and now I can finally put that to rest.

Even though Count Chocula doesn't really appeal to me (I've never been too crazy about chocolatey cereals, but would definitely still eat them if provided for free), I think I will probably pick up a box if it becomes available.

So, that's it. That's my experience of eating Frankenberry cereal. It was a really solid cereal experience.

Oh. It might also be worth mentioning that when Frankenberry first hit store shelves in 1972, it contained a kind of pink dye that couldn't be broken down by a human body, so it turned poos pink. (Note: the "Embarrassing After Effects" tag refers to this).

Also, in all seriousness, has anyone ever completed any of the puzzles/games on the back of cereal boxes by actually filling in the blanks with pen? Because I never did. I always completed the mazes or matching puzzles, but I never actually wrote on the box. I wondered about this again because of the activity on the back of the Frankenberry box, which, let me just say, is a pretty lame activity for a box of cereal that is only released once a year.

As a child, the cereals I dreamed of were always American

The Canadian counterparts paled by comparison.

Several years later, my dream has come true:

I have an entire box of Frankenberry to munch through!

Froot Loops

Last night I felt really sick. M and I went out to eat at this new All-Food-$5 restaurant that has just opened up in Toronto (a Vancouver import). This is the third time I've eaten there and the second time I've had a mysterious sickness not long after. I felt nauseous and feverish and for some reason I knew--I just knew--that the only thing that would make me feel better was Lucky Charms. Unfortunately the near-by convenience store only sells Froot Loops, so I got those instead.

Froot Loops have never been my favourite cereal. I liked Lucky Charms, Golden Grahams, and Honeycomb. But for whatever reason, every once in a while, I really want to have Froot Loops. And they did make me feel better last night when I was feeling so ill, but then they made me feel really gross this morning when I tried them with milk for the first time. I have had such good fortune with cereal and milk lately, and I thought Froot Loops would be the same. But it wasn't. It was so sweet. It was too much. It was awful. I hated it.

I still kind of like Froot Loops on their own, I guess because they're not marinating in sugar-milk, but I don't think they'll ever be in my Top 5 Favourite Cereals. I will say that even though they were way too sweet with milk, one of the best feelings is finding a Froot Loop that is entirely crusted over with sugar. You can find sugar-crusted Honeycombs too, but a Froot Loop is so good that way.

I guess I don't have anything else to say about Froot Loops. I kind of regret getting that whole box now, but I think I will enjoy them over the next couple of days today.

Of all the sugary cereals out there to eat

Froot Loops is pretty far down on my list

Even for me they're much too sweet 

But I have a whole box so I guess I'll persist

"Dear Food Thoughtz:" Oily Italian Bodies

Dear Food Thoughtz,

I understand that the Romans used to use olive oil in lieu of soap because they had not yet discovered the latter. Thinking of this does not give me a very good feeling. How does it make you feel? Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Not-feeling-so-clean

Dear Not-Feeling-So-Clean,

Oh boy. I bet you now regret not writing “…because they had not yet discovered the lather” – am I right!?

Anyway, thank you for your interesting albeit somewhat irrelevant query. The Romans did in fact wash themselves with olive oil. At first I thought this was disgusting because I am opposed to any type of edible object coming into contact with any part of the human body that isn’t the mouth. And then I thought that it was ridiculous the Romans were advanced in so many ways (especially in the areas of day beds and gruesome entertainment, and likely a combination of the two) but didn’t have access to soap and instead had to rely on olive oil. And then I wondered why they didn’t have access to soap because they were all over the place, so why didn’t they just pillage it from some Celts (or Babylonians?)? And then I lost all sympathy for the Romans because of course that Empire failed—who could ever afford to bathe exclusively in olive oil? It is so expensive? I can’t imagine being in charge of the Roman budget; it must have been so stressful.

But then I actually bothered myself to find out a) what soap is and b) how the Romans actually washed themselves with olive oil, and now I’m kind of on board with it. First of all, soap is just animal fat mixed with burnt things or something. And secondly, they weren’t just, like, rolling around in a pit of oil and hoping it would clean them. They would lather it on their bodies and then a slave, presumably, would scrape it off of them. Which kind of sounds great—especially the part about the slave. But, right? Don’t you think it would be nice to scrape oil off of your body? Don’t you think that sounds like a great way to clean yourself? So now I’m confused about how I feel about it. I guess I think it’s fine. I’m not sure if I will try it any time soon, but if you were looking for my blessing to pour extra virgin all over yourself and scrape it off, you had it like five years ago. I know you’re somewhere in China right now, but there have been a lot of good olive oil sales here the past few weeks.

But since we’re on the topic of Romans: I have long been fascinated by the concept of lounging on a day bed while someone drapes a clump of grapes into my mouth. Have you ever tried this? It’s not actually very relaxing, it’s certainly not convenient, and frankly, I think it might be a choking hazard. Not recommended.

The Romans also had a reusable communal poo-sponge, so make of that what you will.

"Dear Food Thoughtz:" Melona Madness

Dear Food Thoughtz,

Have you ever tried these delicious ice cream pops called Melona bars? They come in Melon, Mango, Banana, and Strawberry flavours. They can be found in most grocery stores, but I buy mine in a discount store called No Frills, and can sometimes get them for as cheap as $3.50 a box (they are about twice as much in other grocery stores). This is where my problem comes in. Because there are 8 bars in a pack, I see it as such an extremely good deal, and I feel like such a clever shopper I end up buying multiple boxes at a time, thinking that I will share them with my roommate and my bf, and that I will eat them casually over the course of the summer. This never seems to happen since I end up stuffing my face with them because I find them so absolutely pleasing.

I want to know if you have tried this treat in any of the different flavours, or if you will consider trying them?

If you are not into them, please tell me why so that I can hopefully learn how to see things your way and stop. I also really want to know what advice you could give to someone who just cannot behave around their favorite food....It is so very shame-making.

Thank-you very much,

Yours gratefully,

Melona Maniac

 

Please note: In the picture the box is quite torn. That is because I could not control myself from tearing it open in anticipation. You can see the problem is quite serious.

 Dear Melona Maniac,

Thank you for such an interesting query. I apologize for the lateness of my reply, but I have a good excuse: yesterday after work I went out to Dufferin Mall where I know there to be a No Frills grocery story. There is also a Gap Factory Outlet Store, but there were no good deals there yesterday. I searched high and low for these Melona ice cream pops in both No Frills and then in WalMart, but to no avail. The packaging does not look familiar to me at all, so I suspect that, like most good things, they are not available in Ontario. I was hoping to try several boxes myself to write a more informed response to your question, but unfortunately I will just have to make a bunch of unfounded assumptions. 

To quickly answer your questions (which should have already been answered by that introductory paragraph): no I have not tried them, but yes I would consider trying them—although not the banana or melon flavours because I think that’s disgusting. I like bananas, but I hate when anything is flavoured like a banana because … obviously. It’s a terrible artificial flavour. And, honestly, the natural flavour of a banana isn’t actually good enough to try and replicate artificially. I would never try the melon flavour because I hate melons and think they’re repulsive. Although I must say that I find it surprising that the Melona melon flavour, based on your attached photo, appears to be honeydew, which is strange because I always assume a company would go for watermelon flavour if they’re going to feature any melon flavour at all. Or a melon blend. The honeydew flavour doesn’t appeal to me any more than a watermelon—quite a bit less, actually—but still, just an interesting detail to note. I would like to try the strawberry and mango flavours, but again, to be honest, these aren’t really my favourite flavours for an ice treat. If anything is going to be berry-flavoured, I typically prefer for it to be a berry-burstmashup featuring the four most prominent berries (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry, obviously). As I mentioned in my first-ever Food Thoughtz post, while I don’t like mangoes as fruits, I really do like mango flavouring, which in and of itself is enough to justify the existence of mangoes.

I’m not sure I will be able to offer you any practical advice on how to stop gorging yourself on Melonas, although from the sounds of it you have taken matters into your own hands and tried to substitute them with a ridiculous apple cream pie or something. Without the cream part, this would be a great solution. Apple pies are delicious. Anyway. Whenever I have faced a similar problem and just can’t stop eating something—even after I promise myself that I will ration it like a reasonable human being—it usually just goes away after a fairly short period of time. Earlier this year I went through a phase where I couldn’t stop eating Lucky Charms cereal. I had just discovered that they’re even better with milk, and I was going through a box every day or two. It was horrific. And then I just stopped. And now I don’t let myself buy Lucky Charms anymore. 

I know this isn’t helpful advice, but I think you’ve already taken a very important firs t step by writing in: admitting you have a problem is the best thing you can do. You have also already admitted to yourself that you don’t buy these ice cream pops in bulk with the actual intention of sharing them with friends or ingesting them slowly over the summer, which is something you need to keep in mind the next time you’re tempted to buy these. It seems to me you have three options: you could go the AA route and try to cut this cancer out of your life all together; you could go the Dutch route and try to re-program yourself to consume responsibly; or you could do what I would do, which is to stop buying them regularly, but allow yourself one day a month when you can buy a box and eat them in one sitting. Eight popsicles per months is probably fairly normal, and I can see no reason why you shouldn’t eat all eight of them in the space of 20minutes rather than dragging it out over the course of an entire month.

I’ll be honest: it’s not going to be easy. But if you are serious about getting a grip and taking control of your life, then you don’t have much of a choice. Or you could just move to Ontario where there are exactly zero good things to tempt you because this province is the absolute worst.

Crème Fraîche

I really need someone to tell me whether or not crème fraîche
is good enough for me to crawl inside of. Because so far,
everything is pointing to yes, and I really want to clamber into a
large bowl of it and simultaneously swim and eat through it.
Please tell me if this is a reasonable reaction to what
seems to be a delicious food.

Readers! Alert! Can someone please tell me what crème fraîche is and whether or not I need it in my life? Because it sounds like I do. It sounds like it’s a thicker version of whipped cream, like sour cream but with less sour. Is it like a better form of Cool Whip? Is this what Cool Whip is based on? Wikipedia tells me that the EU regulates the ingredients of crème fraîche so that it can only be cream and bacterial culture. I love thinking about this branch of the EU. Do you think that this is what France’s role is in the EU? Regulating food ingredients? Because aside from rampant striking, strict food regulation seems to be France’s primary contribution to the world.

But I am serious about crème fraîche. I think this might be something for me. I think I might like to have it with fresh strawberries and maybe a sprinkling of sugar. Is this how it is eaten? Maybe with fresh or canned peaches? Is there something I'm missing? Why is this not whipped cream? Is crème fraîche to cream what yogurt is to milk? Because if so, count me in. That sounds delicious. But I am also afraid of what it might turn out to be. I am afraid it might be too much like sour cream or too... I don't know... French? Because French food can be really tricky. One minute you think it's all delicious pastries and sweets, like pain au chocolat or some delicious fruit-tart, but then you might be cruelly reminded of that gross frozen pea salad made with mayonnaise.

To err on the side of caution, I have labelled this post as "Food I Have Tried But Would Not Try Again," "Food I Will Eat," and "Food I Won't Eat," because at this point it could belong to any one of these three categories. I might have asked for someone to mail me a jar of crème fraîche, but with Canada Post's ludicrous new shipping rates, it would be an unfair financial burden to place on any of my valued readers. If I ever do try this potentially delicious/potentially disgusting new food, I will update the labels accordingly. I might even revamp this post so that it is somewhat relevant.

France fails in many ways--

like in their incessant will to strike--

But when it comes to what to pair with fraises, 

Sometimes even I feel like

I need to re-write my menu afresh

And introduce this mysterious crème fraîche

Lucky Charms

I have always loved Lucky Charms cereal — presumably just like every other child always has because it’s not even cereal, just marshmallows and sugar-coated crunchy-pieces that pay lip-service to the idea of “cereal.” When I would have a bowl of Lucky Charms, I would spend twenty minutes painstakingly picking out and eating the cereal bits until I was left with a bowl of marshmallows. The appeal of eating the marshmallows on their own has always been that the marshmallows are firm in their structure, but offer no resistance when you bite into them. There has always been a bit of a thrill in biting a marshmallow and half, and then examining its cross-section. Sometimes I would put a marshmallow—usually a red balloon, because they were my favourite—in my mouth and suck on it until it disintegrated. It’s a different experience than letting chocolate or a popsicle melt in your mouth because you can actually feel individual bits of sugar coming loose from the balloon until nothing is left. These two approaches to eating the marshmallows is contingent on their dryness.

Here's a screenshot of a picture I uploaded to Instagram of the first bowl of Lucky Charms that I ate after buying the
box, including a caption lambasting all of the fools who have eaten Lucky Charms with milk.

Here's a picture of what's left after
picking out the cereal bits.

One time, I think in the summer of 2006, I spent an entire day eating all of the cereal bits so that I could make a ball of all of the marshmallows in a single box of Lucky Charms and bite into it like an apple. It once occurred to me that I should just pick out the marshmallows and throw out the rest, but I realized that one of the best parts is the delayed satisfaction of eating all of those marshmallows all at once. This method of eating Lucky Charms taught me that if you work hard for something, the payoff will be that much sweeter than if you just go straight for the reward. For the record, I have not carried this life philosophy over to any other aspect of my life.

I typically always ate cold cereal dry. Rice Krispies is probably the only cold cereal that I consistently ate with milk (always with sliced up banana and a bit of sugar), and to this day, I have never had Cheerios, Golden Grahams, or Honeycomb cereal in milk. The thought of cereal and milk never disgusted me, but I was always certain that it would take away some crucial element from the cereal. I thought of it as a practice that was widely accepted, but never closely examined. I have always thought that cereal is best when it’s crunchy and that its crunchiness was central to its very identity. While I had often entertained the idea of eating my cereal in milk, I never did because I have always been a firm believer in sticking with what you know and what you know you like. Even if something turns out to be not bad, why waste that one experience when you know for sure that it could be as good as it has always been? For the record, this is a life philosophy that I have carried over to every other aspect of my life.

You can tell this is a store brand cereal
because the flakes are a much lower
quality than I have come to expect
from the branded cereals.

Things began to change when I went to Europe—the land of self-discovery—in 2005. I bought an 8€ box of Special K Red Berries and I had it with milk. Although I had had Special K Red Berries without milk in the past and really enjoyed eating those dried strawberries, after having a bite of my friend’s cereal, I realized that the strawberries only improved when they were soaked in milk and had the opportunity to soften up a bit. It was also around this time that I made the crucial switch from skim milk to homo, and while I still prefer skim milk for drinking, homo really is the best when it comes to cereal or milk in your coffee. The next cereal I tried in milk was something like NesQuik. It went over really well because on one hand, it turns the milk into chocolate milk, and on the other hand, those chocolate balls were always too dense and too hard to really enjoy. The milk softened them up an appropriate amount.

Ever since, I have been on a bit of a cereal-with-milk tear. As I mentioned, I still eat cereals like Golden Grahams and Cheerios without milk, but I’ve introduced a lot of new and exciting cereals into my repertoire as well—all of which I eat with milk. Over the past few years, I’ve really gotten into Kashi, Vector, Raisin Bran and any cereal that has dried berries in it (Jordans Morning Crisp, Honey Bunches of Oats with Strawberries, or the store-brand take on Special K Red Berries).

Lucky Charms is something that I’ve eaten less and less of over the years. Every once in a while it will go on sale so I’ll pick up a box, but in general, it’s just not a part of my diet anymore. There are probably a few reasons for this. Part of it has to do with how expensive it is, but more importantly, having a bowl of dry cereal has always been a mindless snacking activity for me. I eat it when I am watching tv or doing school work. I don’t want to have to focus on what it is I’m eating, and Lucky Charms is a cereal that, if you’re eating it dry, you have to give it your full attention. So it came as a bit of surprise to me when I picked up a box at Metro the other day (it was on sale for $2.99, down from the usual $5.50), but I was really excited to tuck into it.

At first I ate it as I always have. I poured a bowl, painstakingly picked out and ate the cereal bits, spent some time appreciating the beauty of all the colourful marshmallows alone in the bowl, and then gobbled them up. R was in the kitchen with me at the time and mentioned that his parents would never buy him Lucky Charms, but that sometimes his grandmother would. When I said that I never eat them with milk, he said that he had always enjoyed them with milk and that he would try to eat the cereal bits first because they were best when crunchy, but that the marshmallows really improved when saturated in milk.

On the cusp of trying something new. I regret getting rid of that box
because I could really use a new toque right now.

And then something happened. I don’t know what. I wanted to try it. I poured myself another bowl, added milk, and prepared for the worst. My main concern was that I would have less control over the cereal once it was sloshing around in a bowl of milk. I wouldn’t be able to pick out the cereal bits very easily, and I knew that I would inevitably miss some. I knew, going into it, that there would be times when I would have to eat spoonfuls that contained both cereal and marshmallow, and although I wasn’t thrilled by the idea, something—some force outside myself—urged me on. It will probably come as no surprise that I liked it. I really liked it. I’m still not sure if I like it more than having it dry, but I do like it. I liked it enough to rush out and buy another box to do the whole thing over again.

Something changed in me that day. It wasn’t life altering, but more like a little sliver of doubt entering my consciousness. I was so sure about Lucky Charms. So sure. I knew how I liked it; I was so certain that it could never be better. I’m not sure that it is better, but I think it’s probably just as good. My approach to food has always been premised on a strict hierarchical system. There is a very small group of food that I like, and within that group, I have always been adamant that there is a singular best way to enjoy that food. Potatoes are best fried; pasta is best with bolognese; broccoli and cauliflower are best with cheese. There are, of course, other ways I will eat these foods. I like potatoes baked in an oven or mashed, and I like pasta with either just cheese or sometimes just butter, and I like broccoli and cauliflower steamed plain or with butter, or sometimes even raw. But there is always, always, a “best” way to enjoy these foods. What’s different about Lucky Charms is that I’m worried that I like them with milk as much as I like them plain.

What does that mean for me and my diet? What if postmodernist theory was right? What if there is no such thing as a singular truth? That it’s all a construction? That there’s more than one approach to something, and that one is not necessarily more valuable than another? It’s an exciting time in my life right now, but also frightening. Does my experience with Lucky Charms gesture towards a flattening out of my diet, a horizontal expansion that knows no bounds? And where will I go from here? How will I ever approach a box of Lucky Charms ever again? How will I know how to eat it? How can I ever be certain of what I want ever again? The future is marred by uncertainty, and I have never been more afraid in my entire life.

Ever since it happened, news has spread like wildfire throughout Toronto.

I've approached my diet with unflinching certainty:

Confidence in my taste is central to my identity.

To experiment with food was an impossibility,

And Lucky Charms with milk was an incomprehensibility.

That I liked it suggests potential dietary malleability,

And more frighteningly yet, that singular truth is a fragility. 

What if trying new things is within my capability?

Does this signal towards a new versatility?

The Pea

Nothing else from my childhood elicited as much excitement and pleasure as the first ripe peas in the garden. My appetite for peas was insatiable. I keenly remember being woken up by my mother, cooing softly that the peas were ready, and then immediately devouring every last one of them. When all the ripe and passably ripe peas had been eaten, I moved on to the totally unripe peas, and sometimes just chewed on the empty pods. My left thumb was green throughout summer, not because I have ever had any inclination towards gardening, but because the process of popping open a shell and scraping out the peas into your open palm will invariably dye your thumb green.

No amount of words will ever be able to communicate just how much I love fresh peas from the garden.  I was tempted to record myself making frustrated grunting noises because I think that sound is probably the only thing that could accurately capture how I feel about peas.  But I don’t know how to do that.  And it also would be really weird if there were just sounds of my grunting floating around on the internet.  In lieu of that, here are some things I want to do with peas:

• Collect a lot of peas—still in their pod—in a bag and sit down with them and eat them.  I want for there to be so many peas that it becomes a mechanized routine: select a pod from the bag; pop open with thumb and index finger; slide out the peas with my thumb and cup them in my hand; put all of them in my mouth at one time; discard the empty pod into the empties pile.

• Shell a bunch of peas and refrain from eating them.  Pool all of the loose peas in a large serving bowl and then slowly submerge my hand into the loose peas and feel them slip through my fingers.  Then select one beautiful pea, and crush it between my teeth.  Then eat all of the peas in handfulls.

• Get a large bowl of loose peas.  Put my lips really close to the surface of the peas and then suck them up like a vacuum cleaner.

• Hold a bunch of peas in the palm of my hand, but keep my palm as flat as would be possible to still hold the peas.  Then eat them out of the palm of my own hand like how a horse eats things out of the palms of hands.

Isn't it crazy to think that I've never had a single lesson on Photoshop?
And that I don't even have Photoshop on my computer? Right?!

Recent scholarly pursuits have brought my attention to the play Woyzcek by Büchner. In it, the titular character goes insane and murders the mother of his child, partially because due to a scientific experiment, his diet consisted only of peas. I know that time is not on our side, but Büchner, are you seriously not reading this blog? Don’t you realize that a strict pea diet could only lead to a life of pleasure and unmeasurable happiness? Don’t you understand that to consume a pea is to conjure up all of your loveliest childhood moments and to journey back to a time when your only worry was awaiting the arrival of the next wave of ripened peas?

In part, I suppose, the play speaks to the dehumanizing effects of medical and military apparatuses—but at what cost? What of the harm done to the gentle pea in the process? In calling into question these governing institutions, was it really necessary to strip away the beauty of the pea and to reduce this once noble pearl of the garden to nothing but an irritable grain of sand that claws away at your brain until you inevitably murder your wife with a blade procured from a wily Jew and commit suicide in a swamp? Büchner, you monster: look into your soul. You will find that the problem is not medicine or science or the military; the problem is you.

It’s probably only fair to mention that the peas in Woyzcek were probably canned.  I mean, of course they were canned peas, right?  It’s just that I never even think of canned peas as even existing, because who even eats those? 

It’s also probably worth mentioning that when I talk about eating garden peas, I mean eating them fresh.  I’ve had cooked garden peas before, and they’re good—better than cooked frozen peas—but whenever I eat them I feel this heavy sense of loss.  They’re so much better fresh.

The oyster creates the pearl of the sea
But the pearl of the land is the ripened pea
Both are divine, natural treasures
Both bring to me the purest of pleasures
But the pearl is merely vanity,
And I must listen to my stomach when it instead demands—
The pea! The pea! The pea!