"Dear Food Thoughtz:" Freezer-burnt placenta

Dear Food Thoughtz, 

Since you are clearly the expert on food related issues, I have a problem and could really use your help... 

I'm sure I'm not unique in the fact that my freezer is often crowded with foodstuffs that have overstayed their welcome. Normally it's no problem to make more room by simply chucking things out, but I have an item that is taking up a fair amount of space and creating a sizeable dilemma. What should I do with my placenta? There is just no simple solution as I see it. It is just so valuable and I can't in good conscience throw it away, but I'm a bit concerned about cooking it at this point. It's been in there for about 6 months now and is sure to be freezer burned. Do you think this will diminish the nutritional value? Should I just pluck up the $150 and have it made into pills, or can I still get away with making it into a stew or something? Any thoughts you might have on the subject would be greatly appreciated. 

Signed,Placenta Ideas Sincerely Sought

Dear PISS,

First of all, my sincerest apologies for not getting back to you sooner – even I’m surprised that your freezer-burnt placenta wasn’t enough to arouse my food thoughtz. And to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to get around to this if I hadn’t talked to my mum last night on the phone. She recently sent me a Valentine’s care package (which also had Midge Deak’s belated birthday present inside: two Microplanes), which included some homemade chocolate chip cookies. I had initially request sugar cookies because they’re my favourite and I can’t get enough of that icing, but she sent chocolate chip cookies instead because you don’t have to roll out the dough. Anyway, I called her last night to thank her for the package and she told me that she actually did try to make sugar cookies because she just happened to have some dough in the freezer “from about a year ago” when her and my niece made sugar cookies together. So she took the dough out, and I’m not sure how far she got beyond that. Maybe she rolled, cut, and baked the cookies, or maybe she didn’t get beyond thawing the dough. We’ll never know. But what we do know is that she had to throw all of it out because during its one year tenure in the freezer, the dough had absorbed some foul taste from something else, rendering it unedible.

This story was just the push I needed to respond to your query of over a month ago. My advice to you is to eat it asap. First of all, you might be lucky and maybe that placenta has absorbed the tastes of actual foods that surround it. But secondly, the longer you let that frozen mass of cells sit in your freezer, the more likely it is that all of your other foods are absorbing what I can only imagine to be the totally revolting taste of a human placenta.

I don’t know how you should eat it. Midge Deak suggests frying it up with onions and paprika. Although she has never eaten a placenta, she regularly eats substances that physically and gustatorily (no idea if that’s a word) resemble placentas. Your biggest mistake was probably that you didn’t initially portion it up, because I think that the best way to consume this would be in a smoothie, but it’s going to be a really big pain to thaw out the whole thing just to make one smoothie. Unless your planning to have a pure placenta smoothie, which I wouldn’t personally recommend. Under no circumstances should you spend $150 to have your placenta made into pills. If you have a placenta in your freezer, I’m guessing it’s because you have a child somewhere in your house, and wouldn’t you rather put that $150 towards that child’s education or some frivolous article of clothing for her?

Anyway, that’s about all I have to say. Thanks for your request. Please do let me know how it all turns out.

The Parsnip

I don't know what a parsnip is, but it looks like the offspring of a carrot and a turnip that should have been aborted.

I have no idea why or how people eat these things, but I know they're not for me. I guess maybe some people put them in a soup or a stew, but I would not.

What do you get when you mix a carrot and a turnip?

Something even worse,* and we call it a parsnip.

*There is no reliable data on whether or not a parsnip is in fact worse than a turnip. They're probably equally bad.

Melona Ice Bar (Banana Flavour)

The Melona taste challenge rages on, with three Melonas down and only the strawberry yet to come. Today I tried the banana flavour, mostly because I expected it to be the worst by far, and I wanted to end on what I would hope to be a relatively positive note (strawberry: among my favourite artificial flavours).

But in a bizarre, totally unforeseen twist of events, banana might actually be my favourite Melona of all--which isn't actually saying much, because none of them are particularly good, or at least not outstanding. But the banana flavour was surprisingly good, which is weird because banana is, hands down, my least favourite artificial flavour. Even the idea of artificial banana is revolting to me, so I had extremely low expectations for this Melona. Perhaps that's why I think it's so good--just because I expected it to be the worst, and it wasn't. But ... I don't know. It was pretty good. It was definitely better than mango and melon. Even the melon flavour was surprisingly okay, or at least a lot better than expected.

Here's a rare gif set of me having a change of heart.

I mean, the banana one was good. I still don't think I would go out of my way in the future to procure it, but I don't know, I'm kind of into it. I think I might eat it again at some point. It definitely has a banana "flavour" without actually tasting like a banana. I think maybe the creaminess is what made it better than just an artificial banana candy? I'm not sure. I really don't know what to think. I feel like everything I thought I knew about the world was just turned on its head, and I am having a hard time coming to terms with that. I thought that writing out my feelings might help me try and clarify all of the emotions I'm experiencing right now, but it hasn't. I am still confused. I'm obviously glad that it wasn't as terrible I was expecting, but I'm also kind of disappointed in myself because I feel like I generally have a pretty good grasp on what kinds of food I will like without having tried them before, and I don't like having that sense of self challenged in such a fundamental way.

I made a commitment to eat

All of the Melona ice bars--what a feat!

Artificial banana (I thought it was obsolete)

Turned out to be a most surprising treat.

Melona Ice Bar (Melon Flavour)

I'm nothing if not fair, and so tonight I tried a second Melona ice bar, and this time it was the melon flavour. I mentioned in the previous mango Melona post that I thought that a specifically honeydew-flavoured popsicle is a weird choice. And aside from the banana flavour, I was pretty certain I would hate this one the most. But you know what? I didn't. I kind of liked it. I didn't love it, but I definitely didn't hate it. And maybe I even liked it more than the mango? I don't know. I'm very confused right now. So if you're going to try a Melona ice bar, I think I might recommend the melon.

Here's this gif.

But can someone who has actually tried a honeydew confirm whether or not the melon flavour actually tastes like a honeydew? Because I have never had one and I never will.

Anyway, now there are two flavours left for me to try: strawberry and banana. I am really not looking forward to the banana one. That sounds so disgusting.

Oh a little icey pop, icey pop

It's Korea's biggest export: the Melona

These flavours aren't great, when you gonna stop?

When you gonna give it up, Melona? 

Although the melon is kind of okay

But the creamsicle I will not betray

My tastebuds you will not sway

You're not m-m-m-my Melona.

Melona Ice Bar (Mango Flavour)

Several readers will likely remember a recent Dear Food Thoughtz post in which a young woman had come under the sway of these mysterious Korean popsicles and feared they were ruining her life. In order to provide the quality of service that Food Thoughtz has built its reputation on, I tried to track down these ice bars myself before writing a response--but to no avail. I have recently uncovered a cache of Melona bars in a nearby Korean grocery story (you may remember this grocery store from my Japanese chocolate biscuit craze-daze), and yesterday I bought one and ate it.

 And ... it was just okay. I have had better and I have had worse, but I don't imagine I will ever become addicted to these. I recently had an orange creamsicle and was amazed by how delicious it was. I love creamsicles, and these Melonas just don't cut it. There are so many quality icepops out there, and it's not enough anymore to have a fairly rich, creamy, fruity flavour. I'm slightly curious to try the other flavours, but honestly, I just don't think these things are going to win me over.

I actually don't really like creamy popsicles. Creamsicles are almost an exception, but not really, because it's only the ice cream centre that is creamy (and tastes like those delicious Screamerz at Shell that were so expensive I could never afford to buy one) and the shell is just like a generic popsicle. I just don't really find popsicles that are really creamy or taste too much like real fruit to be refreshing on a hot summer's day.

Here's a series of pictures of me looking terrible while eating a Melona bar. But does anyone want to talk about how
Baskin Robins is still in business? I had no idea it was until I moved to Toronto. At least there is still one in business.

So, I don't know. I don't know what else to say about these. I was really disappointed, but I didn't hate it either. One day I might try the honeydew flavour, just to test it out, but I'm in no big rush to get another. One good thing about them, I guess, is that they're pretty cheap. I think this cost 70¢ in the store, which is a pretty decent price. 

In closing, I would just like to point out that Binggrae, the company that produces Melona, also produces a red bean popsicle, and even the idea of it is nauseating. It is, according to the Binggrae website, the "No.1 red bean ice bar in Korea since 1970's." How many red bean ice bars does Korea even have?! Is this even an accomplishment? Would it be possible for me to make a red bean ice bar at home and market it as the "No. 1 red bean ice bar in Canada since just now because this isn't even  a thing and also it's disgusting but still No. 1"? You should all take this invitation to read through the Binggrae product list on their website because some of the descriptions are really great, and I'm kind of interested in that Melona waffle...  Oh. Nevermind. I just read the description. It's full of red bean paste and shaped like a fish. There were a lot of other interesting looking ice creams at the P.A.T. though, some of which might of been Japanese, which based on their chocolate-filled biscuits, seems a lot more promising.

Here's the P.A.T.'s selection of Melonas, plus this disgusting looking
"B-B-Big" red bean bar.

I'm only human and got swept up in the craze

Of these South Korean ice pops, hoping they would amaze.

But they didn't, not really, they were only okay.

"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:" Urgent Query

Dear Food Thoughtz,

Attached is a picture of a leechee nut. I think it looks like a testicle. My g-friend thinks it looks like a fetus. It is delicious. 

Obviously we have a dilemma: should we eat this? 

Sincerely, 

Bewildered in the backyard

Dear BiB,

No, you shouldn't eat it. For a lot of reasons. But for the sake of brevity, here's a scene from We Need to Talk About Kevin, which follows immediately afterwards the psychopathic son Kevin burns out his own sister's eye using household cleaners:

Whether it more closely resembles an eye, a peeled testicle, or a fetus, it definitely resembles something extracted from a human body and should be avoided at all costs. I'm also pretty sure it's spelled lychee.

Midge's Addendum:"Obviously they should eat it. They are not different from grapes. I mean, in terms of looking like a body part. A grape could be a human egg or something. Just because you are more used to grapes -- this is a cultural bias, or whatever. Colonizing the lychees. Especially because they can't even spell the name correctly, just like English people can't spell foreign peoples' names."

Falafel

Confession: I've never been exactly sure what a falafel is.  At first I thought it referred to a bunch of stuff in a pita. Then I found out that it actually refers to brown chickpea balls that are sometimes served in a pita. And then I learned that falafel can actually refer to the pita as well as long as the brown chickpea balls are one of the leading ingredients in the pita. And finally I just googled "falafel" and now I'm pretty sure they're actually cartoon bull testicles. I think they first appeared in a Picasso painting but now for the life of me I can't find that painting.

This definitely is not the painting I had in mind. I was thinking of one that
was sort of a rusty-brown colour... The more I try to remember what painting
it was, the more I begin to suspect it might actually just be that
painting of Simba that Rafiki does in the Lion King.

But all of this is beside the pint point because whatever a falafel may be, what I know for certain is that I don't want to eat it. Even outside of the pita and on their own these things just do not appeal to me at all (although admittedly a pita packed with shredded lettuce and an unidentified white sauce is far less appealing to me than the plain falafel itself). It seems like they would be really dry and crumbly and would fall apart in your mouth. Without ever having eaten a falafel, I'm certain that is what would happen--which is weird, because "crumbling apart" isn't really a quality anyone ever looks for in a food and nor is it a quality one might associate with testicles (at least not healthy ones). It seems bizarre, then, that the (imagined -- can someone please confirm whether or not falafels are actually crumbly?) crumbliness is a foremost quality of this food. Maybe it is the pita, full of sauce and vegetables, that is supposed to counterbalance this flaw, but if the only way to make a bad food better is by making it worse, there's a problem. The dryness also makes me suspect that falafel might taste like how B multi-vitamins smell, which is something like being trapped in a small space with a bunch of mostly dried-out manure. I hate those vitamins. Of course I'm also afraid that if I bit into one of those testicle-esque falafels in might explode with semen (perhaps that mystery white sauce in the pita is not such a mystery after all).

All this being said, if you do like falafel that is great news for you because they are readily available and often dirt cheap. Just be warned that the reason they're so cheap is because they're made of dried manure packed into cakes using semen, all with the ultimate purpose of resembling bull testicles.

Harvested from the genitals of a bull

Is the trendy, affordable, and enigmatic falafel.

The Zucchini

The only interest I have in zucchinis is telling people that “zucchini” is the first real word that I learned how to spell. I learned how to spell it sometime before entering kindergarten, and I’ve been talking about that accomplishment ever since. Other than that, this vegetable is just not on my radar. I have no desire to try it. It has nothing to offer me. People keep talking about how you can just sneak zucchini into things—especially sweet baked goods—and you won’t even know it’s there. But there are a few things going on here. I mean, first of all, if you won’t even notice it, then stop trumpeting its presence. That completely negates your intended purpose. Stop doing that. And really, zucchini is not important enough to any healthy diet to warrant a “spoonful of sugar” approach. Second of all, if its presence in a baked good really is not noticeable, then why is it there? Is it really just to sneak some vegetables into an otherwise fairly unhealthy snack? Why can’t I just eat a normal serving of vegetables for dinner and then have a sweet snack without any zucchini in it for dessert?I think we’ve developed a pretty good system here, and I can never figure out why people are so hell bent on messing with it. There are so many healthy and sweet/delicious treats in this world that I really don’t think it’s necessary to come up with new, stealth ones. Like, you could just eat a strawberry. Alleged health benefits aside, I think it probably just comes down to the fact that zucchinis just won’t quit. Everyone is always trying to get rid of them during the summer because a single plant usually produces enough zucchini to feed an entire village—especially when you consider that zucchinis aren’t even a good vegetables, so probably only 5% of the village is eating them. If you find yourself with one hundred zucchinis on your hands, don’t try to deal with them by messing up an otherwise perfectly good dessert option. But also, by no means should you just throw them in the compost, because they’ll probably just thrive in there and produce ever more zucchinis.

Not unlike the mythical hydra defeated by Hercules,

The zucchini poses a similar self-rejuvenating emergency.

Just as when you rub a lamp, there appears a genie:

Discard of one in the compost, and out pops several more zucchinis.

It's not enough to cut off where the fruit and plant met:

The key to defeating it is to cauterize the courgette.

The Pickle

One time an incorruptible-Huxtable  babysitter chased me into the basement and threatened to force me to eat a pickle. To this day I don’t know if she was merely exercising her authority over me or if she thought that pickles are so good that it would be criminal to let me live another day without trying one myself.

But I was triumphant, and to this day, I have never tried a pickle.

This is what I imagine the outcome would be if I ever tried a pickle.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I figured out what a pickle is. I remember this moment very clearly. I was working on an organic vegetable farm for the summer because I like to be close to the earth and I respect the welfare of our planet. I was directed to gather some cucumbers and some pickling cucumbers. As I repeated “pickling cucumbers” over and over to myself while looking at the pickling cucumbers, it suddenly dawned on me that cucumbers are pickles--just pickled. And I thought to myself that I better keep this little insight to myself because it was 2008 and about 17 years too late to make this connection.

I don’t want to suggest that I was totally unaware of the pickling process or that the final pickled product must have pre-existed in a non-pickled state; of course I knew these things. But pickles have always been so far from my mind that I never really thought about it. And I certainly never considered that this was an activity that everyday people engaged in. I assumed that pickles just appeared on the shelves of our grocery stores, fresh from a container from China. And besides, even though we all (now) know that pickling is a process to preserve food, “pickles” are always referred to as just “pickles,” whereas “pickled asparagus” is never referred to as just asparagus or just pickles, or “pickled beets” as just beets or just pickles. I think as a society we have accepted pickles as a food unto themselves with no important connection to cucumbers in a way that we have not done so for other foods that can be pickled. As a result, I don’t think my late in life discovery of the nature of pickles is all that embarrassing. 

It is my understanding that a pickle can be either crisp or soft, and come in a variety of flavours, like sweet or... I don’t know, sour? Bitter? Are these even flavours? Maybe you can put some other food in the jar with the pickles and it flavours them? Oh, dill obviously. Dill pickles. I know that because you can get everything in dill pickle flavouring. I don’t know how these things work, and it doesn’t matter because I would not be more inclined to try one flavour of pickle over another flavour of pickle. However, the varying texture does interest me somewhat. I find nothing immediately offensive about biting into a crispy substance because I think it would be similar to biting into a carrot, which is a sensation that I enjoy. Similarly, a soft pickle might have a similar texture to a banana. Except in both cases I expect that a pickle is much more slimy than a carrot or a banana, so why would I bother? I can’t imagine that that pickles taste very good and I also can’t imagine how my life might be improved if they became a part of my diet. Pickles are almost always served a as a side dish and are therefore easily avoided. Plus, I can’t get it out of my head that pickles are just scientific specimens of syphilitic penises stored in jars. I also don’t know how the flavour of the cucumber interacts with the brine, and as of yet I have not been convinced that a cucumber marinated in brine for an unspecified period of time would taste any different from a syphilitic penis sample that has undergone the same process.

Are these animal penises preserved in jars or various tubers marinating brine?
I'll never tell...

When does the cucumber cease to be and the pickle to became?
Is there no change in substance and merely change of a name?
What is the exact moment of transition?
We shall place all our faith in the powers of human cognition.
Let us test our hypothesis; grab a jar from the shelf.
For the purpose of science we shall sacrifice the self.
It doesn’t matter which one you pick--
I’m certain they all taste like a pickled syphilitic dick