Haggis

I know that everyone else already knows what haggis is, and if you’re someone that is willing to eat it or, heaven forbid, actually enjoys it, then you’re clearly at peace with the idea of eating the most revolting combination of foods encased inside of a stomach, which is more than I will ever be able to say for myself.

Explaining why I would never try haggis seems pretty unnecessary: it’s organs stuffed inside of an organ, and one is supposed to put it inside of their organ, and then wait for it to come out of another organ (at which point it is presumably recycled into more haggis. And honestly, the idea of eating human feces might be less horrific to me than the idea of eating actual haggis, so I think I’m okay with this last step). The closest I have ever come to eating haggis is that time that something got through our back fence and decimated all of Huxter's sheep that had been grazing there and left all of the sheep remains scattered across our field. I found a sheep stomach and threw a piece of bark at it to ascertain what state it was in. The stomach was rock hard and the bark bounced right off of it. A shiver of horror ran down my spine.

Admittedly, I don’t know anything about the Scottish; I have always imagined them to be a breed of Irish, only less culturally relevant (no one cares about Robert Burns). But now I’m really interested in them, because can you imagine the depths of depravity a race of people have to fall to before they consider eating haggis? I am always so surprised by man’s desire to live, because I know that if I were in a position where we had eaten all the (acceptably) edible parts of our sheep and still we were starving, and someone said, “What if we gathered up all these organs and put them inside of the stomach and ate that?” I would say: “No. I do not want to do that.” And if I starved to death, then so be it. Because sometimes (read: always) dying is better than living with the knowledge that you just ate haggis.

Thank God I cancelled my subscription to haggis alerts. I never knew it would hit so close to home.

Obviously I am not going to include a picture of actual haggis. I just looked at some and I thought I was going to vomit. I guess the least visceral--I mean that in the literal viscera way--comparison I can think of would be a swollen bagpipe. But then I remember that that bagpipe would be made out of a stomach, and instead of being filled with air, would be filled with minced organs. Like, body organs. Not the music organs. And that's just all too visceral for me.

Haggis is one of those foods that is so vile that some of my readers might think that I would have tonnes and tonnes to say about it. But I don't. In fact, I shouldn't have to say anything at all. The only people who need to be explaining themselves here are the people debased enough to actually eat this.

Poetry has one simple duty:

To speak of truth and to speak of beauty.

But because haggis is ugly, vile, and wrong

It is impossible to sing of it in song.

Search Trendz

I write this blog knowing full well that no one else cares about it as much as I do or reads it as much as I do or thinks it is as funny as I do. I have spent my entire life preparing myself for my own inevitable failings, so the extent to which this blog is a gross failure and hugely unpopular comes as no surprise. But what really hurts me is checking my blog stats and seeing that pretty much the only people who find this blog (aside from through facebook) are people who google "potato salad recipe easy" or "simple potato salad recipe" or some other salad-related query.

Although I hate all these salad searches, I definitely welcome the people who are searching "penis in a jar, "mountain
of burgers," and "hungarian mangalitsa pig for roasting." (I really hope they found that pig--they're supposed to be delicious!)

And it doesn't bother me because I think that potato salad is disgusting and that no one should be eating it. It bothers me because why don't they just already have their own recipes? I thought that potato salad recipes were something passed down from generation to generation. Who are these pathetic idiots?*

*I originally used the term "moron," but then I looked it up on Wikipedia and: "['moron'] was once applied to people with an IQ of 51-70, being superior in one degree to 'imbecile' (IQ of 25-50) and superior in two degrees to 'idiot' (IQ of 0-25)." Who knew? In hindsight, "imbecile" might have been more accurate.

#glutentolerance

I don't know how to use twitter and I don't know how to make things "trend," but I would love it if #glutentolerance became a trend one day.

Buns

Whichever asshole said that man can’t live by bread alone was a liar and an fool. You can. And I know because I have. When your diet is as restrictive as mine, you soon learn to take what you can get, and in a social setting, a hotel dining room, or on an airplane, that’s usually buns.

Of all the foods that I have wanted to discuss on this blog, buns never really crossed my mind as something warranting my time and energy. Before I get into it, I want to clarify that the only buns that will be discussed in this post are the small round buns that you can find in the Overwaitea bakery section and which are almost always present in either a basket or a bowl at large lunch/dinner events. They are also always served on planes and usually the only thing I will eat on such occasions. There are so many other buns--pizza buns (!!!), cinnamon buns, cheese buns, my niece’s rendition of Hot Crossed Buns--that will be saved for future posts.

So why buns? Why now? This post was specifically solicited by one of my avid readers, and I can only assume that she is so keen to know my opinion of buns because one time at a festive party at her house, I opted for a solo bun over a heaping pile of ham. No offense to the hosting family, but I always go for buns when I am at one of these casual gatherings where there’s a table of food and no rigorously controlled method for eating it. Of course, had it been a sit down meal with endless trays and dishes of food being passed around and around, I would have helped myself to some ham (and perhaps demanded a bowl of frozen peas), but in the words of a wise Hungarian scholar, the bun “is for small people always on the go.” By limiting myself to one bun, I maximized my mobility and therefore my sociability--a charm I am well known for.

Sally Lunn Bun.

In my post on rice, I wrote about how rice is one of those foods that is always there for you and that you don’t have to spend too much time thinking about. I kind of feel the same way about buns, except that I am also always a bit disappointed when I realise that I am going to have to eat a bun because there is nothing else to eat. On an airplane, for example, there is a 90% chance that the only part of the meal I am going to eat will be the bun. There have been times when I’ve really lucked out and they serve spaghetti bolognese, but it’s usually some sort of chicken curry (one time Air Canada even served fish and didn’t offer a vegetarian option! Or at least not to me) and it’s all so mixed up in that little dish that I can’t pick out a single thing. So when I look down and realise that all I’m going to be eating is that bun, I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. That is until I break the bun open and spread one of those little pads of butter on it and eat it and remember how much I love eating buns with butter and wonder why I don’t do it all the time. I love eating anything with butter, but buns are especially good because the butter doesn’t melt so when you bite in, you will inevitably get a bit with a lot of semi-solid butter and it’s such a rush! You’re a bit disgusted with yourself because you’re just eating chunk of butter, but it’s also really hard to care because 1) it’s delicious and 2) you’re on a plane, and any disgusting behaviour goes on a plane.

Buns are a safe bet because you (almost) always know what you’re getting, but the other reason I am so dedicated to buns is in part to combat this rising fad of “gluten free.” I will be the first to admit that I don’t know what gluten is, but I do know that it’s found in breads and pastas--two of my favourite foods--and that it is becoming increasingly and annoyingly popular to be “free” of it. Some people claim that their bodies cannot tolerate gluten, and at the risk of sounding too much like a tyrannical monster, let me just say that if you are one of these people, then it is high time you asked yourself whether or not you truly belong in this world. I feel that it is my personal duty to do all that I can to ensure that gluten will always be in our diets by eating as much of it as possible and ensuring that there will always be a demand for it. I also know that I always associate gluten-free with vegans--an association that my singular vegan friend assures me is wrong and unfounded, but I am pretty sure is right and well-founded--and therefore feel that it is doubly crucial to lash out against this fad.

Because it is a fad. I know it is because signs advertising “gluten-free” food are becoming a more and more prevalent marker on the Vancouver landscape. Whenever something becomes popular in Vancouver, the fad either originated there and you immediately know that it’s stupid and that you will do well to avoid it (Lululemon; those stand-up paddleboards) or that it has come there to die (coffee culture; indie music; speciality beers) and it’s time to jump ship. And I also know that it’s a fad because, okay, whatever, maybe there are some people on this planet who can’t handle gluten, but there certainly are not enough to warrant the veritable plethora of menus catering to a gluten-free diet along Commercial (or “The Drive,” as I like to call it), or the gluten-free beer (there is a Montreal beer called Glutenberg, which is a really unfortunate waste of a great name), or the new gluten-free Rice Crispies. The worst part about these dietary fads is that they are always accompanied by the shaming of those who do not adhere to their bizarre and arbitrary rules, so now I am put in this weird position where I can’t help but feel bad (not guilty, but actually bad, as if I have some kind of defect) that my body can tolerate gluten. Is there a reason why I should be envious of people who can’t tolerate gluten?

Here is a picture of me at the social gathering in question. I think I will use
it again when I inevitably write about prunes because that's what my face
looks like. You might have noticed, as I just did, that there is a jar of salsa
behind me on the counter. To the best of my recollection, that salsa was not
served, otherwise I probably would have nimbly dipped corn chips into it,
careful not to get any of the chunks.

But to stay on point, of course there are other reasons to value the bun aside from just combatting the rising tide of gluten intolerance. That wise, old Hungarian sage was right: buns are a great companion for someone always on the go--small or not. The bun is the most highly evolved form of bread and is the most portable. Like a baguette, they are a self-contained unit, only without the unruly length and shape. (I honestly don’t understand the appeal of baguettes beyond making bruschetta, which I would obviously never do. But every time I go the grocery store in Montreal’s hipster heart, I see hordes of people pawing at the baguettes, and I think--although I can’t be sure--that it has something to do with being seen biking home with a baguette sticking out of their backpack. I can’t figure out why this is a good thing, but I think it might be because it suggests that the purchaser of that baguette also purchases cheese, and there is a certain amount of cultural and social currency that goes with buying cheese, which, in my heart of hearts, I wish I could cash in on.) Sliced bread is great when you’re at home (although I avoid unsliced loaves at all costs because they are so difficult to slice), but it’s not as portable as a bun and isn’t encased in crust, which usually serves to protect the bun from being crushed in a bag. The other problem with sliced bread is that it can be a pretty hefty commitment. Unless you freeze it, you have a relatively small window of time in which to eat it, and if you forget it in your cupboard when you go home for Christmas for two weeks, you are in for a really unpleasant surprise when you return. Of course buns mold too, but the point that I’m try to get at is that you can buy just one or two buns rather than committing to a whole bag of them. There is also something more acceptable about serving a bun (whether it be on a plane or a buffet table) than a slice of bread, and I believe that it is because while a slice of bread can only ever be part of a whole, a bun is its own single entity. I certainly don’t want to suggest that buns are the best form of bread for every occasion (obviously no one wants to substitute buns for toast), but they do have their merits and they deserve out praise and attention.

Bun on the run.

Friends, what if you find yourself at a social event
And the food table leaves you feeling like a sullen malcontent?
Don’t despair, don’t give up; take advice from Sally Lunn:
Forego everything else and go straight for the bun.
Savour that bun and act highfalutin:
It’s your God given duty to protect all the gluten
From the monsters who would try to take it from us
And turn gluten allergies into such a wide-reaching fuss
After all, allergies tell us something about our ability to survive--
There must be a theory about this to contrive?
Admittedly, I’m not the fittest condenser
So I’ll direct your attention to the works of Herbert Spencer.

Smarties

This post might reflect negatively on my mother’s parenting skills, but no food has proved more formative in my development than Smarties. I was potty trained on Smarties. I sat through hair cuts with the promise of Smarties as a reward. I learned about the subtle nuances of colour because of Smarties (and as a result had the self-satisfaction of informing people that “mauve” was my favourite colour, and not just "purple").

On the left are the Smarties of my childhood. On the right are the Smarties of your child's childhood.

 But in 2009, Nestle, bowing to public pressure (I hate when corporations bow to public pressure)*, removed the artificial colouring agents. The result was devastating. First of all, they look terrible. They look like those cheap, shitty, knock-off Smarties that you would sometimes find in bulk sections of a shabby and run-down store and that your mom would buy for you because she didn’t know any better (I mean, obviously not my mum, but one of those less adept mothers who are always arguing that that the cheaper knock-off versions are the same as the real thing). But more importantly, they also taste terrible, and it turns out that the most delicious part of a Smartie was the artificial colour in the candy shell. By removing the artificial colouring from Smarties, Nestle has managed only to make Smarties taste more artificial--if only because the original Smarties established an expectation of taste which is now inevitably disappointed; they taste artificial not because they once tasted like a "natural" food but because they no longer taste like Smarties, and to continue to taste like Smarties is the only responsibility they have to the consumer. Nestle never made any attempt to sell kids or parents on the health benefits of Smarties, and as far as I know, they have never even succumbed to that pathetic marketing ploy of saying that Smarties are "part of" a balanced diet or that they are a "good source" of calcium. Smarties are, and always have been, a treat, that is to say, a deviation from your normal dietary routine.

Smarties were important to me not just because they were my favourite candy or because I was rewarded with them and through them learned to perform certain tasks or to behave in a certain way; they were important to me because they were this material item that, at the time, seemed more anchored in reality than I did. I grasped at Smarties as a means by which I might build on or understand my own identity through something tangible and stable. It wasn’t important to me whether or not other people recognized me as that kid who really liked Smarties, but it was absolutely crucial to me that I be able to recognize myself as that kid who loved Smarties more than any other kid in the entire world. They also served to imbue me with a sense of national identity because, at the time, the only identifiable difference to me between Canadians and Americans was that there were Smarties in Canada but not in the States.

The most recent Smartie advertisement I’ve seen was one in which teens showed off their talent--like playing guitar or rollerblading--and the catchphrase at the end was “show your true colours.” But the old ads with the tagline, "When I eat my Smarties, I eat the red ones last" were so much better. I loved these ads, in part because I could see myself as a deviation from what Nestle had established as the norm: I obsessively made sure that I never ate the red ones last. I was terrified that if I did eat the red ones last, I would just be like every other fool who ate the red ones last only because they had tricked themselves into thinking that this was something they truly desired or that truly defined them as a Smartie-eater. But on the other hand, this kind of ad also granted access into a community of those who did eat the red ones last. Instead of trying to celebrate a sense of belonging (and, as a result, setting up a structure of community that one could define themselves against), Smarties is now trying to insist on a sense of celebrating difference and individuality--“our colours”--which is kind of ironic given that every Smartie in the box looks is a nearly identical greyish-brown colour. Although I don't like the connection Nestle is trying to make between "true" and "natural," this advertising scheme certainly makes more sense that sticking with the old "eat the red ones last" campaign since there no long are any red ones to eat last.

I remember trying to figure out whether or not different colours of Smarties corresponded to different flavours. I knew, even at such a young age, that of course they didn't. But being able to argue that purple is the best "flavour" is a great synesthetic experience in and of itself. So many of my vivid childhood memories are tied to Smarties, and it's as if I have lost the opportunity to ever experience those memories in a sensual** way again. Up until 2009, eating Smarties always made me recall what it was I thought about and how I felt when I was little and eating Smarties. Perhaps it’s worth noting here that the definition of nostalgia isn’t just a longing for the past, but that there is pain built into that process: it’s like going home only to realise that your home is a different colour than when you left it.

*I understand that a corporation like Nestle is only concerned with selling its product. But it's the responsibility of a corporation (especially a corporation like Nestle that makes products that are not necessary) not to cater its products to the public, but to create a need or desire where one doesn't actually exist. And this is something that Nestle in the past (albeit with disastrous results) proven itself to be particularly masterful at.
**Not that I have the desire to experience toilet training specifically in a sensual way, but I am referring more to the sense of accomplishment and how that accomplishment was rewarded.

To eat Smarties was once my favourite activity


But ruining things is, for concerned parents, a natural proclivity
And now something that was one part delicious and one part aesthetic


Was said to be carcinogenic and made their children frenetic


And other arguments that were similarly pathetic.


So in a move that was justified as health sensitivity
And marketed by Smarties as snack progressivity 


(but in reality is just deplorable corporate reactivity),
They switched to the “natural” instead of the synthetic.
And although I would like to try and be apathetic,
It’s hard when Nestle isn’t even remotely apologetic.

The Bison Burger

2013 has been, so far, a year of new discoveries. Well, of one discovery. And actually, I discovered this last year, but the ramifications have been rippling outward ever since. I have often seen “Bison Burgers” listed on menus, but until December 2012, I had always assumed that in this context, “bison” only referred to a breed of cattle or a kind of beef, like “angus.” Admittedly, although being a lover of burgers, I know very little about them or the different kinds of beef that go into them (or even that there is such a thing as “a different kind of beef”). I certainly never imagined that we have the option of eating actual bison burgers, because if obsessively playing Oregon Trail throughout elementary school or looking at that picture of all those buffalo* skulls (and I always imagine Teddy Roosevelt standing on top of this, but I think I am just confusing this photo with the one of T-Roos and the elephant) has taught me anything, it’s that we have killed far too many bison and now they don’t exist. I personally used to kill several thousand pounds worth of bison, and as it would not all fit in my wagon, it was presumably left on the plains to rot.

Learning that bison burgers are actually made from bison was a strange moment for me. I was at once forced to acknowledge two pieces of information that I always carry with me, but that I have never once actually put together: 1) that yes, the European settlers did slaughter pretty much all the bison and then compiled their remains into a mountain of bones, and 2) that my elementary school music teacher breeds (or perhaps bred?) bison, so of course they must still exist and exist substantial enough numbers that would suggest we can make burgers out of bison meat. But the idea of bison burgers seems kind of grotesque and unnecessary to me. 

When I first looked at this finished product, I thought, Wow. What a
dream come true! A mountain of burgers! But a mountain of burgers would
be so disgusting in reality. They would be so soggy and soft and you couldn't
actually perch atop them, like this gentleman is doing, because that soggy
mass of bread and meat couldn't possibly support your weight. And while
slowly sinking into a pit of old burgers isn't the worst fate, I think it's one I
would nevertheless meet with an annoyed "Ew."

I really want to stress here that I do not care where out meat comes from. If I were to care about the ethics of factory farming, then I would probably have to stop eating that meat, and I honestly cannot be bothered about animal welfare enough to even slightly complicate my life by paying more for or by tracking down a place that sells ethically raised meat. And yet, on one hand, I kind of feel like maybe we should just leave the bison alone because I don’t trust anyone to not slaughter them all at once in an orgiastic frenzy of gore, since that seems to be how we typically interact with bison. But on the other hand, even if we have developed a moderated way of rearing and slaughtering bison, I still don’t want to eat it. I wouldn’t eat a bison burger no matter how it was raised or where it came from or how much it cost because bison give me the impression of being too wild and too unkempt to actually eat. Thinking of them reminds me of that time Rory (and his family) came to sheer one of our alpacas (Tommy Tippy Toes, for the record), but in the end the alpaca hair (fur?) was too tangled and frizzy and full of various materials from our field to be useful to anyone and eventually it was all just thrown away, and the idea of trying to extract meat from a bison carcass makes me worry that the inevitable dust and old twigs would get into the meat and would remain there throughout the cooking process and that I would be forever pulling out random things out of the burger. And also? Bison burgers are just one more food on a long list of foods that I absolutely do not need in my life. Why would I need to supplement my beef burger intake with bison burgers? I am always worrying that I am not eating nearly enough burgers as it is, and I approach every burger opportunity with relish (not with actual pickle-relish, because that is disgusting) and am not willing to sacrifice even one of these occasions in favour of trying a different kind of burger that I already know to be totally redundant and superfluous because I have already discovered the burgers that I like.

*I am only learning now that buffalo and bison are not the same animal. I always thought that bison was the plural form of buffalo.

Everyone says bison is better than beef:
More vitamins, leaner meat, and environmental relief.
But I don’t care enough about the ethics of factory farming
to eat a bison burger--what I consider to be a form of self-harming
Besides, you don’t have to act the act just to look the look:

Simply present an ethical image of yourself for all to see on facebook.

The Hiatus

As some of my more avid readers may have noticed, I recently enjoyed a 2+ month hiatus from blogging about food I don't like. This hiatus was inexplicable even to myself. Although there is an endless supply of topics from which I could draw on, it was as if I had lost my passion for trying to explain why it is I won't eat certain foods.

I tried, on multiple occasions, to write new posts on plums, Christmas dinner, and buns (all of which will hopefully be forthcoming at some point), but I didn't feel the same intensity that I had felt when writing the posts on eggplants, eggs, or salad, and so they never came to fruition. I have just finished a piece on bison burgers--which I will post immediately following this--but in all honesty, it was a struggle to write and the end result leaves a lot to be desired.

My recent struggles with writing make me question whether or not this blog was the right decision for me, and whether or not I will ever achieve my dream of compiling a nearly exhaustive manuscript that documents my eating habits. Both seem unlikely, but at any rate, I shall leave you with these fragments I have shored against my ruins.