Thursday, October 29, 2009

Friday Fragments: Bad Eats

This evening Papa Cat took me out to dinner. We went to the Ninety-Nine. As we perused the menu, trying to decide what to eat, I saw this:


Behold, kittens, the iceberg wedge. Tell me, is this dish a holdout from the 60s or 70s? Because I've never seen any of the hoity-toity chefs on America's Test Kitchen or Food Network try to recreate this. Not even Rachael Ray will touch this one! I never understood its appeal; iceberg, to me, is rawther tasteless, and the addition of tons of dressing and bacon bits cannot improve upon the nutritional value of the lettuce. Even though it's a vegetable, and a leafy green at that, iceberg has the fewest vitamins and minerals of all of the salads. Who even came up with the idea of serving this dish? No comprendo! De ninguna manera!

That got me thinking...what other weird foods are out there? There are tons! So many I can't limit myself to just one blog post! But I'll highlight some of my faves in this one.

We shall continue with this:

I never understood the appeal of marshmallow fluff. It has always looked like watered down Spackle to me. Then again, I've never liked marshmallows. I have a sweet tooth, but marshmallows have been way too sweet for me. As a kid, Sister Kitten used to eat marshmallows straight out of the bag while watching TV. That is not so bad when you consider that she used to eat marshmallow fluff right out of the tub.

And speaking of eating things straight from the container:

I have a few friends who used to squirt this stuff in their mouths and consider it a meal. Granted, this was during our college days. Even better, you'd get this stuff out at parties, and once people had a few drinks too many, they'd squirt this stuff in each other's mouths. Generally girls never participated in this ritual. The males often did, and would wash it down with whatever beer was on hand.

And finally, there's this:Maybe it's because Mama Cat never believed in feeding us processed foods as kids, but I just feel funny even looking at a box of Velveeta. Is this stuff really cheese? Is dairy even one of its ingredients? I've never picked up a box to examine its contents, and I'm not sure I want to Google an ingredient list, either.

As the holiday season fast approaches, I may have some more posts like this. I can think of a couple of side dishes at the Thanksgiving table that I could write about, but I'm saving those for another time.

12 comments:

Improbable Joe said...

One word for you: baconnaise.

Anonymous said...

I just found a cheddar broccoli soup that uses velveeta and it is sooooo good.


fluff=spackel...hahaha!

Anonymous said...

I laughed out loud at this: "I never understood the appeal of marshmallow fluff. It has always looked like watered down Spackle to me"

you are so funny!

L. Diane Wolfe said...

You're right - iceberg lettuce contains almost no nutritional value whatsoever!

And those are great choices. The marshmellow fluff made me laugh out loud! As a child, we couldn't afford REAL cheese, so we ate Velveeta. Now I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

BTW - do you know how American cheese, Velveeta, and Easy Cheese are made? They take all of the leftover cheese pieces from all the flavors, melt them together, add color, preservatives, and an ingredient to make them less solid.

YUCK!

Grand Pooba said...

Ok I agree, the lettuce wedge has no nutrition value at all and is very very bad for you, but it is OH so delicious!

RunninL8 said...

Circus Peanuts. WTF?

Unknown said...

I love all of those things- Don't judge!

Mammatalk said...

I agree with ya on the Velveeta and Cheese spray. But, you've got the Marshmallow fluff all wrong!! Yum!

Maybe you can give her another chance?

Marie Cloutier said...

marshmallow fluff is a gift from the gods, but all that other stuff looks gross. :-)
(and i'm not just saying that because massachusetts (or somerville, to be precise- although some say lynn) is the home of marshmallow fluff.

Jenners said...

Why are you poking around in my closet and mocking my food!!????? Well, I don't have Velveeta but I grew up on it! And I love Marshmellow fluff on Ritz crakers ... it was out afterschool snack when I was a kid. And my Little One discovered Easy Cheese recently and LOVES it. We're so white trash I think!

Brandi. said...

I LOVE marshmallow fluff! When I was younger, my brother and I used to pull apart and squish marshmallows between our fingers until it was a big ball of fluff, similar to this...

Celia said...

My husband and I used to keep squeeze cheeze and ritz crackers in the glove box and whenever we had someone else in the car we would nonchalantly whip out the snacks. It in our town you had to make your own fun.