Good morning!! (Unless, of course, you’re reading this in the afternoon, but since I’m writing it early on a Sunday morning, I get the “Greeting” option…)I trust that all of you, like myself, had a hearty, but nutritionally balanced breakfast containing all of the essential vitamins and minerals essential for good health maintenance and strong bones… Oh… a donut and coffee?
Yeah… me too…
But we have the chance to make all that up with lunch or dinner… right? Good intentions are always best after a good dose of junk food…
Oh, and snacks… snacks can be nutritious and healthy too, right? (Being that I work in Medical Education, I’m supposed to say stuff like that… “Nutritious Snacks”… sounds like an oxymoron to me… but it’s sort of like saying that you watch nothing but PBS and Discover channel when you watch TV… what you say, and what you do can be two different things… but I’m digressing again… I think…)
But this GFTW is not about nutrition or healthy foods or any of that stuff… nope… it’s about…
Scary Foods!
“What are scary foods?” you ask… Well, let me enlighten you…
First off, there are the obviously scary foods… like cauliflower… Did you ever take a good look at cauliflower? It looks way too much like bleached brains… I’m not eating that!
Or broccoli… Did your ever really look at broccoli?
Try it… take a good look at it sometime… They look like little baby mutant cabbages… it smells funny, it looks funny and how can something that ugly be good for you? Ugly foods NEVER taste good… Look at turnips!
But there are other foods that are really scary too… Things that people make on purpose!
I mean, there are certain things that go together… stuff that you can mix up and serve and it’s OK… you know… things like mashed potatoes and gravy… peanut butter and jelly… chips and dip…. That kind of stuff… those are good combinations…
But then, there are those things that you have to be really careful about… Combinations that are not so good… and downright scary….
Like what?
Well… anything that has the word “Medley” in the name… Now, a medley is OK if you’re talking about the Righteous Brothers… (Get it? Unchained Medley? Melody? “Oh my love, my darling… I’ve hungered for your touch…” See? Hungered? Food connection? Ok… that was a reach… never mind… ) or a classic rock station (It’s time for a medley of Bob Seger hits… ) But medley never works for food…
When you see the word “medley” in connection with food, it really means that someone has mixed foods together that should never be mixed together… Otherwise, they’d be more honest with the name… you wouldn’t have to put that “medley” thing in there…
“Chicken Noodle Soup” for instance… You know exactly what’s in there… Chicken, noodles and soup! They don’t call it “Poultry Pasta Medley”…
But when you see something listed as “Ocean Garden Farm Medley”, be afraid… be very afraid… Because this is probably an eel zucchini seaweed cottage cheese casserole… is this something you want to try? I think not…
Or a “Spring Vegetable Medley”… this is usually a bunch of leftover vegetables that, by themselves, weren’t very good to begin with, (if they were any good, there wouldn’t be any leftovers!) but someone thinks that by mixing up cauliflower, zucchini, green beans and cooked carrots (carrots are one of those veggies that are pretty good in their natural uncooked state but cooking them seems to add a grossness and makes them inedible… same with celery… ) and calling it a “vegetable medley” will make it OK… NOT!! They even add the word “Spring” in there to give it a positive connotation but they’re not fooling me!
Another scary food is anything with the world “Surprise” in the title…
“Eggplant Surprise” indicates that someone, somewhere decided that eggplant by itself wasn’t gross enough, I mean, think about it… Egg? And Plant? That can’t be good… and it’s purple and ugly… the same thing applies to “Squash”… anything with the name “Squash” can’t be good and it’s UGLY too!! But I’m digressing again… where were we?
Oh yeah, “Eggplant Surprise”! Someone had to decide that eggplant by itself wasn’t gross enough and so they decided to add some sort of sauce and other vegetables to it and here’s what happens…
You put it in your mouth, chew a couple of times and then look frantically around for a napkin that you can spit it into…(Don’t try giving it to the dog… the dog won’t eat it either… trust me on this one…. And if it does, you’ll regret it later on… again, trust me on this one…)
The “surprise” part is that A) someone actually thought of making this dish, and B) you actually put it into your mouth thinking that it MIGHT be good… Nope, it’s no surprise that any “surprise” dish is anything but scary… and nasty…
I think that maybe the “surprise” part may also be what happens if you actually manage to eat this dish… your digestive system, wondering what this stuff is, begins to rebel and small children and dogs are scared at the bodily noise produced… that’s a surprise!!
But, by far, the scariest food that there is, is anything… and I do mean ANYTHING… with the word “Creamed” in the title.
Now, you have to wonder why anyone would want to cream anything in the first place.
Creamed corn… corn is pretty good all by itself… it’s tasty, it’s pleasing in appearance and it’s easy to prepare… So, why on earth would you want to cream it? Take a good look at creamed corn sometime… would anyone in their right mind, eat that? Ewwwwwwwwwwww!!!
And creamed spinach? What is up with that? Its horrible looking, its horrible smelling and it looks gross! It looks like… well… if you’ve ever had kids, and remember back to the first few months of their baby days when bodily functions were horribly awry, you know what I’m talking about…
And who invented creamed spinach? And why? Is this something that someone did on purpose? Did they take some spinach, then cream it, then put it on a plate and say, “Oh my… that’s attractive… I think I’ll taste it!”
If I had done something like that during culinary experimentation, my first reaction would have been to cover it up quickly, wonder what on earth I had done and then throw it out before anyone else saw it…
But eat it? I don’t think so… serve it to someone else? I don’t think so… share the recipe? Absolutely not!!
And what’s really scary? There are foods out there right now that people are experimenting with… somebody; somewhere is working on “rutabaga surprise” and “creamed salmon with cabbage medley… and when they get done with it, they will foist it off on some unsuspecting family member or friend who will have to be polite and pretend to like it, which will only encourage this person to make that again… That’s how these things get started….
So, make a stand… the next time someone attempts to serve you a “medley” or a “surprise” or anything “creamed”, look at it, make a face and in your loudest, whiniest voice, say…. “EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW”
We thank you….
SAELIG!!
