Friday, May 19, 2023

Lost Corners food humor and a recipe from a Vincent Price book

As regular reader(s) of this blog know, Papergreat has a strong interest in preserving tiny corners of the internet — personal blogs and websites, message boards, social media — that are especially susceptible to disappearing and/or being forgotten. The Lost Corners label features those posts from over the years.

I recently came across a Twitter thread from four years ago that was started by comedy writer Cullen Crawford1, and I knew I wanted to "tuck it away in an envelope" for preservation. It's a laugh-out-loud look at food horrors that left at least two of us in this household ROTFL.

Here's the original post, plus my curation of the best (most horrifying?) responses, where things really get rollicking.
 
  • @karakabangpow: "Sleepover at my friend's house, 8 years old, she served us an appetizer of saltine crackers with some weird spread on top. I asked her what it was she said 'its more crackers but I chewed them up!' like it was a normal thing."
  • Cullen Crawford: "Jesus lord!"
  • @karakabangpow: "I forgot she called them Kelly Crackers!!"
  • @RecreantA: "That’s enough internet for one...lifetime."
  • @MaraWilson: "My aunts made macaroni from a box of macaroni and cheese but without any cheese or butter or salt. It might have also been cold?"
  • @Arithered: "Other People's Families are like the first experiences we ever have with the warning signs of cult indoctrination."
  • @snartdeco: "I knew someone whose entire family called spaghetti 'daddy noodles' and I cannot"
  • @alexvtunzelmann: "I’ve never forgotten some absolute lunatics who claimed that in their household they put orange juice on their breakfast cereal instead of milk. I assumed they were joking. Then they did it and lapped it up"
  • @SocksUnterShoes: "Reminds me of my cousin. Always went to this friends house after school. They had something called 'sweet milk' and he loved it. Then he slept over. Sweet Milk is when you finish your cereal and pour your leftover milk into the Sweet Milk container."
  • @mimva: "SCREAMING INSIDE MY SOUL FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. I CAN NEVER UNREAD THIS."
  • @mtobey: "It was always something normal that was ruined by an extra ingredient like spaghetti with raisins"
  • @Blarrknulp: "This tweet has opened up a secret door in humanity's unconsciousness."
  • @EricDSnider: "I don't think we ever inflicted it on guests, but my mom made something with macaroni, cream of mushroom soup, and ground beef that she called 'Hamburger Whoop-Dee-Dee.'"2
  • @LynnAAR: "I had a college roommate who made soup with chicken broth, a ton of pepper and a can of spray cheese.  Sometimes she'd throw in chopped celery."
  • @HELLA_GIRTH: "my idea of spaghetti as a kid was plain noodles covered in a mixture of melted velveeta block cheese and milk, with chopped-up hot dogs"
  • @AdamPateman: "My family would eat cereal 3 hours after dinner and call it Bed Lunch."
  • @Gadgetgirlkylie: "My dad would make something he liked to call 'Daddy’s Gunge' it was a mixture of crushed up spam and tomatoe ketchup. It was gross. Yet he seemed proud of it like it was the best food ever made."
  • @emikaj2: "my dad made 'Dad Ramen' which was ramen, black beans, and feta cheese. 2nd grade was a nightmare."
  • @pixelkitties: "Went to have dinner with a new boyfriend's family for the first time.  Sat down and there was nothing to drink at the table.  No glasses, no water, nothing. Partway into the meal I asked for a glass of water and they looked annoyed, like I farted at the table."3
  • @emzeewoolzee: "This cursed thread made me recall a repressed memory. Must have been 8-10 yrs old...first and only sleepover at strange friend’s house. They gave me honeydew melon with kraft singles melted on top in the microwave. oh god."
  • @HoustonBig3: "First time I ate a meal with girlfriend and her parents, they crack out an appetizer and I thought it was a joke. A banana sliced lengthwise...with mayo slathered on it...and the mayo topped with crushed peanuts. They were not pranking me. I respectfully declined to partake."
  • Cullen Crawford: "I didn’t ask for any of this"

* * *

OK, we need a palate cleanser, after all that. So, obviously, we'll turn to Vincent Price. It's my 10-year anniversary this month of switching to a pescetarian diet, so here's a summer recipe for ice-cold gazpacho from Sobrino de Botín in Madrid, Spain. The recipe was included in Price's 1965 book A Treasury of Great Recipes. (I'm going to take a much deeper dive into that incredible volume one of these days.)
Vincent Price at Dodger Stadium

Footnotes
1. Papergreat is in full solidarity with the Writers Guild of America in its ongoing strike. Writers deserve fair payment and fair residuals payments for all uses of their work.
2. We had "Mommy's Favorite Hamburger Hash," which, to the best of my recollection, was ground beef, cream of mushroom soup and chopped-up hard-boiled eggs poured over toast.
3. That same thing happened to me once, and it's probably my only uncomfortable experience while eating at someone else's house. I guess I was pretty lucky. But now I'm wondering if I really examined all the crackers and spread I've had over the years.

No comments:

Post a Comment