Toy Foods

2006-08-02T09:22:00.000+08:00

Modern technology means that some skills eventually become obsolete: bow fletching, scalping of fallen enemies, alchemy, for example.

The sublime art of boiling an egg may be next with the development of the self-timing egg. A special dye on the shell turns black when the egg is done, taking out the guesswork from this simplest of household chores. Like instant soup, it only comes with one step: Just add one egg.

Breakfast of Champions

2006-07-20T10:07:00.000+08:00

On the menu: bacon, eggs, and advertising.

CBS will soon laser-etch ads on eggshells because media bombardment must be total. Soon, media will replace legumes on the food pyramid.

Sweet As Sin.

2006-07-20T10:04:00.000+08:00

The seven deadly sins in gummi form. Because woodcuts of demons and eternal damnation just don't do it anymore.

38. Taste Explosion

2006-04-15T21:27:00.000+08:00

If it's not love, then it's the bomb that will keep us together.
If only until dessert.

37. It's a dog's life

2006-03-27T10:45:00.000+08:00

They're now selling flavored water for dogs.

Meanwhile, people are dying from lack of access to water.

36. Pop Art

2006-03-27T10:19:00.000+08:00

Coming soon: "a programmable cola bottle with buttons for lemon, lime, vanilla, and cherry flavors as well as a caffeine button allows for thirty-two potential choices of soda. A programmable paint container with twenty pigment additive buttons allows the consumer to choose from one million colors."

Also coming soon: a hundred indecisions, and a hundred visions and revisions before the taking of FD&C.

35. Oh, Suzy!

2006-03-27T10:03:00.000+08:00

Panda sushi is not , as some people might imagine, made of slices of bear meat rolled with slightly fermented rice. It's something entirely cuter.

Dessert, of course, is a no brainer. Like, hello?

Link from Teh Topnotcher, who is smarter than the average bear and most humans.

34. Hips Like Sugar

2006-03-27T09:54:00.000+08:00

Eye candy that's also actual candy. NSFW, nor, I suppose, for diabetics.

33. More playing with food

2006-03-24T16:20:00.000+08:00

There was a time when I was so hungry that I imagined my best friend was a burger.
This is sort of like that. Only more aesthetic because they used photoshop.

32. A philosophical problem

2006-03-24T16:07:00.000+08:00

If onion rings do not contain actual onions, what are they? If they are called onion rings but are not really onion rings, as such, will they cease to exist?

31. cruel & unusual

2006-03-24T15:52:00.000+08:00

Most kids hate vegetables. Most kids love snacks. So, someone came up with the most insidious plot to deceive children since a wolf pretended to be someone's granny: they made Snacku! vegetable flavored snacks.

Made of healthy rice crackers and fortified with iron, it would have been the golden mean between what kids want and what parents want their children to eat, finally bridging the gap between generations while keeping kids healthy.

Like most utopian ideas, it failed horribly. Snacku! tasted worse than okra (universally hated by children) and had a suspiciously green tinge, like someone had gotten too creative with their watercolouring project (or had no talent.) The ultimate test to find out if your parents secretly hated you was if they gave you Snacku! in the afternoons.

In time, children were practically begging to be fed actual vegetables instead of this mutated munchy. They even offered to do extra chores and eat soap just to get away from this stuff.

Soylent Green may be people, but Snacku!, Snacku! is just terrible.

30. WTFunk?

2006-03-24T15:21:00.000+08:00

Finally, a snack cool enough for hipsters, disco dancing queens, and those in the know.

Funky Cheese Flavor French Fry Snax is like today's music: impossible to put into a specific category but undeniably there. Made of flour and the same cocktail of chemicals that made the 60's and 70's so groovy, Funky tries to find a niche for itself alongside old-timers Jack and Jill and Granny Goose by trying to be two things at one time: french fries-ish and cheese-flavored. This new cat lives on the edge and he's not afraid to show it, subverting the snack industry by claiming to be "snax", the next step in the evolution of chips.

Sadly, Funky, like most upstarts, is more hot air than anything else. Flavorless and having the texture of toothpicks, it's obvious that papa ain't gonna get a brand new bag.

29. Play with your food

2006-03-24T15:11:00.000+08:00

This takes playing with food to a whole new level. A level approaching genius although not quite reaching it because the limit does not exist.

If you love Katamari Damacy, then you can have your cake and eat it, too! Just make sure that, as another immortal video game said, you can... FINISH IT!

28. What is this world coming to?

2006-03-04T10:51:00.000+08:00

Clouds in your coffee, Little People in your chocolate.
Makes sense to me!

27. Serving a Dark (Chocolate) Lord

2006-03-04T10:41:00.000+08:00

I died , but the chocolate deities brought me back.
Take your pick. Unlike in the real world, having more than one is not heresy, just good taste.

26. Better late than later

2006-02-28T22:31:00.000+08:00

"So, Eric, we meet again. Except this time, the advantage is mine."

It was a voice in the shadows. Sinister, as most voices in shadows are.

"This is your end, your just dessert."

I ducked instinctively, fearing whatever dastardly doom he had in store for me.

He cackled as a sticky goo covered my entire body.

"Revenge is a dish best served...sweet. Or bitter-sweet. Maybe candy-coated. And with coconut sprinkles."

--

Death by chocolate?

Preposterous, I say.

It could even prolong my life, sweetly preventing cancer and heart ailments.
Nobody dies from chocolate, except if , of course, you mean what the French call the "little deaths."

Oh death, where is thy sting?

25. [supply witty subject line]

2006-02-25T19:32:00.000+08:00

Just to show that Livejournal is not all just silly fun and games (and drama), here is a girl who frosted a cake with Van Gogh's Starry Night.

It's silly and fun, but also fine art. Of course, art pretty much depends on the value that we put on it. But it's also cake, so it's a win even for the uncultured.

24. Idleness is sweet...

2006-02-23T07:42:00.000+08:00

Common knowledge claims that one cannot eat ice cream and not be happy. One can be lazy though, since this is often equated with happiness.

The HogWild motorized ice cream cone lets you be both.

23. Cowboy Up

2006-02-21T07:59:00.000+08:00

Well, I reckon you've never met a real cowboy before.

That's because it's a hard life and not many greenhorns get through it. Those who do, the real hard gringos, they know enough not to talk. Sound carries far on the plains, and you never know when some hombre is waiting to bushwhack you. Letting him know that you're coming is about as smart as putting tits on a bull.

Never trust a cowboy who talks too much, the real ones, we talk with our eyes and with grunts, if at all.

Cowboys don't need people, just their steers, a good horse, and a reliable gun.

They say that you can take a cowboy out of the badlands, but you can't take the badlands out of the cowboy. I figger it's God's own truth. Sometimes I feel that I will just burst if I don't get to shout even a little "yeehaw!" or slap leather with some young buck. A day without blood is like a day without sunshine for this here man's man.

And I've been having a devil of a time with this Tita Meldy and her "truth and beauty" chicanery. It's always about good manners and being proper with her, and I don't cotton to that sort of pansy talk. I'm not from that mountain, daggumit.

I swear I could just take this here six gun and shoot that cityslicker.

22. Let them eat cake, but discreetly

2006-02-19T14:32:00.000+08:00

"It appears that men (in Japan) do not like to be seen eating elaborate cakes in public, so a confectioner set up what looks like a typical fast food outlet to sell what look like hamburgers and fries, but that are in fact cake. "

The cure for cancer, next.

21. Automatic Tubig Machine

2006-02-07T08:07:00.000+08:00

Have you ever been on a date and you ran out of drinking water?
I haven't, either, but ATM Water seems to think that this is a common problem in the Philippines. So common that they've come up with the ATM--Automatic Tubig Machine, an automatic coin-operated water dispenser. But really, it's a homegrown solution to contaminated water, providing potable germ-free water to the masses.

One peso gets you a plastic bag of cold purified water and an uneasy feeling of helping turn the world a little more impersonal. Fight the future, rage against the machine!

20. Home Sweet Home

2006-02-03T08:22:00.000+08:00

If you've always wanted to see San Francisco in multi-colored Jello, then your prayers have been answered. Why you would actually want that is beyond me. I'd have asked for money, or a nice, kooky motorcycle.

Still, here's Liz Hickok's San Francisco in Jell-O. Click the link, take the tour. A magical mystery one.

19. Do the evolution

2006-01-31T03:10:00.000+08:00

In battle, one cannot bother himself with details like calorie counts and US RDA percentages. There are more pressing concerns, after all. Like, say, not getting shot.

Luckily, rations come ready to eat. They used to be simple affairs like SPAM and some sort of starch. But they were bulky and weighed the soldiers down.

Today's soldier, err, Warfighter, can now count on feasting on this, the next generation of military rations.

18. Merry Meat

2006-01-31T02:39:00.000+08:00

We already know that putting a steak on a black eye is frippery, but putting Bacon Strips adhesive bandages on a boo-boo? Now that's class.

Archie McPhee gives us more ways to enjoy meat than to just eat.

17. "Super", sighs me.

2006-01-30T18:57:00.000+08:00

America, they say, is about democracy and freedom of choice. Like, say, how you want your hamburger. One hundred patties and one hundred slices of cheese, you say? No problem. The world's largest hamburger? Here you go. In fact, you have an entire slew of burgers to choose from. Obesity? Sure thing, pal.

16. They're just beans, kid.

2006-01-30T18:40:00.000+08:00

I love food as much as the next guy. Except the next guy is that kid.
Here's a gallery of old food ads that'll make you thankful for Anorexia and advances in advertising.

15. Eggs-tacy, Eggs-tano!

2006-01-29T15:44:00.000+08:00

I love eggs. I really do. Not enough to take a bullet for them, of course, but they have a special place in my heart (and arteries, come to that.)

I will eat them any day, and any time, I will eat them in a box, I will eat them with a fox, preferably as part of the traditional Filipino breakfast, but the point is that I will eat them without hesitation, I will eat them first and I will eat them last.

What I love about them is that I'm eating thousands of chicken dishes in potentia and in some alternate reality, I am hypothetically having chicken adobo, or Southern fried chicken, or a bad case of salmonella. In some other alternate reality, of course, eggs live normal lives and often participate in musical extravaganzas. If I just believe it, there's nothing to it.

14. Lovely Spam, Lovely Spam

2006-01-26T11:50:00.000+08:00

Spam is a toy food in itself, in reverse, even. It's a mystery substance pretending to be food. But it's more than that, it's a pop culture icon with a cult following(and an e-mail nuisance.) It has inspired songs, poetry, comedy sketches, and various theories on what it really is. Know more about the world's favorite meat(-like food), and know more about yourself.

13. Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic

2006-01-26T11:16:00.000+08:00

The problem with advice is that they contradict each other, should we be greedy
and always look out for number 1, or be driven by some divinely-given purpose?
Should you be yourself, or is that the wrong way to go? Only black socks with black shoes, or are white socks okay? If clothes make the man, but you are what you eat, do they cancel each other out?

Artist Jana Sterbak made a dress out of meat, so she probably can't help us with that. She also made a chair out of meat. There's a statement in there somewhere.

12. A fruit, and infinite sadness

2006-01-26T10:57:00.000+08:00

I used to write love notes in ketchup and spell out my crush's name in french fries. I thought I was pretty clever, too.

Watermelon Art just proved me wrong. In the bigger scheme of things, I'm the dunciest dunce in a class of dunces. The kind who gets picked last to join a conspiracy, probably.

F-, Lord Eric.

11. Learn Chinese

2006-01-25T19:46:00.000+08:00

I love the Chinese because they have a civilization bonus of starting with agriculture and mining, and also because they have mastered the art of making things cheaper and better. Well, cheaper, at any rate, which is pretty much the same thing.

They usually do this by bulldozing over silly things like intellectual property rights and it isn't something that they're ashamed of, either.

If you have a succesful product, then you can count on knock-offs hitting the market within months. It's like being boingboinged, I guess. Except you lose money. So it's more of a monetary Slashdot effect.

If imitation is the best form of flattery, then MeiMei SomethingChineseThatICan'tRead Chocolate Candies are the Tim Yaps, Maurice Arcaches and Crispina Belens of confectionery social circles. They look suspicously like America's favorite candy but different. And not just because there are Chinese characters all over the packaging.

The package promises candy coated chocolates that are so good that they'll make a Giant Panda
cheat on its diet of bamboo shoots (and, incidentally, wear a shirt, shorts, and blush-on.) They come in three variants as suggested by the different colors of the packaging. Not understanding Chinese (and mathematics, come to that), I bought all three, in the spirit of scientific inquiry.

What I got were what m&m's would have been like if they were packaged in Apartheid South Africa, or if they had had a bit too much fun in the sun. Perhaps in an attempt to cling to the party line of Chinese solidarity and conformity, MeiMei's manufacturers decided to make them in drab but non-counterrevolutionary brown.

They tasted like chocolate covered sunflower seeds and after plowing through the red pack, I was ready to dutifully quote the Chairman, raise high the red banner of militance, etc. Or, at the very least, sing praises to Chinese ingenuity. While probably in violation of IPR, these are more of derivative works than blatant copies, inspired rather than imitating.

Sure, they all looked alike, these chocolate candies, and sure, the blue and yellow packs contained more of the same uniformly sized and shaped snacks. But, in the end, aren't we all, alike? Deep inside ourselves is the same spirit and dignity. And in this case, the same nut, or sunflower seed.

Let a thousand flowers bloom, Mao once said. Let us hope that they are sunflowers, and that their seeds eventually get covered in chocolate. And that they reach shelves of thousands of supermarkets.

10. Sweet Ride, Dude.

2006-01-25T19:22:00.000+08:00

Belgian chocolatier Hans Burie has created a car made of 800 kilograms of chocolate!
It's an Opel, too, so it's luxury times two.

With oil prices soaring through the roof, though, it probably won't be doing much time on the highways. At (very) roughly 4,138,811.53 calories per car, this set of wheels probably gives more energy than it consumes. Of course, most of it is in simple sugars, so those are empty calories and will go straight to your thighs.

09. Agent Orange

2006-01-24T10:35:00.000+08:00

We already know that the Vitamin C in oranges helps fight off colds, but who knew that oranges could also give protection from (very small and soft) projectiles and dogs?

The Feline Protection and Enhancement System was developed to give cats the upper hand in the War Against Canines and is still undergoing field testing. Things look good though, according to a recent report: "initial battle reports show subject Boone to be performing exceptionally well. During the first mission, two of three soft targets were terminated."

08. How Swit It Is (To be Blogged By You)

2006-01-24T09:51:00.000+08:00

Yes, they look more like pituitary glands than anything resembling a snack, but be that as it may, these are Orange Swits. The bastard child of an orange, gelatin, and sugar, Orange Swits are a throwback to the seventies and eighties when oranges were hard to come by in the Philippines. They came in packs of four and were mainstays at sari-sari stores and of ambulant vendors everywhere.With globalization though, oranges now flood the sidewalks like streetchildren and Orange Swits have become an embarrassment, like a drunkard uncle or a clumsy and incontinent child.

Orangs Swits suffer from an intense need for affection and so they overwhelm the tongue with a saccharine overload from the very first bite. While this is meant to be endearing, the sweetness is often overpowering and Orange Swits are often seen as clingy and needy.

This sweetness is only on the surface though, years of neglect and being passed over for trendier snacks have left them cold and hard inside.

The jelly center tastes faintly like an orange, but only if you've never had an orange and have burnt your tongue beforehand. Still, the sugar coating is often enough for a short high, so Orange Swits still have a chance to make it back to the big time. If only people could see past the artificial, almost chemical, orange tint and the fact that they look like parts of someone's endocrine system.

Orange Swits have very low self-esteem and are prone to self-mutilation because it is the only way for them "to feel alive and to control the pain." Sadly, being undeniably ugly, these mutilations often go undetected. Much like Orange Swits themselves at supermarket checkout counters. They must overcome their self-loathing before they will be accepted by society. After all, how can others love us, if we do not love ourselves?

Orange Swits, you are beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can't bring you down, 'cause you are beautiful in every single way.

07. More porn for you!

2006-01-24T09:11:00.000+08:00

This is an old Zipperfish flash game called Raw Meat or Pussy.
I have nothing to say about that. Except that I got a low score.
On Good Manners and Right Conduct.

Thanks for the link, RandomDude!

06. Let them eat Bukka-cake

2006-01-24T08:43:00.000+08:00

"Bukkake can also mean a Japanese noodle preparation method (doused with dashi)." says Wikipedia, but it is more than that. In most circles (of hell), bukkake doesn't even involve noodles except when you speak in metaphors. Because it involves bodily fluids and erotic humiliation, not everybody likes it.

Everybody likes cake, however.

So, Porn Bread has something for everyone!
Their recipes for Dirty Sanchez cookies, Boners in Blankets, and other sex themed treats will ensure that at your next party, guests will feel full and awkward. And dirty.

Thanks for the link, Drakulita!

05. Not all dogs go to heaven

2006-01-18T14:30:00.000+08:00

My bologna has a first name, it's O-M-F-G!

But properly, it's called Cheese Hotdog, yet another ill-conceived way to keep kids out of their parents' hair and doped up on MSG. Slightly more expensive than Lechon Manok Crackers but just as cruel, this un-meat un-hotdog features a vaguely phallic mascot being hugged (or taken down ) by an MSG junkie and has a very optimistic tagline: ito ang gusto ko! (this is what I want!) Why a child would actually want something like this is beyond me. To escape from the stress and pressures of life, I suppose.

Aside from the cylindrical shape of this marginally edible snack, nothing about it resembles anything even approaching the neighborhood of the ballpark of anything related to cheese or hotdogs. Snacking on packing foam would probably be a more enjoyable experience than having to eat three of these things.

Still, the existence of a mascot gave me pause. He seemed a hale and hearty fellow, and he had a medal too, so he must be pretty brave, our roughly anthropomorphic representation of cheese snacks. Perhaps he served in the war and we therefore owe him our freedom, such as it is.

Plus, he had the juice to pin it directly onto his chest, so he can't be all bad. (Or all there, mentally.) That he walked around naked to frolic with little boys was the last straw though.
Not even war heroes can taste like solidified air, be loaded with chemicals and molest minors and expect to get away with it. Never mind that the boy seems to enjoy, nay, want it more than life itself. Children shouldn't always get what they want anyway.

You deserve a circle of hell all to yourself, Cheese Hotdog.

04. Home Sweet Home

2006-01-18T14:02:00.000+08:00

Gingerbread houses are nice. For a given value of nice. But they're best left to witches who prey on lost fairy tale step-children wandering around the forest. Nobody really finds them novel anymore. It'd be a bigger surprise to find a house not made of gingerbread. Or gingerbread made out of a house.

Here is the new school: a pizza (pie) London Eye.

More photoshopped examples of edible architecture here.
No witches though.

03. Oh can you do the Can Can? (If you can then I can)

2006-01-17T21:10:00.000+08:00

My mom told me to never play with my food. I guess it doesn't really count when the food is still in cans though, because you can't eat it, and is therefore, not food as such. Or, the food is still food, but since you can't really touch it, you're not playing with it, only the cans that hold the food.

But my point is that some people made "cool art out of stacked cans."

And also that mothers are not always right.

02. Sounds Good, Tastes Even Better

2006-01-17T17:05:00.000+08:00

Mike Davidson recently held a competition to find the best interpretation of the ipod shuffle as food.

This Banana/Apple/Spaghetti Shuffle by Davin Risk was the eventual winner, but my heart goes to the Finkbuilt SPAM and rosemary shuffle. Because, really, making SPAM look like anything other than a rubber eraser is a challenge in itself.

01. Technical Fowl

2006-01-14T15:01:00.000+08:00

Lechon Manok (pit-roasted chicken) is the king of Filipino street foods and is such an ubiquitous part of Filipino life that stalls selling them can be found on almost every street corner.

Business booms, from the shawarma and pearl shake fads of the late nineties to the upsurge of the call center and medical transcription industries of today, is often compared with the lechon manok craze of the 1980's, when the stalls started sprouting like mushrooms all over the country. With good reason, too, while the pearl shakes have gone the way of the dodo, the Lechon Manok has shrugged of fads and changing tastes like water off a duck's back.

With the bird flu threat and with our economy neither here nor there, however, will the Filipino have to go cold turkey on their favorite pit-roasted chicken?

Not if PF Manufacturing of Bacoor, Cavite has anything to say about it. Through the magic of modern technology, they've come up with a cereal-based snack called Lechon Manok Crackers.
Retailing for 1 Philippine Peso (dollar value: pocket lint and a some string) per packet, these crackers are made of flour, fish, chicken, and a cocktail of complicated (but cheap) chemicals. They have become a favorite (by default) among penny-pinching alcoholic college students. Because, really, nothing washes away the sharp aftertaste of cheap gin better than ambiguously edible junk food.

Lechon Manok Crackers comes in three variants: Red, Green, and Yellow. Red is spicy, Green is vegetarian...no, I'm just kidding, there is no difference between them. The colors are just for flash and style .
They say, if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etcetera. These, however, definitely do not resemble lechon manok in any way, shape, or form. They don't even look edible, really.Being a dutiful researcher, I popped a handful in my mouth. You know how some people describe food as a taste explosion in their mouth? This was like a dirty bomb going off in a school district in my mouth. Or, more precisely, like swallowing the bomb itself (and not the kind that will bring us together.)

My dalmatian, Spot, eats anything, from hair to banana peels to plastic bags, so I gave her the rest of the packet. She sniffed at the crackers, and then promptly shambled away. Which just goes to show that dalmatians do not have the epicurean sophistication of alcoholics. Which is incidentally why they will never be the dominant species.

Our best bet, I think, is to pray for the economy to pick up, because nothing beats the real thing, and this dry, sandpapery snack has nothing on juicy chicken meat roasted on an open pit.

It's best to just flip it the bird, really.