This week has been a joy for folks who live to discover new, nutty food ideas. I guess the theme of this post is: “Here they are: Would you or wouldn’t you?” The underlying question is, “Why do people do this – especially in times when food is growing scarcer and pricier by the day?
Plant-based Ceviche: Like little square Gum Drops…
It’s definitely Silly Season. And I’ve carefully curated a list of the oddest, potentially most off-0putting new food ideas that have come across my screen in the past week. From meatless jerky to fishless Ceviche, I think I’ve isolated the cream of the crazies (AKA: the worst of the worst).
Pickle Ice Cream
Perhaps the ultimate solution to the fabled (though probably apocryphal) pregnancy craving for Pickles and Ice Cream. It’s been made a reality by a boutique ice cream parlour called Melt, in Ft. Worth, Texas. Pickle Cookie Crush flavor is a collaboration with a Texas regional favorite, Best Maid Pickles. Note: the crunch is not actual chunks of pickle. The pickle constituent is just pickle juice, added to regular Cookies ‘N Cream. The flavour is described by one reviewer as, “a sweet, salty and tangy […] experience.”
Onion Ice Cream
A molecular gastronomy experiment from a guy identified only as Chris, this concoction combines caramelized onions, food-grade dry ice, heavy cream, and condensed milk.
The technique is the key, one reviewer says, to success making a sweet-savoury ice cream, “with the texture of ultra-creamy soft serve, all in under an hour.” The onions are caramelized, adding what I would call a mandatory sweet note. But I fear Onion Soft Serve is never going to show up at Dairy Queen!
Vegan Ceviche
Okay. Stay with me, here… Current Foods loves slogans: ‘The New School Of Fish!’, and ‘Taking Food Science Below Sea Level!’, for example. And it now has what some would call ultimate bragging rights, for creating a 589 Lb. / 268 kg bowl of plant-based ceviche – which won them a Guinness World Record f0r ‘alternative seafood’. Their products use bamboo and potato for texture, radish and tomato for colour, and protein from algae and peas. I can’t attest to the flavour, but the official photos show chunks of product that look just like square Gum Drops. Not exactly what I’m looking for in a ceviche – even if you dress it up in a stemmed glass garnished with a slice of fresh lime.
Beefless Jerky
The Beyond Meat (BM) people have come up with some pretty good vegetarian and vegan meat substitutes in the past. But they may have overstepped their bounds with Jerky. I mean, jerky IS meat, by definition, right?
Okay. So the new BM product is probably not closer to fruit leather. But I’m skeptical as to it’s ability to stack up to the expectations of, much less satisfy a hard core jerky lover. Nevertheless, BM is offering Original, Teryaki and Hot & Spicy flavours (at least for a start). I will say this: the stuff looks like real jerky…
Enough?
I think so. But I want to note some shared characteristics of all the above nutty foods which grate on my sensibilities, the day after I’ve showcased the growing food crisis for folks at the bottom of the income ladder.
First: These are not only uniformly nutty, but premium-priced food products. More and more people in our own towns and cities are having trouble affording the basics. As such, it could be argued that they’re immoral and unethical.
Second: They are totally unnecessary – outside the realm of folks wealthy enough to afford them, just for the sake of saying they tried them.
Third: Which brings me to this: these are products that someone decided to create, “just because they could”. Not only do these folks have too much time on their hands, they’re using it badly.
Fourth: They’re wasting perfectly good food that others in need (and I know this is a stretch) could be using to feed their families.
Whoo-ee! It’s good to get that off my chest…
~ Maggie J.