Burger King's Disappointing Halloween Whopper

This is what we could have had...

Earlier this year, bits of the internet where I hang around were going crazy over a black burger (complete with black cheese) that Burger King was selling in Japan. The "going crazy" part was how people were clamoring for BK to bring that burger over here, because why whould Japan have all the fun, dammit?

Well, in "celebration" of Halloween, Burger King did bring a bastardized version of the black burger home to the US. If they had just given us a Whopper and a cheeseburger with black buns and black cheese and left it at that, everything probably would have been fine. But no, BK did a half-assed job with this and trust me, it's more trick than treat.

...but no. We get this.

Even considering the usual vast difference between what you see in a promotional photo and what you get when you peel back the wrapper, you can see the huge difference between the original black burger and the Halloween Whopper. Flat-black bun dotted with standard-colored sesame seeds. Regular yellow cheese. And A1 Sauce, which might not be so bad if they weren't so heavy-handed with it (I'll get to that in a minute.)

This is, to be quite frank, nothing more than a standard Whopper with a colored bun and some A1 sauce. And those two features - upon which the King could have built a great specialty burger - are the sandwich's failure points.

Let's start with the bun. All the advertising BK has done touts this special black bun "infused with A1 Sauce flavor." Dammit, Burger King, you should have stuck with the Japanese squid ink coloring and left it at that. But no - you needed infused flavor. Well, thanks a lot for giving us bread that tastes like a fainter version of Beggin' Strips dog treats. Yeah. Play-Doh and smoke, exactly what I want to wrap a Whopper in.

And what is it with Burger King and A1 Sauce, anyway? They "infuse" the bun with it, and then the kitchen crew adds more when they put the burger together. And when I say "more" - holy shit, it's a good thing that the Halloween Whopper is not going to break any sales records because if it did there would be a nationwide shortage of A1 Sauce since they must use half a bottle's worth on every burger.

This is why we can't have nice things.

This is far and away the sloppiest Whopper I have ever tried to eat. There is just so damned much A1 on it that when I unwrapped it, the outside of the sandwich was coated with overflowing sauce. Even after I cut it in half for easier handling, sauce just poured out of it constantly. Pick it up, it drools A1. Take a bite, more A1 squirts out the opposite side. Put it down, A1 slowly oozes like some High-Fructose Corn Syrup lava from between every layer. I felt like I should have been wearing a Tyvek hazmat suit to keep all the spatter off me.

Hey, that must be why it's a Halloween Whopper! It bleeds like an extra in a slasher film!

Thanks to all that cheap slather, there isn't much else you can actually taste in a halloween Whopper except for the sauce. That's either good or bad, I guess, depending upon your feelings about A1.

My personal recommendation is that you skip this slop and satisfy your Burger King craving with a regular Whopper. Or, if you simply must experience the black bun, ask for them to hold the A1.

(I've read that the coloring agents BK used in the American version of the black bun partially survive the trip through the human intestinal tract and will turn your turds green. I hope this is true. It will be this sandwich's only redeeming feature.)

Loaves of Fear

There are few things I hate more than to slice bread and find a demon.

Nightmare Creamer

I'm guessing that this ceramic creamer spotted at a local thrift shop is supposed to be some kind of singer and that he's holding a microphone for radio station KOW - a crooner creamer! - but did it have to be so creepy-looking?

No, I didn't buy it. If I ever open my refrigerator to find Zuul The Gatekeeper inside, I prefer it to look more like Sigourney Weaver and less like a rectangular murder machine.

Nightmare Snacks

I'm completely conflicted regarding this granola packaging. On the one hand, it's very colorful and original. On the other hand, they're kind of creepy and I'm not sure I'd really want to have them in my house at night.

The one on the left kind of looks like The Gromble from Aaaaaah! Real Monsters, though, so that's kinda cool.

Balut: The Most Hardcore, Bad-assed Hard Boiled Egg On Earth.

So, last weekend I finally got up the courage to try balut, which is the Filipino name for an embryonic duck cooked in the shell and served warm.  They're quite a popular "street food" in the Phillippines, where they are sold just about everywhere, and they are equally popular in Vietnam, where they're called hot vit lon and considered quite a delicacy.

My snack began at A. Dong Supermarket in West Hartford CT - the largest and most fully-stocked Asian market in the area.  In the main aisle in front of the cash registers, there is always a case of what they call "Baby Duck Eggs."  Lynnafred and I were there Saturday, and on the way out I bought two duck eggs.  Lynnafred made a gagging noise.  "You're going to make balut, aren't you?  I don't want to be anywhere near the kitchen when you start that shit."

 The next morning I brought a pot of water up to a full rolling boil and eased the eggs into the boiling water.  As I expected, they bobbed around at the top of the pot when they went in - after all, these eggs were "past their prime" for omelets.

Instructions I found on the web mentioned that I should cook the eggs for 20 to 30 minutes.  I set the timer for 20 minutes and moved on to other cooking duties, making breakfast for Maryanne and Lynnafred.

When the timer went off, I removed the eggs with a slotted spoon and set them in a small bowl to cool a bit.  But I couldn't quite wait to see what they looked like inside, so I tapped the side of one of the eggs and took a peek.  Hmm.  Couldn't see much - just the inner membrane pulled over a kind of lumpy-looking yellowness inside.  Not very unusual looking, really.  I set them aside to cool while the rest of the family finished their standard sausage-and-egg breakfast.

When they were cool enough to handle (but still warm) I peeled off some more of the shell and then carefully tore open the inner membrane to "open" the egg.  I took a sniff.  It smelled - and tasted - like strong chicken broth that had simmered for hours.  Quite delicious, though I admit the glimpse of what was hiding within the egg unsettled me a bit...

I peeled the remainder of the egg and took a look at my delicate tidbit.  This is where cultural conditioning took over and I started to have second thoughts.  North Americans tend to think of developing eggs as "chicks," "babies," or "peeps," not as a munchie to be casually NOMmed with a beer.  Lynnafred, as promised, left the kitchen when I first started cracking open the shell, but Maryanne had stuck it out up to this point.  She took a look at the yellow and white lump in my hand and said, "Eugggh.  That is really...eeww.  Sorry, I can't stay in here any longer."

The grey area at the top of the egg is the neck and head of the developing chick - the fine grey lines are actually partially-developed feathers.  The round white bump on the upper right is the eye socket of the head.  From this angle, you can't see the tiny wing folded against the body.  As I bit my way through the egg, I did find identifiable duck parts - wings, legs, feet, and so on.  The "innards" were cooked pretty uniformly throughout; they looked and tasted like chicken liver.  The yellow parts - formerly the yolk of the egg - was solid and rather waxy, reminding me a little of lobster roe (but without the oceanic taste or crumbly texture.)

Overall, the flavor was quite good - very much like strongly-flavored liver paté.  The only unsettling parts - other than the looks - were some of the textures.  The rib cage of the chick was fairly well-developed and, although the bones were soft, had a kind of "bristly" texture that I found a little unsettling.  There were, though, only three parts that proved more or less inedible.  In the picture at left, top to bottom:

Eggwhite - as hard as a rubber eraser and just as difficult to bite and chew.  I did take a bite out of it, as you can see in the picture.  I've discovered that many regular balut eaters don't really care for the whites, and I understand why.

The "wishbone" - That V-shaped bone in the center of the photo.  It was sharp at the ends and very hard.

The beak - Those two nubby-looking things at the bottom of the picture are the beak.  They were also well-developed, hard, and sharp - especially the "egg tooth" on the top surface of the upper beak.

And then there was that last unidentified bone in there, which was also kind of strange and stabby.  But there was only one of them, which makes me think that I just encountered it at an unfortunate angle and ate the other one without realizing it.

I liked it.  And I'd do it again.

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Meat Pops

I bet when you saw the title "Meat Pops" you were thinking of some kind of frozen treat on a stick, right?  But no, the "Pops" part of "Meat Pops" refers to the way you can just pop 'em in your mouth.

Monterey Meat Pops are distributed by a company in the Phillipines called San Miguel Exports.  Check out the product description from the San Miguel website:

This blend of quality food ingredients is formulated to give the finished product a light batter on meat portions. It is lightly salted and has a pleasant aroma of fresh cereals.

 "A light batter on meat portions."  Awesome.  I seriously need to find some of these.

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Mike & Ike Naughty Bits

So the past few times Lynnafred has picked up Mike & Ike candies, there's been an unusual number of...misshapen candies in the box.  Little Mike & Ike beads, or candies with flat ends, or candies with - ahem - unusual ends.

Like this one.  A Mike & Ike pen0r fruit.  Also just the right size for Barbie to strap on and turn the tables on Ken.

Yes, my inner 12-year-old has a riot with stuff like this.

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The Weird and Wonderful World of Road Food

I love going on road trips. I like to get out of New England every now and then - even if it's just a trip to New York City - and get out and see things and do things. But flying freaks me out, and trains are expensive and kind of limited as to where I can go as far as I'm concerned. So travel by car it is then.

And traveling by car has its perks. There are things you can see and do that you just can't when you're on a plane or train. Granted, you'll get to your destination faster in your plane or train than I will in my car, but I'll get the enjoyment of treating myself to stopping at midnight for gas, driving into sketchy rest stops at three in the morning, and trying strange local snacks from vending machines when I get hungry.

And that's exactly what my friend and I did over the course of our Spring Break. We were able to take a week's worth of clothes, two bags of road food, and a forty pound crate of soda and cram them into my tiny little Smart car.

Then we proceeded to drive from Connecticut to Naples, Florida to visit a friend of ours. While we were out, we kept an eye open for interesting foods along the way. The first was at a rest stop in Virginia on route 95. Sometime in the early morning, we were looking for something to snack on in the vending machines. Fairly typical snacks were packed into the side-by-side vending machines: Pop-Tarts, chips, cookies, candy bars, Vienna sausages...

Wait - what?  Vienna sausages? My friend and I did a double take and - yes, there on the bottom shelf for a whopping $1.25 - Armour brand Vienna sausages, packed between some cookies and cinnamon rolls. Thinking it too strange to not take a picture of, we snapped some photos, I called Dave from the parking lot to share the joy of my discovery, and then we went on our merry way.

A few days later, we were shopping at a Publix when, in the prepared foods section, I came across six packs of pre-peeled, hard-boiled eggs. I pulled my friend over and we laughed at that, too. I had never seen pre-cooked hard boiled eggs before. On top of that, neither of us were brave enough to get one of them to taste. They looked a little...brown. And oozy. So, after taking more pictures (and calling Dave again)  we went the safe route and get some store-made sandwiches before getting back to the road.

Finally, on the way home, we stopped at a rest stop in Pennsylvania. There, I saw some potato chips for a buck. I was hungry and overtired, and just needed something to hold me over for the next five hours until I could flop onto my couch and call it a day. And these were some very strange chips - they're cooked in vegetable shortening instead of regular oil.

Martin's "Kettle-Cook'd" potato chips are certainly worthy of my 'strange road food' classification. They're probably the best chips I've ever had, with a rich, full-bodied potato flavor and an amazing crunch.  And yet, they were also extremely heavy-tasting because they're cooked in shortening instead of oil.  They felt like they should have left a grease film in my mouth, but when I checked the Nutritional Facts on the back, the first thing I noticed was that they have the same amount of calories as regular chips. One one and a half ounce bag of these chips had 220 calories, and 110 of them are from fat.   They just tasted like they should have had a lot more calories than they really did. 

There were a lot of other things that we wanted to eat while we were on the road, but just didn't have the time for, like the temptingly-named but oh-so-shady-looking Waffle House;  Chick-Fil-A, which  I've heard so much about but have never tried; and so many strange snack foods and other fast food chains - but they'll have to wait for another time. But I won't hesitate to take another road trip, especially if it means that I'll get to see more bizarre foods in unlikely places.

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Tasting The Famous Canned Cheeseburger

I first read about the Trek'n Eat Cheeseburger in a Can in 2004, and was instantly fascinated. Unfortunately, it's not sold in the United States, and the German company that produces them does not ship outside Europe.

Recently, however, my sister-in-law visited friends in Switzerland and came home with a special treat for me: a canned cheeseburger!!

Americans love their cheeseburgers. It is no wonder that this canned version - impossible for the ordinary burger aficionado to obtain - has achieved some sort of mythic status among American bloggers. Besides, if it were possible to equip your Zombie Apocalypse Shelter with non-perishable burgers, wouldn't you prefer them to MREs, sardines, and powdered milk? You bet you would. Let me tell you, though: the fact that Trek'n Eat doesn't distribute these things in the US is a gift to America. Canned cheeseburgers are foul. Think of the worst "convenience meal" you've ever had - even the Banquet Cheesy Smothered Meat Patty Meal - and the canned cheeseburger completely surpasses it for nastiness.

Opening the can revealed that the top bun, studded with sesame seeds, completely filled the diameter of the can. We gave it a sniff, but there wan't much aroma. Lynnafred poked at the bun a bit and found it to be surprisingly fresh and rather spongy, and not kind of dried and "day-oldish" as we thought it might have been.

Once out of the can, though, the burger was much more like you would have expected a canned cheeseburger to be: small, kind of flat, almost sullen-looking (if a burger could be said to look sullen.) The meat and cheese and whatever else might have been between the buns were invisible, because the bun was large enough to have encased the entire structure all around. We found that intriguing, and I tried to peel back the buns to reveal some of the burgery secrets that might have been contained within. Alas, the bread and cheese had more or less fused together during processing and it was difficult to lift the top bun without having it delaminate into crumbs. I settled for cross-sectioning it with a kitchen knife instead.

I cut the burger first in half to examine the components, then into smaller wedges so that my wife Maryanne, daughtger Lynnafred, and friend Michael could all have a piece. I could not have had a less appetizing-looking item in my hand if I were gripping a cat turd.

The meat patties - yes, there were two of them, stacked atop one another though sligltly offset - were greyish brown, coarse and gritty, with visible bits of...something...studded in there. The cheese had kind of seeped into the pores of the bun like a strange sort of dairy-based plastic sealant. I took a bite, and chewed...

...and spit it out. The meat was disgusting - it was like slices of horribly malseasoned, overcooked, adulterated sausage, at once pasty and grainy and rubbery. It tasted nothing like any type of beef (or even beef substitute) I'd ever had. It is beyond belief that whoever developed this horrid simulacrum of a burger has ever tasted a real cheeseburger. I can't imagine that they've even seen a real cheeseburger, though the possibility that they might have glimpsed a grainy, low-resolution thumbnail of one, from a distance, is plausible.

I took another bite, determined to get at least one taste down the ol' hatch. When all was said and done, the four of us had reluctantly managed to eat a little less than half of the cheeseburger between us. It must be said, though, that Zim thoroughly enjoyed the leftovers.

So. I have eaten a canned cheeseburger. An experience which no one will ever be able to take from me - as well as one I wish never to repeat again. I owe my sister-in-law bigtime favors for this one.

How about a closeup? I promise it was even worse in person.

Link:

Trek'n Eat Cheeseburger in a can website - The actual product website (English Language.) Be grateful there is no ordering link for the United States.

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One last pair of pictures:

On the left, the product depicted in Trek'n Eat's catalog photo. On the right, what the actual burger looked like when it came out of the can. Not even calling that a "serving suggestion" forgives that level of bullshit.

Salami Fighting Association

Remember when you were in school, how much fun it was when you got to watch a movie or a video instead of doing actual school work? I do. So today, allow me to present the following movie I found on YouTube. It's even food related. Sort of. Well, as food-related as a video of two bacon-skirted gladiators duking it out with sausage links can be. Enjoy.

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Two-headed...Onion?

It's happened to all of us, hasn't it? The onion on the bottom of the bag that we suddenly notice has a few scapes poking out through the netting? This is the first time I've had one sprouting from both ends, though.

Goodies from China!

Wow! Look what came in the mail on Friday! A big box of mysterious and esoteric goodies from China, courtesy of Stephanie! There are all sorts of strange and delicious delights here...let's see...some duck tongues, and duck feet. And here's something called "Spicy Chicken Feet String." Cool candies, and Fishsnacks, and little cakes. ...There are many interesting flavors and blog posts in the days to come.

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There's One Born Every Minute...

Times are tough right now, and that's even being reflected in the food press with stories about 2009 being a year for comfort foods, more cooking at home, and more economizing in the pantry. And that makes me wonder how an outfit like TSP Spices can stay in business.

TSP's name pretty much says it all. They sell organic spices in single-teaspoon pouches which in turn are packaged in fancy little tins. The tins retail for $9.00 and up, and each of them contains a dozen pouches.

Yeah, you read that right. 12 teaspoons - a quarter of a cup! - of herbs or spices for nine dollars.

TSP claims that their single-teaspoon pouches keep their organic product fresher, and that having pre-measured spices are more convenient. I'm sorry, but I just can't swallow such a huge chunk of bullshit. Tightly-sealed jars in a dark cupboard will keep bulk packages of herbs and spices fresh and flavorful, and annoying little rip-open pouches will never be more convenient than a handy set of measuring spoons.

There is also a distinct odor of hypocrisy here, what with all the cozy speech about "organic" foods and "supporting local farmers." One of their pages says, "but if you trace your food back to its source, you get a sense of what it really means to be good global citizens and conscientious stewards of environmental resources" Somehow, I doubt that putting tiny dabs of spices into petrochemically-manufactured tubes and then further packaging them into tins with paper inserts, labels, boxes, and shrinkwrap is an example of good environmental stewardship. I'm sure all that industrial crank contributes to the astronomical price tag, too.

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

-- H L Mencken

Link:

TSP's Website. Check them out and make up your own mind.

Mama's Choice Syrup

Are you familiar with Mama's Choice syrups? Most of them are pretty decent - real, honest ingredients that seem to be made and packaged with care. Blackberry Patch, the makers of Mama's Choice, is a Georgia company that has quite a line of tasty syrups which they sell on their website as well as in markets, specialty retailers, and gourmet shops around the country. Most of their stuff looks really good. But it really irritates me when a company weasels around with their labels, like they do here.

This label is designed to foster confusion. Yes, the label admits that the bottle contains "Maple Praline Flavored Syrup," but also says "pure and natural."

There is no maple syrup in the mix. There is sugar, corn syrup, maple flavoring, and praline flavoring. I suppose on a technicality you could call this "pure syrup," but I'd say it's quite a stretch to call it "natural." At any rate, I found this bottle in a display at Big Lots. Hopefully, the reason these bottles were there are because they're a poorly-labeled closeout.

If you'd really like to try out Blackberry Patch's products, you might be better off just going directly to their website. The prices there are exceptionally fair - 12 ounce bottles of their real maple praline syrup are sold there for just $5.99 for example - and you'll be putting money directly into their pockets.

Link:

Blackberry Patch's website. No ingredient listings or nutritional info that I could find, but there are careful product descriptions for all of the products offered.

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Grapples

I have to take pictures of some of this crap, just so you won't think I'm making it up.

Pictured at left is the Grapple. (It's pronounced "grape-uhl," by the way, which is a whole different category of stupidity - why didn't they just spell it Graple if they wanted it to be pronounced with a long "a"?)

Anyway, a Grapple is a brand name for a perfectly good Fuji apple that's been injected with artificial grape flavor. Crack open the edge of the container, and these apples smell like a grape lollypop. Or Rev. Jim Jones' Guiana Kool-Aid.

The supermarkets charge $4 for this package - a dollar an apple! - but what is far worse is the slogan: "Looks like an apple. Tastes like a grape." What? Tastes like a grape? Grapes don't taste anything like "grape" candy.

I first saw these months ago in Stop and Shop supermarkets in Western Massachusetts, but they soon vanished from the produce aisles, presumably because no one was buying them. Now they've started turning up in the second-tier markets - smaller, neighborhood grocery stores. I hope they disappear from that market segment, too.