Wabi Sabi What’s Up With This Wasabi

polyesterpalate — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:23:49 +0000

I figure a bunch of Lay’s scientists were sitting around the chip lab late one night, old take-out sushi drooping in its styrofoam trays under the fluorescent lights, when one of them thought “Eureka, I’ve got it…how’bout wasabi flavoured potato chips. The boss is gonna love it.” Well, green speckling is not always becoming and these chips have the soft, hazy hue of some aging mold grown in a petri dish at the stage just before it turns into something hairy. Now wasabi certainly spikes up a slab of raw sea critter but it was with some skepticism that I approached a spud sprayed with wasabi buckshot. Just as the future promised test tube babies this is test tube wasabi. On an atomic level these things are like molecular tricksters but it’s really all horseradish without the wabi sabi aesthetic. The first bite almost fools you. The second and you start glomming on to this simulated scam and by the third chip it’s almost revolting. I looked down at my hand buried up to the wrist in these things and thought, I can’t get through a whole bag of this. Maybe if they mixed it up with some simulated tuna or freshwater eel or surf clam flavoured chips this concept might be a success but it took me four cups of sake before I got the taste out of my mouth. I’m also figuring if they’ve done wasabi what’s next? Maybe gefilte fish.

A Rolling Egg Gathers No Moss

polyesterpalate — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 05:29:33 +0000

BelleIsle Vegetable Egg Rolls
I found these delicacies awhile back at my local supermarket while hiding my Hostess cupcakes from the roving bands around the organic food displays. The package was as alluring as the name. BelleIsle Egg Rolls. Sounded like a Caribbean cruise theme night. I grabbed a box of veggie style, creeping back via the toilet paper aisle. Rushing home, I picked the burnt cheese blob resembling Ernest Borgnine’s head from the bottom of the test oven and fired ‘er up. Roy Pope and sons founded and built this New Brunswick company, feeling the calling to bring tasty egg rolls to the furthest outposts of Canada. That and a surplus of shredded cabbage. I believe the company has since been bought by McCain Foods. Nevertheless these plump egg-pockets looked like the bellies of tiny, overturned frogs on the baking tray. At least they weren’t breathing. Flipped the little bellies once to tan on the other side and in twenty minutes I had sixteen succulent veggie egg rolls to help me win friends and influence neighbours. It was egg roll ecstasy. The doughy abdomens turned crisp, concealing a lush, shredded veggie jungle inside. I sweetened them up with a little plum sauce. BelleIsle makes a whole schmeer of different egg rolls including pork, chicken and beef, all equally delicious. The tale behind them is both sad and uplifting, a testament to human egg roll ingenuity and corporate aquisitions. Above all it’s a heart soaring story of a family and its egg roll empire.

Ho Ho Hum

polyesterpalate — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:04:16 +0000

Green Giant Frozen Corn on the Cob
If I could find that Green Giant guy, I’d whack him over the head with one of these frozen freaks of nature. Judging by his picture on the package, he isn’t that big either. Better yet, I’ll sic those Children of the Corn kids on him. The lab hummed with industry as I set these niblet knockwursts to boiling on the stove. I don’t use a microwave in the test environment as stove method allows for a longer cocktail hour. They look like corn, they feel like corn, although their ears are cold, but they taste like salty water and have the pop of mushy corn pimples when bitten. Butter turned them into bumpy bayous of slime that coated my teeth. Another night gazing into my gums, face speckled with saliva and Waterpik spray. Maybe they’re better when radiated. Perhaps I boiled them a minute too long. Still, a sogginess such as this seems to me to indicate a problem with the frozen cob infrastructure. Maybe the Giant needs some motivational seminars. Anyway, this one goes to the frozen food morgue. After the autopsy, maybe science can tell us what went wrong. And the Fox Network could turn it into a TV special, hosted by an out-of-work Star Trek actor.

Cheemo Chimichanga

polyesterpalate — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:56:41 +0000

CHEEMO Tribites, Burrito Flavour
I was sitting around the test lab, having a few beer and listening to George Jones sing When The Last Curtain Falls when I asked myself, Mark, is there a Cheemo product you haven’t tried? I put on some pants and headed to IGA to examine the frozen food morgue. There I discovered that Cheemo, the Canadian kingpin of the perogy production game, have introduced their Tribites series in two flavours, Burrito and Veggie. I opted for south of the border. The Burrito flavour has pinto beans, cheddar cheese and jalapeno peppers socked away in crispy pastry. During cooking, these triangular puffs began disgorging their contents onto the baking tray. They looked like small hats going to the bathroom. No matter, I sprinkled some of the grated cheddar that came in the package over their golden domes and chowed down with a little salsa on the side. Result: Very flavourful with a tongue-twitch of spicy heat. I visited their website where they offer a Cheemo Perogy Power Hat if they post your Cheemo recipe. I want one. Then we’ll see who wears the pants in this family.

Cracked Nuts

polyesterpalate — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:38:26 +0000

Planter’s Cracked Black Pepper Pistachios
I’ve always trusted the nut with the monocle so when I saw this new product I thought, “ah Mr. Peanut, you’ve outdone yourself this time.” Although i have to say I was a little skeptical. I love pistachios in their unadulterated form so the idea of cracked black pepper speckling their plump, husk protected bodies was as loathsome to me as putting pork on the seder plate. My fears were unfounded. The dry roasting is exquisite with these little nutters, each pistachio seemingly almost perfect, even the odd bad one which I enjoy nevertheless just like I enjoy a stinky cheese and the pepper factor is so minimal that the trace elements hold no sway over the flavour and yet the pepper is there like a lilting strain of music heard from foothills faraway. That’s how good these pistachios are. They’ll have you waxing poetic even if the only waxing you’ve done before had to do with your ears or your body hair.

A Spud Grows Up

polyesterpalate — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:09:56 +0000

Kettle New York Cheddar and Herb Potato Chips
I’m always wary of crispy ‘tater purveyors who brand their product with a gourmet slant. Usually that means I’m kissing away all my favourite additives and reaching my blind grub-worm fingers into a bag of dry, mummified potato slivers that have all the flavour of an old serviette that was used to dab a camel’s lips after a long desert journey. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I cracked open a bag of these spud wafers but I’ve had success in the past with this brand although they never really knocked my socks off. I read the front of the package to steel myself for what lay inside and was tantalized by the phrase “Bold Grown-Up Cheese.” It sounded even better in French-Fromage Mature Audacieux. Like a soft core cheese porn film from France for mature audiences only. The back of the package really emboldened me with references to cheese that grows up and moves to the big city and is comfortable in a penthouse, on the subway or alongside a five-star dinner plate. A true American success story. Great I thought. A cheese speckled spud that is even more mature than me. Undaunted i dove in and was instantly captivated by the gentle, pungent flavours with a perfect chip texture and a hint of herbs to educate my tastebuds to the finer things in life. Which is more than I can say for my sock choice.

Another Cheesejacking Incident

polyesterpalate — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:41:49 +0000

Doritos Black Pepper Jack Tortilla Chips
The first thing that attracted me to these children of the corn offspring was the packaging. A kind of shimmering silvery affair that reminded me of a Romulan’s clothing. Sleek and designed to mete out justice of an intergalactic kind with a “take no prisoners” attitude. Being a big fan of the Zesty Cheese variety I was anxious to sample this new fiery fromage shindig and was pleasantly surprised by the breadth and depth of the food chemical enhancements and the buzz they gave to my tastebuds. At first bite there’s a tinge of sweetness that never becomes cloying as I’ve experienced with some of the others in the Dorito’s line but this soon gives way to a spicy kick in the tongue’s groin, building in heat and invigorating my nasal passages with a gentle peppery massage. All in all this creation is a success story from the sci-fi packaging to the lactic acid afterburn.

T-Boned By A ‘Tater

polyesterpalate — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:52:34 +0000

This post is courtesy of Mr. Shimmer, my guest reviewer. More about Shimmer later but suffice to say he’s a gnarly old guy in yellow seersucker slacks and what he claims are snakebites on his forehead from his days as a self-ordained minister in an Appalachian snakehandling church. I haven’t tasted these chips so I take his word for it on their flavour even if he has no teeth. Here’s what he had to say. “Anyone for some delicious t-bone flavored chips? Count me out, I limit my meat flavored chips to chicken and lamb. And sometimes raccoon. These critters tasted more like liver with a dry saliva-sucking finish and a texture I could shave my two day stubble with. Still I finished the bag but then again I once drank goat pee ’cause as everyone knows it cures thrombosis. Over and out. And don’t believe a word that that hack who runs this blog writes. He doesn’t know his head from his ass or his ass from a head of lettuce for that matter.”