Junk Food Adventures

2009-07-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

Ben and Jerry's Mission to Marzipan Ice Cream
Cost: $2.50
Location: Wal-Mart

Marzipan is special to me. When I was little, my mom and I spent some time in New York City while I was receiving medical treatment at Sloan-Kettering. In our free time, we went to FAO Schwartz, the zoo, and at some point we went to a candy store and bought some of those marzipan candies painted to look like tiny fruits. For those of you who've never tried or heard of it, marzipan is a paste made of almonds and sugar. Years later, the grainy texture and almondy-sweet taste of marzipan still makes me happy. Same goes for those jelly candies that look like slices of citrus fruits. Maybe I just have a thing for candy made to look like fruit.

Anyway, the ice cream. On a recent grocery trip with Boyfriend, I spotted this new Ben and Jerry's flavor as we passed the freezer aisle. On pretty much every one of our cute little young couple outings to Wal-Mart, I have to stop by the freezer aisle to ogle the ice creams. Boyfriend is used to this routine by now. Normally I just window shop or get some frozen yogurt, but this marzipan flavor gave me pause. It said it had "sweet cream ice cream with almond cookies and a marzipan swirl". I'd never heard of anything like that before, so I snatched it up.

It's pretty good! The actual marzipan is tan-colored for some reason (all marzipan I've encountered has been nearly white) and not firm like the kind you'd find shaped into fruits, but still has that distinctive taste and grainy texture. The best part, though, are the cookies, which are soft and just slightly chewy. My photo is kind of bleak-looking (new apartment, new lighting situation), but don't let that fool you. I'm really glad Ben and Jerry are coming up with adventurous flavors like this. Even the name, "Mission to Marzipan", suggests trying something new, a flavor from another planet. A delicious, almondy planet.

Vivaaa Las Big Lots!

2008-08-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

Elvis Peanut Butter & Banana Creme Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Price: 80 cents
Location: Big Lots

It is common knowledge that Elvis Presley's favorite food was a peanut butter and banana sandwich. In some versions of the legend, the sandwich was (be still my heart) fried. I have always felt a special kinship with the King ever since hearing that he had a taste for unconventional food. I imagine that before he was a big deal people gave him weird looks when he tucked into a PB&B, the same way no one understands my passionate love of fried pickles. So you can understand my excitement at scoring these peanut butter & banana creme Reese's cups at Big Lots. And man, they were worth it.

First of all, they were huge peanut butter cups. I guess there is a special kind of Reese's PB Cup now, called a Big Cup, and it's about the size of a hockey puck (okay, not quite that, but close!). That's what these things were. As you can see in the above cross-section, the standard peanut butter sits atop a layer of banana creme. I'm not a big fan of bananas, and even less so of banana-flavored things, but this was actually really good. I would definitely be open to trying other flavor combinations of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, especially if they had historical context like these did.

As a side note, Big Lots is the best place ever to find things like this. For the uninitiated, Big Lots is a store where regular stores send their extra stuff. A lot of discontinued things end up there, as well as some things (like the Elvis PB Cups) that I had never even seen in regular stores. It's about on par with the dollar store as far as prices, maybe a little more. Other times at Big Lots I've found things like Bruschetta-flavored Pringles and Jeff Foxworthy Brand Ham Jerky. You find something new every time.

So Anyway, the Onion Rings...

2008-08-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

Burger King Onion Rings Flavored Snacks
Price: 75 cents
Location: vending machine on campus

I figured these would be something like Funyuns: crunchy, oniony, starchy. They were a little different in that they didn't have so much onion powder, there was more of a fried taste and they were a little less crunchy. Less crunchy than Funyuns is actually a good thing in my opinion because Funyuns tend to hurt your mouth in a Captain Crunch kind of way after a while. These were just right: more airy and puffy.

I really like the direction Burger King is going lately. I read somewhere that they were coming out with ketchup-flavored potato chips, as in they would taste like french fries dipped in ketchup, which sounds interesting. I've kept an eye out but haven't spotted these yet. The onion rings are most likely related, though. Burger King really gets people, I think. They have something for everyone on the menu (even a veggie burger!). Also, they have funny little one-liners on their wrappers and boxes, and their commercials are frequently funny. As such, I think it's great that they're branching out into vending machine territory.

Manifesto

2008-08-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

In between classes today, I wandered over to another building and found a vending machine. I wasn't really hungry, but I had some time to kill and a few quarters. As I surveyed my options, I happened upon these Burger King Onion Rings Flavored Snacks. And I was like, "I have to have those!"

Okay, it's not as bad as it sounds.

Let me backtrack by saying that I am a pretty healthy eater most of the time. I don't eat meat except for fish, generally avoid dairy and go through, like, four bags of salad a week. I don't smoke, don't drink excessively, etc., etc. Exotic junk food just happens to be one of my hobbies. By "Exotic" I simply mean that it looks interesting and I haven't tried it before. And I say "junk" with the utmost tenderness. I find it fascinating that these foods are produced entirely for the purpose of being tasty and fun. Junk food has no rules. It isn't afraid to be silly or weird. And they're always coming up with new kinds of junk food. So I created this blog to showcase interesting junk foods I encounter. There will be pictures, the prices if I can remember to write them down, and a little review for each one. Maybe later some kind of quantifiable rating system, like stars or thumbs-up. Beyond that, we'll just see where it goes.

If anyone has any suggestions, criticisms (be gentle?), or even would like to share a find of their own, definitely shoot me an email. I think of this as a very specific brand of anthropology, and more research is always a good thing!

Disclaimer: Y'all, I don't, like, subsist on these foods. In fact, I usually just have a taste or a single serving of each one and then pass them on to my boyfriend, friends or roommates to try. Enjoy in moderation. Also, anything I say on here is just my uninformed opinion. I'm not a professional anything, nor am I being paid to endorse anything.