Category Archives: Strange Foods

America loves food. We love it so much. But sometimes, strange and terrifying things happen in the culinary process, because you always hurt the ones you love.

St. Louis: America’s Weirdest Culinary City

Posted on June 30, 2015 | 28 comments

“…The hell is wrong with your taste buds?”

~AFFotD’s Resident Food Critic

st louis pizza oh dear

St. Louis.  We don’t ever really know how to talk about the second largest city in the state of Missouri.  For a time in the 1800s, it appeared that St. Louis, and not Chicago, would grow into the main population center of the Midwest, but the city’s leaders actively fought against the proliferation of railroads and greatly stunted its growth during the largest population boon the area would ever see.  Still, it’s by no means a small town—while the population of 300,000 ranks it as the 58th largest city in the nation, the whole metro area has nearly three million residents, good enough for the 19th largest market in the nation.  Hell, they’re big enough to warrant a good hockey team, a usually not that good football team, and a baseball team filled with the most frustratingly smug fans in all of the nation.  They’re a real city, and honestly it’s kind of condescending of us to spend so much effort trying to bring that point home.

St. Louis has culture, is what we’re saying—you could probably argue that they have more regionally specific cultural touchstones than most similarly sized cities, but that might be us giving the Arch too much credit.  And where there is culture, there is food.  And in St. Louis’s case, where there’s food…well, things get weird.  We’ve talked about it before in passing, but we’re going to go into some more detail for you, because so far, in our extensive search for weird food in America, St. Louis has the title of…

St. Louis:  America’s Weirdest Culinary City

meat and bbq Continue reading →

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America’s Worst Flavored Milk

Posted on April 2, 2015 | 2 comments

“Listen, kids will drink anything if you just fill it up with sugar.  So, can we just do that?”

~Milk Executives

smoothies yo

Americans consume an impressive amount of milk on average—over 20 gallons per person, and that includes vegans who live life incorrectly.  The dairy industry is one of the largest agricultural groups in the nation, and most Americans grew up having milk crammed down their throats through school lunches and parents telling them to “drink your milk so you can grow up big and strong” or, in the case of AFFotD’s staff, “drink your milk so you can have a good base coat before you switch to whiskey.”  And while milk is delicious, many people view it as a healthy beverage, and the average American child would rather chew off his own arm than purposely consume something healthy.  And because this is America, and our government is secretly run by sugar lobbyists (don’t believe us?  Ask a European if they think our bread tastes sweet) we’ve naturally decided that there is only one way to make sure that kids drink enough milk for their bones to become calcified adamantium.

Apparently we couldn’t really justify just adding a bunch of sugar to regular milk, so that added hyperactivity had to be introduced through various flavors, with varying success.  Now, we can all support chocolate milk, and while the taste/potential abject horror of strawberry and banana flavored milk can be easily questioned, they’ve unfortunately been around long enough to be merely “gross” and not “oh my God, what have we done” to the modern American consumer.  That doesn’t really forgive us for the sins that we’ve otherwise committed on dairy in our quest to turn milk from “a kind of thick white liquid we squirt from the bottom of a cow” to “candy!” in the minds of America’s youth.

Take solace, Lactose Intolerance sufferers of America.  You might miss out on cheese, and yogurt, and pizza, oh God now that we start listing things you can’t have we suddenly feel so bad for you, but you at least don’t have to deal with these.

America’s Worst Flavored Milk

banana strawberry milk Continue reading →

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The World’s Largest Candy (That You Can Buy Right Now)

Posted on March 31, 2015 | 2 comments

“*begins seizing from sugar overdose*”

~AFFotD’s official product taste tester

giant candy corn

America loves candy so much that we wrote a kind of annoying song about how much we want it back in 1965, and we’ve not shut up about it since.  There’s something comforting about mainlining sugar into your veins, no matter how often Japan tries to ruin the concept.

And, in the gluttonous nature of American know-how that we like to champion, America also loves giant food that doesn’t need to be quite so giant.  Naturally, these two schools of thought have collided on many occasions, because a giant candy bar is much cooler than a giant stalk of celery, mom.

In this enterprising spirit, we’re here to salute America’s giant candy confections, but we’re not going to simply stick with some Guinness book of world records bullshit.

Sure, we could spend a few thousand words telling you about the 12,000 pound chocolate bar made by Chicago’s World Finest Chocolates, or the 7,000 pound lollipop made by See’s Candies out in Burlingame, California, but what good does that do you, the reader?

It might impress you, but does it give you the opportunity to go out, find something horribly unhealthy, and devour it in one sitting in what will probably prove to be the last and greatest mistake you ever made in your sugar-shortened life?

Hell no!  So we’re going to stick with the world’s largest candy items that you, yes you, irresponsible you, can purchase this very moment.

After all, you’re an adult, you can and have eaten cake for breakfast because you make your own rules and, hey, we’re all going to die someday, and overdosing on sucrose doesn’t sound much worse than drowning.

The World’s Largest Candy (That You Can Buy Right Now)

candy cane Continue reading →

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The (Terrifying) Black-Bun Burgers of the World

Posted on March 19, 2015 | 3 comments

“Nope nope nope nope nope nope.”

~AFFotD Food Critic, John Goodman

black burgers oh no

Depending on what non-affotd corners of the internet you choose to spend your free time perusing, you might have heard recently about Burger King ramping up the gross factor on their food by offering a black bun, black cheese burger called the Kuro, or Black burger.  This burger re-issue (yes, they tried it before, more on that later) used squid ink and bamboo charcoal to create an all-black burger.  Black cheese, black ketchup, black soul are combined for fast food connoisseurs in Japan (because of course this is happening in Japan), leading to a whole slew of internet chatter of “lol, Japan is crazy” (which, duh) and “ew, this looks gross so I tried it oh by the way I’m also a white 24-year-old living in Japan currently while maintaining a blog about my travels.”

What we find most surprising about this burger has nothing to do with its mere existence.  When talking about Japan, nothing surprises us anymore.  No, upon doing some digging, we discovered that Japan’s Burger King does not have a monopoly on this particular brand of culinary insanity.  So, get ready to see a lot of unappetizing pictures of a type of food you once loved, because we’re going to delve into…

The (Terrifying) Black-Bun Burgers of the World

 all is darkness Continue reading →

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Swerve: Coca-Cola’s Almost Alcoholic Milk Product For School Lunches

Posted on February 17, 2015 | 1 comment

Make it alcoholic!  No wait, make it milk for school lunches!  Fuck it, we’re drunk, do whatever.”

~Coca-Cola Executives

coca cola

We recently waxed the-opposite-of-poetic about Coca-Cola produced beverages that we found, to put it politely, shitty as shit.  In doing our research for that article, we stumbled across a single product, available from 2003 to 2005, that we felt belonged on our list, until a quick look at its history let us know that, no, this drink is wonderful, and the most American thing we can think of, and we wish we had it today.

That drink is Swerve.

Swerve is a milk drink, but it’s so much more.  It’s a microcosm of the product development process of modern day American consumerism.  It’s an opportunistic combination of bad ideas and impractical dreams.  It’s beautiful and it’s ugly and it’s everything about America, all mixed together into a sweetened milk drink.

Let’s talk about Swerve.

Swerve:  Coca-Cola’s Almost Alcoholic Milk Product For School Lunches

 swerve Continue reading →

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The Worst Coca-Cola Products in the World

Posted on January 22, 2015 | 5 comments

“This is by far the worst idea you’ve had, and you used to put cocaine in your drink and try to sell it to kids.”

~Coca-Cola Product Consultants Shortly Before Being Shouted Down

daft punk coke

Coca-Cola holds an important place in America’s heart, and its economy.  Ever since their humble beginnings as a non-alcoholic version of the poorly named John Pemberton’s French Wine Cola nerve tonic in Atlanta in 1886, originally-addictive-as-shit and still-technically-addictive beverage has grown to become the most valuable brand in the world, raking in over 45 billion dollars a year, with the power to do anything they want, from brushing aside antitrust legislation proposed by Pepsi to allegedly getting Colombian union leaders assassinated.  The point being, Coca-Cola is an ingrained cultural and economic powerhouse, with dozens, if not hundreds, of brands and varieties across America and the globe.

Naturally, a very large part of Coca-Cola’s whole “made enough money in 2014 to surpass the GDP of 83 different countries” popularity comes from the fact that they make a delicious, American product.  Coca-Cola is wonderful, and anyone who says otherwise is a Pepsi executive who contractually has to say that he hates Coke, even though we all know that Coke and Pepsi are the most interchangeable beverages imaginable.  The taste preference in Cola brands generally falls between “the sweet one” and “the slightly sweeter one” with a handful of outliers saying, “I prefer the organic cola from Whole Foods because ouch stop that why are you flicking my ear that’s extremely annoying okay you know what you clearly don’t want a dialogue so I’ll just leave, you assholes.”  But, Coke came first, and Coke is the world leader, and even if we might prefer the slightly sweeter one, Coca-Cola can do no wrong.

Well, okay that’s not true.  They can do a lot of wrong.  The following is wrong.

The Worst Coca-Cola Products in the World

guys come on this garlic coke thing is a scam

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Jog N’ Vom: America’s Official Food and Drink Races

Posted on January 15, 2015 | Leave a comment

“Chug chug chug chug chew chew chew chew run run run run!”

~Only the Most American of Runners

pizza run

Americans either love or hate exercising.  Sure, you can find some middle ground of, people that guess they should go for a jog today, but generally speaking, you have two camps of American exercisers—the kind of person that gets really into their workout journal, and the kind of person who actively brags that they go out of the way to limit their day to day physical exertions as much as possible.  The stereotypes are in place—you have the cross-fit trainer on a Paleo diet, or you have the overweight American chugging a beer while eating a ChipoHut Taco (that’s where you take a Chipotle burrito, put it inside a full Pizza Hut pizza, and fold the whole thing into a massive taco).

Naturally, the latter is the more American option.  However, in the past few years, people who “exercise” and “take care of their bodies” and “can go up a flight of stairs without running out of breath” have seemingly taken a hard look at themselves and said, “Yes, I should still exercise, but maybe I can find a way to do it while also being a little unhealthy, which sounds a lot more fun.”

We’ve coined a term for this kind of slightly unhealthy, exponentially more fun exercise—the Jog N’ Vom.  Basically, dozens of races have sprung up across America that don’t want you to just run an arbitrary distance while they time you—they want you to incorporate drinking or eating something super unhealthy into your run, turning your 5K into an eating or drinking competition, which is a wonderful thing.

So, for you health nuts out there that still want to be the best American you can be, we present with you a (fairly) comprehensive list of the races that let you be bad while being good.

Jog N’ Vom:  America’s Official Food and Drink Races

beer run      

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The Worst Mountain Dew Flavors of All Time

Posted on January 13, 2015 | 16 comments

“I am AMPED I am AMPED woah what if they made an energy called AMP and…wait I think my heart stopped, or…MOUNTAIN DEW WOO!”

~Mountain Dew Drinker (aged 12)

 mountain dew

Mountain Dew has one of the more unique rises to popularity of any beverage that can be poured out of a tap without someone checking your ID first.  Originally invented in 1940 in Tennessee with the we’re-honestly-not-kidding-here’s-a-commercial-for-it slogan of “Ya-Hoo!  Mountain Dew.  It’ll tickle yore innards” and advertising itself to Hillbillies, it’s since gone on to be extremely popular among gamers, extreme sports fanatics, and sixth grade kids who view it as a caffeine-rich forbidden fruit, like speed that you can buy at the gas station on the way to tweeking out throughout your school day.

Mountain Dew was first developed by Barney and Ally Hartman, who made it as a mixer and named it after a Scottish and Irish slang for “moonshine.”  It was eventually bought out by PepsiCo in 1964, and the “hillbilly angle” was removed not too long after.  While you know it as a “citrus” flavored soft drink, and it lists concentrated orange juice as one of its flavors, it’s basically just sugar and caffeine with a hint of “dorm cafeteria OJ” flavor to it.

And while “the potent combination of a sugar high with a caffeine buzz” is a good enough combination to help Mountain Dew corner 80% of the citrus-flavored pop market, in our age of American ingenuity and overzealous marketing, a company can only rest comfortably on your laurels for so long selling just one kind of middle-school wake up juice, and ever since the 1980s Mountain Dew has been experimenting with a variety of flavors.  Some of them are good (looking at you, Code Red).  Some of them…well, not so much.

The Worst Mountain Dew Flavors of All Time

mountain dew pack Continue reading →

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The Worst Holiday Treats of Christmas

Posted on December 22, 2014 | 1 comment

“Oh no.  Fruit Cake.”

~You, on Christmas

christmas cake

This week, we’re anxiously counting down the days for Christmas, a holiday you either love unconditionally or complain about at every opportunity while getting more and more pissed off each time someone calls you a “Grinch.”  “Shut up, I’m not a Grinch, I just don’t see why we’re making such a big deal about…” you start to say to your coworkers before being interrupted by the spontaneous Christmas caroling that just started because, God people, we know Christmas is almost here, that doesn’t mean you need to sing “Jingle Bells” all fucking day, this is a place of work for fuck’s sake.

However, despite its detractors, most of us love Christmas, a time for family, friends, togetherness, and general Christmas cheer.  Everyone has their traditions, and while some of those traditions are stupid and racist, most are wholesome and do wonders to take your mind off the harsh winter, no seriously this winter’s going to be really bad goddamn it what did we do to deserve this.  And many of these traditions involve delicious sugary treats.

Where Thanksgiving is a holiday centered around savory goodness and no shut up we’re not going to be healthy about it, Christmas is by and large sweets-focused.  It’s assumed that you’ll eat and drink too much during Christmas, but unlike Thanksgiving, there’s a little more leeway for dinner.  Ham?  Fine!  Turkey?   Sounds good!  A roast beef covered in cigarette butts?  Goddamn it, Uncle Bert, we told you no smoking in the house, why the fuck did you think that putting your spent cigs in the oven was the best way to cover your tracks?  But a Christmas without sweet candy treats is hardly a Christmas at all, unless you’re someone who happens to not be Christian, in which case you still celebrate Christmas because let’s be real this shit is pretty damn secular by this point, and you’re getting the day off of work for it, so quit your bellyaching.

While some of these treats are delightful and delicious (stay tuned for our Christmas Eve article) some are…well.  You know.  Bad.

The Worst Holiday Treats of Christmas

oh god fruitcake Continue reading →

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Food Items America Has Launched Into Space

Posted on November 5, 2014 | Leave a comment

“Space is AWESOME!”

~Every American child

galaxy

When you were a child, you’d look up at the stars and say, “Space is awesome!”  Now, when you look up at the stars, you’ll either say, “Space is fucking awesome!” or, most likely, “Make everything stop spinning, oh God I’m gonna be sick, I shouldn’t have had that last shot.”  And America, being awesome and having a particular interest in claiming awesome things for themselves, have never been shy about our aspirations to get out into the stars.  Adjusted for inflation, we’ve spent roughly $790 billion since NASA opened up shop in 1958, an amount of money commonly referred to as, “Shut up, stupid, that’s not too much money, space is awesome.”

From Alan Shepard’s first suborbital flight to Sandra Bullock’s conversation with an Inuit, Americans have done more in space than any other nation.  And while experiments, and feats of courage, and lunar travels are all well and good, there’s one thing we’re most concerned about.

What kinds of food have we shot out into space?

Dammit, this is important.  No, we don’t care about your science, we want to know what kind of food people have shot up into space.  This is important.  Shut up, this is important.

Food Items America Has Launched Into Space

 space food Continue reading →

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