UPDATE: Stalwart reader JJE, who lives in Newport Beach, just sampled the comestible described below. His one-word review: “Yum!” And his photo:
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I don’t know why, but I have a severe craving for one of these. They’re being tried out as an experimental menu item at Carl’s Jr. in Newport Beach, California.
I know I’ll get slammed for being declassé, but so be it. Everyone has at least one type of junk food that’s a guilty pleasure. What’s yours?
Oh, and more junk food news: Twinkies, thought to have been extinct, are pulling a coelacanth. The company has been purchased and they’re reappearing on store shelves in July.
When they stopped making them last November, many people hoarded them (they never go bad); here’s one Twinkie maven:
can’t say I agree. just the sight of this makes my teeth hurt and weep just a little for humanity. But, then again, I was rather fond of those unnaturally red Zingers, so I’m not judging.
Never cared for Twinkies, either, but I do love the Hostess Cupcakes (chocolate). I had no doubt that someone would purchase the product line.
Main point:
(they never go bad)
I wonder why ;-?
Mc’Donald’s “food” never goes bad either.
Buy one and keep it for years (ever).
I wonder why ;-?
But American icons, they are!
ever tried to eat mc fries the next day? total myth, they suck.
When in a foreign country I usually like to take every opportunity to experience the local food. But, one day in Shinjuku, I decided it might be interesting to see what the McDonald’s there was like.
WOW, is the first thing that comes to mind. The Japanese tend to be more driven to try and achieve perfection than is typical in the US, and it was very evident here. I ordered the classic 1/4 pounder with cheese and fries. Everything about the food was perfect. It looked better than the pictures, and tasted great too. It appeared as if they must have cooked each french frie individually to a perfect uniform doneness and golden color. The beef was a much better quality and cooked perfectly. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was better nutritionally than the typical US McDonald’s fare either.
The facility was also, of course, meticulously clean and neat, with friendly service people unobtrusively cleaning up after the customers.
If the typical McDonald’s in the US served food like this one, I would be a regular customer.
Why am I not surprised?
They sure know how to do many things with excellence, even the lowly noodle.
I’ve eaten at a McDonald’s in New Delhi and that was an interesting experience. There is of course no beef on the menu so I ordered the Chicken Maharajah Mac: Two all-chicken patties, spicy sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions – all on a sesame seed bun. It was much better than the flaccid excuse for a burger that the Big Mac is here in the states.
That sounds good.
I used to eat dinner on occasion over at an Indian friend’s house back in high school. His mother would make this fantastic dessert, no idea what it is called. It was dough of some sort shaped into balls and fried, similar to a fried doughnut. The fried dough balls themselves were great, but the real kicker was the dipping sauce. A sweet fruit sauce (no idea what fruit) that was so hot that the first time I had the dessert I almost passed out. It was almost like a religious experience. You endure a painful, difficult ordeal and if you make it you reach a state of euphoria.
I don’t think my lower GI could handle something like that anymore.
I suspect that what you were eating were gulab jamun, often served floating in sugar syrup! They’re fantastic, and come in several varieties.
An even better Indian dessert is rasmalai–a cheese/sugar ball floating in a boiled-down milk syrup flavored with cardamom. It may be my favorite dessert in the world (along with real Turkish baklava made with pistachios and covered with real whipped cream).
Yes, that is definitely them, thank you.
The rasmalai sounds like a must try. Cardamom is one of my favorite things.
On the topic of Indian desserts, you might also want to try the most iconic of them all, the Bengali/Oriya rôshogolla. Admittedly though, its sugary content is not for the faint of heart.
Interesting. Seems to be the precusor to rasmalai, gulab jamun and several other similar sweets. Thanks for the info.
I have also noticed that the McDonald’s chain tries hard to project a better image in India and some of the other Asian countries than it has in its native US. I can only wonder what the causes behind this might be.
Wow! I think the strawberry pop tart strawberry ice cream sandwich would be great with chocolate ice cream in it. Like I need more sugar in my diet, Not! Looks good though.
Strawberry Twizzlers. Why are they so good? Why?
We can never be friends.
It’s Red Vines for the win.
Nibs are better than Twizzlers. Now they make super long Nibs.
Get thee gone, Satan spawn.
What Nibs? You can’t get those at the gas station or the theater.
This is very painful to admit. I like Chick-Fil-A sandwiches.
Twinkies do go bad. Just check the “sell by” dates – they’re surprisingly short.
On the other hand, I don’t care for twinkies, so I’ve never had the opportunity to compare a stale one to a fresh one.
Also on McD – there was a neat test done by a teacher a while ago – a McD burger was put out, along with a home-made “clone” using regular supermarket ingredients (nothing added).
NEITHER went bad. The area was fairly dry, and the thin, well cooked, patties both turned into jerky before they could rot.
“Twinkies do go bad. Just check the “sell by” dates – they’re surprisingly short.”
It’s printed right on the package, so it must be True.
no you’re right. they just put an expiration date on the package so you won’t know that they’re actually magical everlasting everlasting sponge cakes
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/twinkies.asp
“I know I’ll get slammed for being declassé…”
No, Jerry, but it is certainly la glacé.
Eat enough of those and you’d be défunt.
I’ve never lived in a locale that had Carl’s Jr., so I only know them from Idiocracy. And that looks like a plausible menu item from the film…
I’d rather have an It’s-It.
Ah diets! My wife and I are trying this out to see if it works:
5:2 diet
The conclusion is that if you fast two days a week, it kicks the body into “repair” mode rather than “grow” mode. The upside is, on the five days you can eat whatever you want for whatever quantity. Ice cream sandwiches = yum!
Anyway, we are going to give it a go to see if it works (I need to lose 5kg, although my wife says I need to lose 10)
Just remember, when your body needs protein it will take it from existing muscle tissue and your heart is a muscle.
Thanks’ for the reminder. As I recall the RDI is 63g of protein per day, which should be easy. One of the things mentioned in the article/research is that excess protein causes problems with the signalling for cells to divide and grow in the body. Since my dad had bowel cancer and has skin cancers removed I consider myself at risk, so watching protein intake may be important.
Then again, my dad’s cancer was removed over 10 years ago, and he is still working in the garden some 12 hours a day at 76 years old. Tough old bugger – couldn’t kill him with an axe, as we say here.
Did you try? to kill him with an axe? Just curious.
Um….a pop tart ice cream sandwich IS A GREAT F–KING IDEA.
Too bad we can’t get this in Nova Scotia…because we suck?
As a ‘big boned’ individual I would drive a fair distance to try this (though I suppose I could make my own).
AP
Maybe no one thought ice cream would sell well in Nova Scotia?
Makes me feel faint. How can anyone consider such things food?
They are not exactly food, More like orgasms on a plate.
hilarious.. 😀
I have one addiction (not counting WEIT) and that is sugar, but that sandwich looks too sweet for even me. Now, make that two homemade waffles with ice cream and I’ll eat several.
Berliners. I used to be a KFC junkie but I find them just too greasy nowadays.
Just tried it, and it ain’t too bad. The best part is that you can totally make this at home.
Don’t you mean “they never go worse”?
I am not familiar with Carl’s Jr so I don’t know what their catchphrase is in their logo before seeing the above pic.
At this resolution, I thought it says “Carl’s Jr. Charbroiled Sundaes.”
Not that it helps.
BTW: Current guilty pleasure: As an atheist I am considered to be an amoral base creature as well as a depressive nihilist, so the question is doubly moot in some circles.
However, amongst friends here I can say that I am very partial to my wife’s home-made cheesecake, and avocado ice-cream.
Avocado ice cream? That sounds like it might go well with jalapeño ice cream.
Ohhh yes. That does sound good!
Many years ago I used to frequent a restaurant in Menlo Park, CA that served avocado cream pie.
How was it?
Very good, actually.
I loved Twinkie’s when I was visiting the States.
My junk food guilty pleasure is everyone’s favourite to bash, but I don’t care – I love occasionally popping into McDonalds and getting a quarter pounder and fries. (Side note: it’s worth noting that the ‘medium meal’ in America is equivalent to a ‘large meal’ here in England. So I found the America large to be gigantic!) Though I suspect that it is because it’s only an occasional visit that it remains tasting so good. I admit I couldn’t do it regularly (double so in America).
I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t culinary, and I’m not even sure whether it qualifies as food. Only in America… 🙂
It is indeed a great idea, but ruined in the execution.
I am old enough to be able to state confidently that frosting ruined Pop Tarts.
At larger stores you can still get the unfrosted True Pop Tarts in strawberry and sometimes blueberry.
They would make a far superior ice-cream sandwich.
Agreed; that was my first thought when I saw this: lose the frosting. The unfrosted version is far superior.
The icing you actually find on pop-tarts is not good, agreed.
BUT…I don’t think icing is in principle a bad treatment. Perhaps a soft, cream-cheese based topping…
You’re completely correct.
The unfrosted, apple/cinnamon pop-tart, right out of the toaster, buttered. Late night guilty pleasure for years. And then they disappeared, replaced by every variety of frosted. Woe.
Frankly I never understood why anyone would want Pop-Tarts, frosted or otherwise, when with the same effort you can have toast with jam made from actual bread.
Ah, but pop-tart dough turns out more like pie crust. More fat.
I guess I never understood why anyone would want to melt fat in their toaster either.
Taco Bell hard tacos. I could eat a dozen.
gotta love them facts
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/twinkies.asp
My favorite reply to anyone who hassles about what other people eat is to quote Mark Twain: “Dieting won’t make you live longer, it’ll just feel longer.”
Favorite junk food? Anything sweet, homemade. Once you taste the difference, you’ll never go back. L
Try placing premium frozen greek yogurt between two digestive biscuits. If you’re going to lobby for adult onset diabetes, you might as well do it with sucrose and lactose panache.
Gardetto Snack Mix. Better, IMO, than the Chex variety. Also, Gardetto makes bags filled only with the sliced rye pieces (yum!), though these can be a bit hard to find.
For decades I had fond memories of the peanut butter Tastykakes that were a childhood favorite. I only got them when we visited our cousins in the Reading PA area, every two or three years.
Decades later I was delightfully surprised at their sudden appearance on my local grocery store shelf. I eagerly bought a box, animatedly telling my wife how awesome they were and how I knew of them, all the way home. Alas they were nothing like my memory of them. I should have never tried them again.
I can attest that a weeks-old McDonald’s Chicken McNugget, lost under a child’s car booster seat, looks identical to a “fresh”, hot one straight from the drive-thru. Said McNugget rivals a diamond in hardness. Interesting fact read to me by my 8-year old daughter this morning: Worldwide, Canadians consume the most doughnuts per capita (I would have bet on the United States for that title). See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut#Canada. I have a weakness for Little Debbie brand “Nutty Bars” (a very, deeply guilty pleasure).
Might be easy to duplicate at home? With mango ice cream! Or rum and raisin!
Lately, my guilty pleasure has been dill pickle potato chips.
Nigella Lawson demonstrated this dessert recipe where she deep fried Smores (or was it O’Henry) chocolate bars in batter. Gag. But her girlfriends seemed to have liked it.
Looks very tasty Jerry!
I eat quite healthy most of the time but no food is off limits. Food can be art and entertainment.
Our CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) is food-stunt heaven. It’s only open a couple weeks each year – perhaps luckily 🙂
Any Canadian here would know Vachon’s Jos. Louis cake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos._Louis
At the CNE I had one battered, deep fried, with a side of good quality vanilla ice cream. The batter was delicious, crisp, almost a bit smokey, and the Jos Louis inside had melted to the most wonderful creamy/cakey consistency, yielding sensually in the mouth.
The ice cream was a perfect, cool, palette cleanser between each bite.
Don’t knock it ’till yuv tried it.
Peanut Butter Cups are something of an obsession too. I’ve taken to making my own variety at home, using dark chocolate, topped with butterscotch and sea salt, that kind of thing.
Continue your fearless food posts please, Prof Coyne!
Vaal
My Uncle-in-law is a Vachon.
My favourite junk food is dim sum. Does that count?
Ya I enjoy junk food. Reminds me of Ford Perfect’s comments about traveling. However, Carl Jrs is off limits due to their political donations.
I didn’t know about those, but their advertising disgusts me.
Take a Pop-Tart, put a slice of cheese on top, and heat it up in the toaster oven. It’s got the same fruit + dairy mix that makes the ice cream sandwich work, plus it’s warm.
I liked them when they first came out. They were plain.
Now they are just sugar, through and through.