Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Playing with Food


Pontormo

Recommended Posts

Now this is how I like to play with food  :laugh: :

[wonderful anatomical food pics deleted]

This is great! Here in Turkey there are several different cookies and other foods that refer to parts of bodies. Ladies' fingers, sweethearts' lips, women's thighs (which is a kind of meatball). I've been inspired...;)

I made kittly litter cake once, years ago. I wouldn't even consider it here; people would just not be able to deal....

My favorite thing to do as a kid very interested in science and geology) was to make "mashed potato volcanoes." I'd stuck a big blob of margarine into my heap of instant mashed potatoes (hey, this was 1968 suburban Iowa City), cover them, form it into a "volcano" shape, make a hole in the top, and press on the side to make it "erupt." Mom didn't bother me too much about it.

Here there is a packaged cookie, called "Tutku," which has a chocolate, lemon or coffee cream filling. It's sort of surrounded by a thin sugar shell. I sometimes find myself carefully eating the cookie from the edges, then over the top, trying to get down to the filling without breaking the shell. I'm not generally successful. But trying's fun.

I remember making a Halloween dinner with a friend once, where we colored all the foods in a disgusting way. "Flesh tone" mashed potaoes with deep red colored chicken gravy, pork chops marinated in very little water an a lot of blue food coloring, greenish blue bread (we wanted to conjure up the image of mold, but it didn't quite work), and dark gray-and-dingy-yellow vanilla pudding with a bit of gray purple whipped cream on the top (we separated a little after it thickened to have two different colors, then swirled them a bit). We also tried soaking corn on the cob in red water, but it didn't work. It was not pretty.

A blue chicken stew with separately cooked green and orange potatoes might be fun. (I suppose I could just use carrots...but they would take the blue...)

When I was a kid, there was nothing I liked better than drinking blue milk. My mom was indulgent. :)

"Los Angeles is the only city in the world where there are two separate lines at holy communion. One line is for the regular body of Christ. One line is for the fat-free body of Christ. Our Lady of Malibu Beach serves a great free-range body of Christ over angel-hair pasta."

-Lea de Laria

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, I almost forgot.

I used to work in a Vietnamese cafe, and dessert was the stereotypical fried bananas with ice cream. One time our high school teacher came in with a hot date. We sent the dessert out without slicing the banana, and tactically located both scoops of vanilla at the base.

And I wonder why I had to work so hard for my marks?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
Oh, I almost forgot.

I used to work in a Vietnamese cafe, and dessert was the stereotypical fried bananas with ice cream.  One time our high school teacher came in with a hot date.  We sent the dessert out without slicing the banana, and tactically located both scoops of vanilla at the base.

And I wonder why I had to work so hard for my marks?

I've done the same presentation with sammich wraps, with scoops of rice covered in lettuce chiff on each side of it at one end, and sour cream strategically trailed down the other side of the plate.... Staff meals only, but oh what fun.

This whole love/hate thing would be a lot easier if it was just hate.

Bring me your finest food, stuffed with your second finest!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My mother used to make a "Cranberry Platter" for Thanksgiving... two cans of Ocean Spray whole cranberry sauce, two cans of jellied cranberry sauce - sliced, arranged down the middle.

Brother and I would take a slice of said cranberry "jello", then meet eyes across the table....

First player would section off as large a piece as they thought they could handle - usually a quarter slice (first round) - then he'd swallow it whole. No chewing, no mouth manipulation, no smooshing. Whole, one gulp.

Opposing gamester would then take an even bigger "chunk", and show their ability by swallowing WHOLE an even larger chunk.

Game would continue until either Mom caught on and kicked our butts, or one of us chocked or puked. (The one that did... they lost.)

I still try it when I'm alone.... :rolleyes:

Now I win every time!

"Anybody can make you enjoy the first bite of a dish, but only a real chef can make you enjoy the last.”

Francois Minot

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
Hmm. Wonder if those Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies are too dense to do that trick with. :smile:

Oooh, mizducky, please be sure to report back if you do any reconnaissance!

Joie Alvaro Kent

"I like rice. Rice is great if you're hungry and want 2,000 of something." ~ Mitch Hedberg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not something you would want to eat plain, but cornstarch mixed with water has some amazing properties.

Use just enough water to moisten the starch. If you squeeze it up in your hands, it is a solid, and you can toss a ball of it from hand to hand. If you just let it sit, it liquifies and runs thru your fingers.

Kids love it. Easy clean-up, too, because when the water evaporates, the corn starch can be vaccuumed up.

Colloidal something or another, it is called.

Edited by sparrowgrass (log)
sparrowgrass
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

This thread and an old "Surreal Gourmet" video I found in my collection the other night led me to this demented idea......... a nice homemade pumpkin pie filling served in a disposable diaper!

I'll report back on how that goes over at the family Christmas gathering.......

Jerry

Kansas City, Mo.

Unsaved Loved Ones

My eG Food Blog- 2011

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread and an old "Surreal Gourmet" video I found in my collection the other night led me to this demented idea.........  a nice homemade pumpkin pie filling served in a disposable diaper! 

I'll report back on how that goes over at the family Christmas gathering.......

Great idea, but I wouldn't suggest using disposable diapers, they're all scented with a baby powder scent, and I don't think it would do much for the pumpkin! :laugh:

"Commit random acts of senseless kindness"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread and an old "Surreal Gourmet" video I found in my collection the other night led me to this demented idea.........  a nice homemade pumpkin pie filling served in a disposable diaper! 

I'll report back on how that goes over at the family Christmas gathering.......

Great idea, but I wouldn't suggest using disposable diapers, they're all scented with a baby powder scent, and I don't think it would do much for the pumpkin! :laugh:

Maybe the diapers are offered in nutmeg scent? :hmmm:

SB (will check with his grandbaby) :biggrin:

Edited by srhcb (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread and an old "Surreal Gourmet" video I found in my collection the other night led me to this demented idea.........  a nice homemade pumpkin pie filling served in a disposable diaper! 

I'll report back on how that goes over at the family Christmas gathering.......

Great idea, but I wouldn't suggest using disposable diapers, they're all scented with a baby powder scent, and I don't think it would do much for the pumpkin! :laugh:

Maybe the diapers are offered in nutmeg scent? :hmmm:

SB (will check with his grandbaby) :biggrin:

"New fresh scented disposable Pampers.......now offered in Nutmeg, Saffron and Trail Mix"

Jerry

Kansas City, Mo.

Unsaved Loved Ones

My eG Food Blog- 2011

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I love the gross-out food ideas, but this isn’t one of them. While visiting my mother on Christmas eve and chatting around the kitchen table, my sister constructed this gingerbread, fruitcake, and sugar cookie replica of a Russian cathedral. I had suggested using onions for the onion domes, but my idea was rejected as inedible.

gallery_42956_2536_8589.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

Now this is how I like to play with food  :laugh: :

brain.jpg

fingers4.jpg

Well, our friends have scheduled a full-blown Halloween party for this year. I remember being so excited to try these wonderful ideas last year but just never got around to it. Can't wait to bring these for a wonderful surprise for the party.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I was a kid, there was nothing I liked better than drinking blue milk. My mom was indulgent. :)[

My mother was my kindergarten teacher (her first year of teaching after the war) and went on to teach kindergarten till 1968. One of the highlights of the week (OH, for a simpler time) was "Pink Milk Friday". At snack time she went around and put a drop of food color into each child's milk bottle. They loved it. She told about the one parent out of all the years she did it that insisted that her child not get pink milk. I suppose there would be an instant uproar if a teacher tried it today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Playing with our food? In my family Passover has a real tradition. Who is the (sucker) person who can have the most horseradish on the matzoh? It's not only scored on volume, but on panache and on color turned. My family seems to think that my case iron stomach disqualifies me from this contest, but my 20 year old is now nipping on my heels. He turns beet red and looks like he's exhaling fire. The sweat drips off his forehead... and I'm sure he's not happy... but he's beating his poppa... and secretly... I'm kinda proud of him. I won't tell him about shots of hot sauce in the cantina in baja... or about the habanero initiation with a chef group I hang out with.

hvr

"Cogito Ergo Dim Sum; Therefore I think these are Pork Buns"

hvrobinson@sbcglobal.net

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Now this is how I like to play with food :laugh: :

brain.jpg

fingers4.jpg

Just wanted to bump this up in case anyone is looking for a great Halloween project. I have making both of these for a Halloween party every year since Tejon posted these. Both recipes are great and the brain looks so real. The only change I made is that I make raspberry sauce instead of pomegranite. Thanks Tejon!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...