Candy Cap Magic
September 18, 2018 1:55 PM   Subscribe

This post was deleted for the following reason: This just seems... not very good or interesting? I might be missing a deliberate artistic choice here, in service of some larger goal that remains opaque to me now - in which case hit up the contact form and clue us in. -- LobsterMitten



 
i mean
i guess it's for... effect? or something?
but like
the server tried to explain what candy cap was, apparently at some length, but apparently no one cared to listen. and certainly the former-employee-friend would or should have known what candy cap was. and the menu says "mushroom rye" in the drink description (and it certainly appears to be properly described as An Experience). and hell, you can easily google 'candy cap cocktail' and see a plethora of descriptions because it's been a trendy cocktail ingredient for several years now, as a syrup or infusion (although now this person's story is crowding some of them out, as it's a top hit); it definitely wouldn't take a week or so to figure out what it was, and it wouldn't necessitate talking to other friends (who also seem weirdly clueless? like: you may not have heard the term "experiential cocktail" but if you're working for a place that takes its guests "on a journey" it's not like you can't infer?)

as a reader, my immediate reaction was to think 'this person seems to be clueless, self-absorbed, and really bad at listening,' and i am pretty sure that is not the impression i'm meant to have. (or maybe it is?)

as a sometime college professor, i wince because to me this just looks like the usual motions people make when they feel the need to say something but haven't much to say and haven't got the desire to do more than cursory research on the topic but still want to put on a lofty air. as a sometime employee of the service industry, i breathe a silent prayer to what gods there be: shield me from the guests like these.
posted by halation at 2:20 PM on September 18, 2018 [7 favorites]


(sorry. if somebody tried to construct this 'dispatch' by referring to a venn diagram of "will be annoyed by these things," i would be uniquely and perfectly in the centre of that diagram.)
posted by halation at 2:22 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]


... and then, Cthulhu.
posted by BeeDo at 2:24 PM on September 18, 2018


metafilter: ... and then, Cthulhu.
posted by lalochezia at 2:24 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]


That was a strange article word product.

Candy caps have a very strong maple syrup aroma when dried. When rehydrated they produce sotolon which is the flavoring in imitation maple syrup. A friend sent me some he picked and dried and I could smell them through the ziplock bag outside of the box they were packed in, it is not subtle.
posted by peeedro at 2:28 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]


"as a reader, my immediate reaction was to think 'this person seems to be clueless, self-absorbed, and really bad at listening,' and i am pretty sure that is not the impression i'm meant to have. (or maybe it is?)"

I am also left wondering what exactly their intent was. It was kind of them thinking aloud about service industry work and then detailing their friends and experience trying a fancy drink. Except it wasn't like, a food or drink review really. The main takeaway is the writer didn't know what Candy Cap mushrooms were and didn't think to look up something they didn't know. This revelation was left at the end like it was the climax or final word but doesn't feel like it. Out of curiosity I am reading another essay of theirs and it kind of has the same problem. Out of double curiosity I read a third and yes, this seems to be their style of writing. A meandering personal account of some events they participated in or witnessed that seem to be building up to some commentary or point but end with them just kind of petering out with an anecdote/experience plainly stated in a way that seems to suggest there's more coming but just kidding, the end.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:33 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]


if somebody tried to construct this 'dispatch' by referring to a venn diagram of "will be annoyed by these things," i would be uniquely and perfectly in the centre of that diagram

I mainly posted it so that I wouldn't feel alone in that.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:36 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]



Candy caps have a very strong maple syrup aroma when dried. When rehydrated they produce sotolon which is the flavoring in imitation maple syrup. A friend sent me some he picked and dried and I could smell them through the ziplock bag outside of the box they were packed in, it is not subtle.


I have a couple small dried caps that I picked over ten years ago. I have them in a little wooden box with other forest detritus and they still smell like maple syrup.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:39 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Also this article was strange and these people seem uninterested and uninteresting.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:39 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


HELLO FRIEND
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
were it possible, i'd buy you an Experiential Drink! (although i'd insist on the keefer bar instead of the fairmont, because why would you not go there instead, unless you're getting comped by an employee, because it is a better experience in every way)
((also also according to my own industry friends, the fairmont has really cracked down on comps chain-wide, recently, following a change in ownership, so now i'm even more sceptical about this story content))
posted by halation at 2:40 PM on September 18, 2018


I challenge anyone to create a cocktail that doesn't "provide an experience" of some sort. Even room-temperature water "provides an experience", if not a particularly profound one - in fact, "room-temperature water" fairly well describes that entire article.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:42 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


From the writing style I almost assumed this was about a psychoactive mushroom he had eaten.
posted by dilaudid at 2:42 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]


« Older I stopped writing when we saw the new, bad MRI.   |   It settles my beef with Carl Jung and his one-man... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments