So that's what Beggin' Strips taste like...

December 9, 2004 2:09 PM

"Other ingredients include BEEF TRIPE, BEEF HEARTS, AND 'PARTIALLY DE-FATTED COOKED PORK FATTY TISSUE' How does one de-fat fat? Bizarre. God knows what else is in here."
posted by Specklet (51 comments total)

Even Rosie O'Donnell's ball sack is meat.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:12 PM on December 9, 2004

Meh. Whatever. It's* just a cylindrical hot dog with no skin.

*This comment in no way refers to Ms. O'Donell's scrotum, which is of unknown composition.
posted by ba at 2:22 PM on December 9, 2004

This would have been great if it were done by someone who is actually funny.
posted by xmutex at 2:23 PM on December 9, 2004

If only it tasted like tripe, heart and fat, you'd be on to something good.
posted by Keith Talent at 2:24 PM on December 9, 2004

Loved it. Truly we are living in the golden age of gonzo food journalism.
posted by john-paul at 2:25 PM on December 9, 2004

Reminds me of a friends jar of "Vienna Sausages". Ingredient number one was: Beef lips.

Oddly, the jar had never been opened.
posted by tommasz at 2:29 PM on December 9, 2004

I thought the chocolate breast milk (of his wife's!!) was most disturbing.
posted by modernsquid at 2:30 PM on December 9, 2004

I have eaten natto. It's exactly as described.
posted by carter at 2:31 PM on December 9, 2004

This would have been great if it were done by someone who is actually funny.

Such as Dave Barry, who wrote about it, oh, circa 14 years ago.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:36 PM on December 9, 2004

john-paul: Holy shit! That had me on the floor!
posted by eyeballkid at 2:37 PM on December 9, 2004

Made By, For, And With Assholes.

Classic
posted by puke & cry at 2:38 PM on December 9, 2004

Modernsquid, what, you'll drink a fluid that comes out of a cow's teat... but are squeamish about a food that is made specifically for humans?
posted by Specklet at 2:39 PM on December 9, 2004

This is a bit of sore point with me. I think it's a reflection of how wasteful our North American culture has become when we will only eat muscle meat. Beef lips, tongue, eyes, organ, feet -- it's all edible, nutritious, and tasty when prepared right.

A nice culture shock is walking into the T&T Supermarket (major chain around here) and going to the seafood section that resembles a city aquarium, except you can eat everything there. Frogs to sea urchins -- all live.

Walk over to the meat section and you can get bowls of pickled tripe from the deli, or 2 pounds of pigs uteri fresh from the butcher. Hooves, snouts, knuckles... it's all there.

My bro and I sometimes watch Fear Factor and laugh at what some people are balking at eating -- we could be eating the same items while watching the show. (yes, cold, raw food is often far less desireable)

I do have my limits, (NSFW) though.
posted by Extopalopaketle at 2:43 PM on December 9, 2004

I really like natto. But that's probably because my grandparents used to feed my potted meat and Vienna sausages when I was a kid. Also, I was breast fed.
posted by jennyb at 2:44 PM on December 9, 2004

Such as Dave Barry, who wrote about it, oh, circa 14 years ago.

Or Paul Lukas, who started it 11 years ago. Maybe not as disgusting but definitely much more clever.

At least this one is updated on a regular basis.
posted by sammich at 2:49 PM on December 9, 2004

There's also lots of weird food reviews on alt.religion.kibology. I would try to find some relevant threads, but the google groups redesign is utter crap.
posted by kenko at 2:57 PM on December 9, 2004

Actually, the little pile inside looked kinda like baked beans. It also smelled kinda like baked beans. If they were baked in the filthy heat of Satan's asshole.

Oh, come on, that's pretty funny. So what if it's been done before?
posted by fungible at 3:02 PM on December 9, 2004

ReadItAYearAgoFilter.
posted by car_bomb at 3:03 PM on December 9, 2004

It was worth the read, a good laugh or two. thank you for the post.
posted by nearo at 3:11 PM on December 9, 2004

This is quite an amusing read, thanks for passing it on.

The fact that the Urkel-Os were still good both amazes and frightens me.
posted by ShawnStruck at 3:12 PM on December 9, 2004

I, for one, am glad that they got around to putting that Food Product thing on the label, I was using this stuff to grout my bathroom before.
posted by fenriq at 3:16 PM on December 9, 2004

Reminds me of a David Letterman show many years ago. Back when David Horowitz had his consumer teevee show "Fight Back" and would show up on Lettermans show once in awhile. He would always bring a food product for Dave (Letterman) to read. The one in particular that comes to mind is some kind of Chili, and among the ingredients were "beef lips, and other parts". Of course Letterman went off about if beef lips weren't considered "other parts", then he didn't want to know what were.
posted by Eekacat at 3:18 PM on December 9, 2004

"It's been done", you say? Is that what you say at the comics page every day or your stupid sitcoms you watch at night? Who freakin' cares if someone has done it before (and certainly Dave Barry wasn't the first)?! What I wanna know is, would this guy eat the batch of food my co-worker stores in the public bathroom at work?
posted by St.Pudalia at 3:29 PM on December 9, 2004

Funny stuff! I thought the writing carried it well.
posted by picea at 3:31 PM on December 9, 2004

I thought it sounded familiar, WolfDog. Amusing enough, anyway.

Ralph *is* a dick, as all Judy Blume fans know.
posted by scarabic at 3:35 PM on December 9, 2004

The entire experience is difficult to describe, but if you can remember back to the very first time you made out with a hobo's ass, it's a lot like that.

Lots of great lines here. I found myself in the (previously assumed impossible) condition of simultaneously snorting and biting my lip in disgust.

The man is a hero.
posted by dash_slot- at 3:49 PM on December 9, 2004

Tripes a la mode de cannes represent! (Polish Flaki is also great stuff - not to mention dim sum style tripe)
posted by PurplePorpoise at 3:50 PM on December 9, 2004

That was totally funny. I don't care what anyone thinks. I'm kind of a food explorer, but only of products available on the edges of the grocery. I mostly avoid the aisles and all their preservative packed weirdness, but recently I can across a can of a "beverage" made from some kind of white mushroom. I haven't had the guts so maybe I should mail to this guy.
posted by elwoodwiles at 4:16 PM on December 9, 2004

I used to eat a lot of potted meat AND vienna sausages. It was cheap and it was protein. So whatever. And I knew that it included the meat from around a cow's asshole when I was eating it. I'm sure somewhere in the world there are people who are hungry enough that they would love some raw cow asshole, much less processed and reasonably safe/clean cow asshole.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 4:26 PM on December 9, 2004

the breast milk article was on meta in march. funny stuff.
posted by glenwood at 4:26 PM on December 9, 2004

The fact that the Urkel-Os were still good both amazes and frightens me.

Preservatives. That's why I see no reason not to buy long-expired store-brand white bread from the "Outlet" around the corner for $0.33 a loaf, while home-made bread starts molding in three days.

What I want to know is why the first ingredient in Walgreens-brand Lubricating Jelly is chlorhexidine gluconate. That sounded ominous (if not Martian) so I looked it up: I'm not sure what properties that has to recommend it in this product, but a Google search reveals it's usually thought of as a bacteriacide. (Hey, if I was afraid I'd catch something through the condom I'd find another date.) I thought I'd heard of it before so I went to read labels around the bathroom sink -- to find chlorhexidine gluconate is also, but only in 0.12% solution, the active ingredient in a very awful-tasting prescription mouth rinse the dentist swears I need. K-Y Jelly, which cost $1.30 more, listed as its first ingredient "purified water"; in this stuff that's sixth in the list, right before sodium hydroxide (i.e. table salt). It says it's "water-soluble" (that's different from "water-based", as I recall from safe-sex pamphlets from when my life was interesting) and the label says it's for lubricating condoms, but I tellya what, I ain't gonna use this stuff on my condoms when I think she's ovulating. Incidentally, I find it interesting that the relevant label says in big red caps "this product is not a contraceptive and does not contain spermicide", but does not advertise that it does kill germs.
posted by davy at 4:31 PM on December 9, 2004

PurplePorpoise, it's actually Tripes à la mode de Caen (delicious).
FrenchLanguageFilter.
posted by denpo at 4:41 PM on December 9, 2004

By the way, here's the recipe
Once you get used to, try some more
posted by denpo at 4:51 PM on December 9, 2004

Mmmmm...scrapple!
posted by airgirl at 5:33 PM on December 9, 2004

Guy is really funny. But in his own way, like all really funny guys. Except when he disses natto. I love natto.
posted by ronin21 at 5:41 PM on December 9, 2004

Davy: go easy on that table salt.
posted by flabdablet at 6:13 PM on December 9, 2004

Ugh. Scrapple is considered a local delicacy here, but I think it's incredibly nasty. Imagine eating whipped, fluffy pork. Disgusting. You can buy it in bricks from the store.
posted by deafmute at 6:19 PM on December 9, 2004

I know Japanese people that can't stand natto. But I'm told it's kind of a Tokyo thing.
posted by bardic at 7:27 PM on December 9, 2004

GRIND UP A PIG
PUT IT IN A CAN
SCRAPPLE!

GRIND UP A PIG
PUT IT IN A CAN
SCRAPPLE!

YES I AM A SCRAPPLE MAN!
THINK I'LL HAVE ME ANOTHER CAN!

GRIND UP A PIG
PUT IT IN A CAN
SCRAPPLE!

---

Man, Whacked for the Xbox really sucked as a game, but my *god* the movies were funny.
posted by qDot at 7:48 PM on December 9, 2004

how is it "potted"?
posted by onkelchrispy at 8:35 PM on December 9, 2004

'At Cerignola, the alternative to Spam was canned Vienna sausages. After a month of eating them, one of the men tacked a proposal to the squadron ready-room door, offering to stop bombing Vienna if its people would stop sending their sausages.' (1944)

Source.
posted by emf at 9:16 PM on December 9, 2004

Flabdablet saith: Davy: go easy on that table salt.

(And then supplied a link to a Wikipedia article on sodium hydroxide, which turns out to be caustic soda, a.k.a. NaOH, a.k.a. LYE -- the main ingedient in Drano.)

OH. I knew that: I learned it in chemistry class in 7th grade during the Ford administration. Really. That knowledge just got misplaced. I swear!

Which makes for a more interesting question: why is Walgreens Lubricating Jelly made out of antibacterial stuff and LYE? I'm sure they're lawsuit-aware enough to formulate this stuff so it's mostly harmless, maybe the NaOH is in there in just the right proportion to keep it from being too acidic for one's "sensitive tissues", but I still feel like I should test this out on some delicate area of my own first, like maybe my gingivitic gums. If I start drooling red foam and screaming maybe it's not such a good thing to use on her "down there".

"Ingredients: chlorhexidine gluconate, glucono delta lactone ("an excellent acidifier in cheese manufacturing", says www.jungbunzlauer.com/products/product_15.html , which might explain the NaOH sorta), glycerine (I know what that's for, it's slippery -- as one might expect in a lubricant), hydroxyethylcellulose (a thickener, why?), methylparaben (a preservative and fungicide -- remember the first ingredient is a germ-killer -- allegedly linked to cancer ), purified water, and the aforementioned (ahem) 'table salt'". This is a "personal lubricant"? It reads almost like a white bread label. (I wonder what it tastes like mixed with Potted Meat.)

Like I said, I better try this out on myself first. Here goes.

Okay: it's a little gooey but appropriately slippery, tastes sweet and salty (almost like a sauce from a Chinese carry-out), causes no pain to my sensitive gums, and there's no mirror handy but spitting on a paper towel shows no blood. Maybe it is safe to use for what they sell it for. (It'll never replace Duck Sauce though.)
posted by davy at 9:27 PM on December 9, 2004

I want to start a restaurant serving those "bricks of meat" and iced tea.

I'll call it Scrapple & Snapple.
posted by jonmc at 8:26 AM on December 10, 2004

This is technically The South, if you ask all those Jesus-fish-&-Rebel-flag-displaying pickup jockeys at the drive-though liquor store (that's quite a concept there), but I can't find scrapple here anywhere.
posted by davy at 9:27 AM on December 10, 2004

I love scrapple, but I make my own. It's mostly just pork and cornmeal, and you can use any cut and quality of pork you like.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:13 AM on December 10, 2004

Wolfdog, that sounds completely reasonable, possibly tasty, whereas the link that Airgirl supplied stated the fact that a loaf of Scrapple, on average, has four (4) swine anuses. Not so reasonable.
posted by Specklet at 10:30 AM on December 10, 2004

For more nasty-food-inspired humor, don't forget to check out The Ultimate Bad Candy Website previously mentioned here.
posted by nTeleKy at 11:57 AM on December 10, 2004

Ah yes. And let us not forget Lileks' ever-entertaining Gallery of Regrettable Food, which brings us such delights as corned beef salad loaf.
posted by Specklet at 12:14 PM on December 10, 2004

(dammit specklet, i was just previewing my post for the exact same link).
truly horribly jellied stuff in there.
posted by zombiejesus at 12:24 PM on December 10, 2004

Sorry Z.J. It probably merits its own post, anyway. The food depicted is just so spectacularly... wrong.
posted by Specklet at 2:36 PM on December 10, 2004

Scrapple: It's a PA dutch thang generally native to the Delaware valley and involves pork liver, head meat, corn meal and spices. Rappa is the best, IMHO, but I'm a Delawarian and we like to represent Bridgeville like that. (Big ups to Wolfdog for making his own!)

In the south, you can find a similar substance called Neese's Liver Pudding, and some folks make hog's head cheese, all of which are of similar pig-part composition but lack the same tasty fun of the old gray loaf of meat bits that we know and love as scrapple.

In Cincinatti they have Goetta which is kind of like scrapple, I am told, but I've never had it.
posted by jennyb at 3:56 PM on December 10, 2004