Have you ever had a food you love betray you when the manufacturer changed the recipe?  Have you ever had an attempt to satisfy a craving turn your mouth into an uncanny valley of flavor?

The writers of Unwholesome Foods grew up with Samoas as one of the most popular Girl Scout Cookies around.  When we moved to Boston, we were distrubed to find Caramel Delights.  Had rebranding killed our childhood friend forever?

In time we realized that Samoas were still out there.  We’d just moved from regions supplied by Little Brownie Bakers to a region supplied by ABC Bakers.  Then we had another revelation.  New Hampshire is supplied by Little Brownie Bakers, and it’s less than an hour drive away!  It was the perfect chance to find out if Samoas are really better than Caramel Delights, or if our love for them came only from nostalgia.

Beth merrily drove off to New Hampshire, only to return disappointed after the cashiers at the grocery store she visited told her the Cookie Locator website had told her the wrong date for the sale at that store.  Cookie month was almost over, and the chance at chocolate-coated cookie happiness was fading away.  Then a coworker from New Hampshire saved the day, and Cookie Science could begin.  

Beth removed each package of cookies from its box and labeled the wrapping with a symbol so the taste testers wouldn’t know which cookie went with which brand name.  She had herself blindfolded and fed cookies by an assistant when making her own analysis.

In all, 3 pairs of cookie varieties were compared by 7 participants, with unexpected results.  

Caramel Delights (ABC Bakers) overwhelmingly beat Samoas (Little Brownie Bakers).   Tasters repeatedly cited the chewy texture of the Caramel Delight as the basis for their choice.  The Samoas were more chocolaty (with dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate drizzle) and they had a more intense coconut flavor, but they had little caramel taste and were dry. 

Tag-a-Longs (Little Brownie Bakers) overwhelmingly beat Peanut Butter Patties (ABC Bakers).  Their peanut butter and chocolate were both creamier, and the cookie was crisp without seeming dried out. 

Thin Mints were too close to call.  The Little Brownie Bakers cookies had a slightly crispier texture, but the ABC cookies were a little mintier.  

Beth conducted a follow up study with 5 new tasters a week later, with nearly identical results.  (Although this time, one person prioritized the Samoas’ superior chocolate-coconut flavor over the chewy texture of the Caramel Delights.)

In the end we were forced to admit that our childhood bakery was not necessarily better than the other one.  Each bakery has its own strengths and weaknesses.  We’ll be happier next year when we see Caramel Delights on the streets of Boston, and we’ll definitely make another trip to the land of Live Free or Die in order to stock up on Tag-a-Longs.

Next year also means Round II of our cookie showdown: Trefoils vs. Shortbreads and Do-si-dos vs. Peanut Butter Sandwiches  

While we at Unwholesome Foods have been too busy lately to post much, other people out in the world are still doing their part.  Yet somehow, we never expected that Whole Foods was on our side.

Recently, Beth was at Whole Foods buying apples (mmm, honeycrisps) and she realized she really wanted some cottage cheese.  They didn’t have her default brand, so she decided to try the 365 brand.

When she got home and scooped out a dollop of dairy, she discovered that it tasted a little odd.  Almost… fermented.  She checked the expiration date.  Still good.  Then she checked the ingredients list.

365 brand adds carbon dioxide “to maintain freshness” to their cottage cheese.   They carbonate their cottage cheese.  It was literally full of foamy slime.  Whoever decided this was a good idea clearly spends too much time reading our blog.

(Also, carrageenan is a crime against cottage cheese.  And coming from us, that says something.)

The ancient Eggyptian rabbits placed great emphasis on the afterlent and the journey of inner cocoa discovery that takes place once the bunny has succumbed to Easter. 

Bunnies in their last hours of life would cling to their most valued chocolaty treasures to keep them focused for the journey ahead. These treasured chocolate specimens were traditionally egg shaped to represent rebirth in the afterlent. After the onset of Easter, carefully trained embalmers would pry these treasures away from the arms of the deceased.

When a prominent bunny passed on, his/her pets were often sacrificed in order to earn the bunny an easier road to enlightenment. Prayers would be said over the body as the pet’s lifecaramel flowed out and was collected to feed the noble bunny’s spirit.

The remains of the pet were often placed inside the sarcophagus with the bunny to provide him/her companionship in the afterlent.

The sarcophagus was then closed and gold leaf was prepared to fit over the sarcophagus.

Nearly a year and a half after the first Eggstravaganza, we decided it was time for another.

Cheryl made swedish meatballs, served in egg halves.  They were  amazing, although Meatball+Egg wasn’t particularly more exciting than just Meatball.

Yelena made thee kinds of wholesome deviled eggs: cheddar-bacon, avocado, and smoked salmon.  They were also really amazing.

Beth made deviled Cabury creme eggs.  She carefully unwrapped three eggs, split them in half, and removed the sugary filling.  She filled them with deviled egg yolk, reattached the halves, and rewrapped them in their original wrappers.  She put the three deviled Cadbury eggs back in the box with one real, unaltered Cadbury creme egg.

After our party had been going on for a while, our guests finally noticed the box of creme eggs.  The first person to try one was our friend Charles.  Charles got the real Cadbury egg, and other people grabbed the rest of the eggs, lulled into a false sense of security by Charles’ wholesome experience.  Our friend Erik was the first to bite into a deviled creme egg and experience the unexpected egg yolk.

Astonishingly, he liked it.  Our friend Stephanie willingly ate the next deviled creme egg knowing full well what it was, and she also liked it.  However, we think she’s some kind of weird oviraptor anyway, because when we had hardboiled quail eggs, she ate them with the shells still on, so her opinions are suspect.  Other people split the last deviled creme egg. Beth, Cheryl, and Kristen all agreed that it wasn’t bad, although it wasn’t really good enough to bother making again.

Not wanting to be outdone by the cubecake, Beth made Alex a cake shaped like a Kit Kat Clock.

The base of the cake was made following Shirley’s Crazy Cake recipe from Bakewise.
(The cake is “crazy” because it contains no eggs.  Instead, a bit of vinegar helps the wheat gluten coagulate to keep the cake firm and moist.  Incidentally, this is a cake which is both delicious and vegan, if you’re into that sort of thing).

Two cat shapes were cut out of the cake and stacked on top of one another, with a layer of chocolate ganache  in between.

More ganache was poured over the entire cake. Each eye was made with half of a Lindt white chocolate truffle.

A simple icing made from powdered sugar and milk was used to create the detail, along with more ganache.

The Kat Clock Cake’s body was eaten first, and its head was packaged up to go on a road trip.

The bleu cheese ice cream recipe comes from The Perfect Scoop. The cayenne pepper hot fudge was a combination of store bought hot fudge and cayenne pepper sauce in a ratio of approximately 2:1.

For the chicken-flavored whipped cream, our first idea was to whip chicken bouillon into the cream, but the bouillon did not dissolve.

Instead, the heavy cream should be gently stirred over low heat to dissolve the chicken bouillon cube in the cream (use the ratio of bouillon to water recommended on the package but replace the water with cream). Then, once the chicken-flavored cream is cooled, it can be whipped.

We scooped the bleu cheese ice cream onto a bed of romaine lettuce and buffalo chicken wings. Then, we topped it with the chicken whipped cream, chopped celery and a hot pepper.

Peter handles the buffalo wings, wearing protection

Reviews

Peter: Surprisingly good for what it is. The bleu cheese cools both the heat from the pepper sauce and the heat of the wings themselves.

Alex: Finally a use for that awful ice cream! This almost redeems that recipe. Maybe we should make chicken ice cream.

Beth: Astonishingly, I’m actually willing to eat the bleu cheese ice cream this way. We really needed darker chocolate, more chocolate, and more wings per scoop of ice cream. I actually enjoyed the chicken whipped cream.

Beth topped her sundae with a dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget.

Kristen: The cayenne pepper hot fudge would be an excellent topping for wings. The chicken whipped cream tastes good but makes me sick to think of it.

Last year for Beth’s 27th birthday, Alex made her an ice cream cake.  The cake was a 3x3x3 cube made from 9 blocks each of toasted almond ice cream, chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and Vietnamese coffee ice cream (recipes from The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments).  It turns out those flavors all melt at different rates, so if you decide to make such a thing, serve it right after you take it out of the freezer.

Also, there were rainbow-dinosaur mini-cakes.

Juicy, tender, boneless – and what a lovely color! What is this delightful comestible?

This morning, our cat caught a smurf! Apparently, it was collecting a late harvest of smurfberries in our garden when Azrael pounced on it.

Seems a downright shame – an awful waste. Such a nice plump frame whats-its-name has. Had. Has. With the price of meat what it is…

Recipe

While other tataki recipes call for a coating of spices (sesame, for example), we did not want to tarnish the beautiful color of this specimen.

Heat pan of sesame oil until is smokes and then sear all sides of the smurf flank. As far as we know, smurfs do not carry smurfonella or other diseases.

Using a very sharp knife, slice the flank diagonally, being careful not to tear the extremely tender meat.

Drizzle with a reduction of smurfberries (we couldn’t let those hard-won berries go to waste!). Garnish with a red mushroom house.

Reviews
AK: The meat is incredibly tender and flaky, but I am disappointed to find that there is not even a hint of gold. Could have used a little salt. The smurfberry topping was tart and delicious, but somewhat overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the flank.

Beth: It turns out smurf is somewhat bland and fishy. They probably spend a lot of time wallowing in swamps and eating algae to ward off starvation. I’ll eat beef nearly raw, but I really wanted to cook this longer and slather it with sauce. Steamed smurf houses in smurfberry sauce are great, though. And their little hats puff up into flaky pastries if you bake them.

Kristen: We had smurfberries growing in our garden? They are delish! Say what you will about the flavor of the meat, the color makes for spectacular presentation.

When our friend Jennifer wrote a novel about the teriyaki of the damned, we had to try our own hand at making goth teryaki.  Before we get to the recipe (which may actually our most sane creation so far), we’d like to talk a little about the book.

Terroryaki! (3-Day Novel) was writen for the International 3-Day Novel Contest, which is an awesome even that you should check out.  The book is about two sisters and their trials and tribulations dealing with family, relationships, and cursed teriyaki.

The best part of this book is the descriptions of food — do not read this book while hungry.  There are mouthwatering descriptions of more varieties of teriyaki than you can shake a chopstick at, as well as tantalizing passages about warm chewy cookies and exotic (but wholesome) flavors of ice cream.  This blog may need to steal some recipe ideas from the Puyallup Fair foods described on page 70.  With a name like Corn-nado, how can you go wrong?

Terroryaki! is the kind of story you would get if you turned kettle corn into a book.  It’s light but addictive, full of sweetness and savor.  You’ll find Terroryaki! gone before you know it, and you’ll be hungry for more.

You can buy Terroryaki! (3-Day Novel) here.  For those readers in the Cambridge/Boston MA area, you can meet the author and hear a reading this Friday at 7 pm with the MIT Science Fiction Society.  Details here.

Now on to our food!

Beth and Special-Guest-Chef Anne started by steaming some jet black Forbidden Rice.  We weren’t quite sure what kind of meat the meat-of-the-damned should be, so we decided to take our cue from the band Cake and their song “Sheep Go to Heaven,” which says that goats go to hell.  We’re fortunate enough to live near several markets which sell goat, so we bought a two pound bag of goat parts.

Now, goats are tough, bony creatures, and any sensible person is going to slow-cook their meat on the bone in a stew or curry.  Instead, we got out the cutting board and a nice big knife and cut off as many meaty strips as we could for our teriyaki, and we saved the bones for sensible stewing later.  

As Terroryaki! demonstrates, there are many ways to make a teriyaki sauce.  We used Anne’s personal standard balance of soy sauce, mirin, and sugar.  We also minced some garlic, grated some candied ginger, and added those to the sauce.  Then we put the meat in the sauce to marinate.

Teriyaki is generally grilled or broiled after marinating, but we decided the goat could use some extra time in the heat.  So, we boiled the goat in the sauce while the sauce was reducing.  We whipped up some steamed vegetables for an accompaniment, and made ourselves bowls of the gothest teriyaki you’ve ever seen.  Even with using the flash on the camera, light could hardly escape our dinner.

Reviews:

Beth:  I like it, but I think the flavor of the goat overpowers the teriyaki.  Forbidden rice is also hard to eat since it’s not very sticky.

Anne:  The goat definitely has a strong flavor, but I think the teriyaki comes through pretty well.  It’s good.

Sean:  You guys are right, goat is like concentrated lamb.