I realized I hadn't posted anything here since Thursday. Then I realized I couldn't think of anything to write about. Ah! The dreaded Blogger's Block! I've actually been trying to write a post about Portland's South Waterfront mess, but I decided I need a map to really explain what's going on, and I'm still figuring out how to use that pesky Google Maps API. So it may be a while before you get to see that post.
Also, I'm bored. Every now and then I peek over at the xterm where g++ is grinding away on my HP-UX build box. It's been doing that for a couple of hours now. My, what an exciting job I have.
Luckily I had some really poor photos of tater tots just lying around, so I figured I'd write about those instead. You might think this is a really pointless topic. Perhaps you didn't realize that tater tots are a matter of life and death. Or at least they are in San Antonio.
Perhaps you're also unaware of tater tots' key position in our national cuisine. Here's a vast archive of recipes for Tater Tot Casserole. Before sneering, please recall that "casserole" is a French word. So clearly it can't be that bad. The Boston Globe goes much further, offering a recipe for Cod with Truffled Leek Sauce with Tater Tots. Although I'm not sure this is truly a tater tot recipe per se, since they merely serve as the starchy side dish and aren't actually combined with the cod or the leek sauce. I suppose you could mash it all together on the plate with your fork, though, if you felt you needed to. The article claims the recipe's originally from a book titled "Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean". Doesn't sound all that Mediterranean to me, although on the other hand I'll bet tater tots would go great with hummus, come to think of it.
Our very own Oregonian gets in on the act, with a recipe combining tater tots and crab. It's a shame that I don't really care for crab very much. Maybe if it was combined with crispy golden potato ambrosia, I'd find it more palatable. Perhaps.
And here's something novel: Rather than using store-bought tater tots as a raw ingredient, here's how to make your own tater tots. Pasta began to be considered an upscale, gourmet food once you could buy a special gadget and make your own at home. I entertain high hopes for a similar transformation of the humble tater tot.
Note: Not to be prissy or anything, but everything below this horizontal line here is at least a little gross, and none of it has much do with tater tots. So if you're strictly here for the tater tots, you could quit now and not miss much. Between the first line and the second, it's mostly just funny (well, I think so, anyway) and maybe a little gross, if you're a wuss. Really the first line is there as a buffer between the food and the more offputting material. After the second line it gets a lot grosser, and it may or may not be funny, depending on your sense of humor. So you were warned, sort of, I guess. Actually I'm mostly doing this to give this post the appearance of structure. But if I can ward off any litigious nutjobs before they decide I owe them beeeeelion$ just because I made them feel all sad and confused inside, hey, that's all the better.
I do realize that for a lot of people, tater tots straddle the line between tasty food and gross food. I don't, but I do think gross food is awfully funny sometimes. I recently bought an extremely funny book about gross food, Wendy McClure's "The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s". If you're cheap, or you just want to try before you buy, some of the material is also up on the author's website. Observe her difficulties in captioning the photo of "Liver Pate en Masque". More gross recipes may be obtained here. And here are even more of 'em.
Updated: Here are a few more icky food resources, for your entertainment, or at least for mine:
- The legendary Steve, Don't Eat It!. I say "legendary" because think I'd heard of this page before I saw it today. Pickled pork rinds!? I'll eat just about anything, if I think there's any chance it might taste good. I'll happily chow down on normal pork rinds. And I'm also a big fan of just about anything pickled, especially if there's a big pile of garlic involved. But combining the two things... ugh... And those photos...
- A post at Deanaland titled "Remember the 50's?", including a horrific jello mold, and the surprisingly straightforward instructions for making "7UP in Milk". Mmm!
- A Slashfood article, "The stuff of nightmares: 1950s food ads", which in turn links to Plan59, a site devoted to mid-20th-century commercial art.
- "The American Food FAQ". As in, questions frequently asked by Swedes about US food, along with amusing answers. Don't worry, the page is in English.
- A page from Sri Lanka, covering a few things the author thinks are gross, including haggis and chitlins.
- And for dessert, why not visit Bad-Candy.com. You may not realize this, but if you've been raised exclusively on candy churned out by large multinational conglomerates, you're missing out on the best and the worst the confectionary world has to offer. And it gets far, far worse than you could have reasonably imagined.
I was disheartened to learn that there's (supposedly) an extremely painful-sounding sex act called "tater tots". Click here only if you're absolutely sure you really want to know. No photos or graphic descriptions, thankfully. Honestly, I bet someone just made this up, and nobody's ever really tried it. Ow! OW!!! But if you didn't want to go away from this blog with that particular image in your mind, today's your lucky day! Here's a completely unrelated item from over at K5, where some weird guy claims he cured his asthma by giving himself intestinal parasites. Hint: It involves a trip to Cameroon, and a lot of walking around barefoot in the local latrines. And now you know. tag: tater tots
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