Saturday, August 14, 2010

In Which Simon Makes a Terrible Error at the Grocery Store

Sometimes you're really preoccupied with finishing your great work of American fiction (snort), and all you want is to remain alive until you're done. So, when it comes to food, you just eat whatever's around until you have nothing left but your own arms and legs.

If you really, really cannot do without every last one of your limbs, you go to the store and wander around for ten minutes throwing things into your cart willy-nilly (sweet corn? yes! applesauce? sure! strawberry jam? why not!) disregarding whether or not they will actually create a meal.

In situations like this you are particularly vulnerable to buying new things that you've never cooked before, or even seen before. You are also particularly vulnerable to buying things you would never, ever, in a million years, put in your mouth.

Before I tell you what I bought, I must impress upon you that they LOOKED like vegetarian chicken nuggets. (It is another matter why I wanted vegetarian chicken nuggets in the first place. I have never wanted them before. I have never even wanted non-vegetarian ones.) Yes, there were clues. Such as the fact that the box said SOY-FREE in large letters. But it seems that I saw SOY and I disregarded the FREE.

Which is how it happened that I bought chicken nuggets made out of mushrooms.

I feel about mushrooms the same way I feel about inappropriate uses of bacon, except that my feelings are genuine. I joke about bacon, but mushrooms are not funny! They're slippery and slimy and look like slugs and have a dreadful texture and a funny taste and generally repulsive fungal properties that make them, in my opinion, inedible.

So you can what I said to myself when I happened to read this on the back of the box and realized I almost made mushroom nuggets for dinner:


MYCOPROTEIN?! PARDON? Now mushrooms have the ability to disguise themselves as other kinds of food? I ask you, what's next? Steak made out of marshmallows? Just because it's sculptable doesn't mean it's right!

I may try these, someday, when I have recovered from the shock, as part of a scientific experiment in the objective measurement of horror. But today I am sticking to my long grain and wild rice. Which I bought. For some reason. Even though I don't tend to like rice mixes. Honestly, sometimes I need a nanny.

5 comments:

Katie said...

Just FYI, Ben HATES mushrooms. Almost as much as you do. And he bought these on purpose, baffling me to no end. (Me: Um. You bought fake chicken nuggets? Ben: Yeah. Me: Do you know what's in them? Ben: Mushrooms. Me: ?????? But you HATE MUSHROOMS. Ben: Well, I had a coupon) Anyways, he tried them and "they weren't that bad." I guess they don't taste at all like mushrooms or resemble mushrooms in anyway that matters. So I thought you should know that before you did something drastic like threw them out. I think we even bought them a second time when we had a second coupon. I look forward to the "sandwich Monday" style tasting post...

Simon said...

Perhaps, if I sprinkle Pixy Stix powder all over them and then cover them in Cap'n Crunch, I will be able to handle it better! Excellent preparation idea!

I looked up a few reviews and many people said (1) they were delicious, and (2) mycoprotein is more like mold than mushrooms. I don't know how to reconcile these two things.

Pandora said...

How someone came up with this very strange idea, I will never know, but I'd be willing to try them....but then, I like mushrooms. Insert terrible "fungis" pun here.

Ivan said...

oh, so you were only JOKING about the bacon? I'm mailing you some more of those lollipops right this second.

Simon said...

DON'T YOU DARE. I was using poetic license to express the depth of my hatred for mushrooms. The lesson here is never take me literally no matter what I say.