Canned Brown Bread
Submitted by Lauren Hudson
Every autumn, back in my years spent at F.E. Bellows Elementary, our school would hold a food drive just before Thanksgiving. This would be when we kids were told by our teachers to bring in canned food for people less fortunate than us, and that the class with the most cans at the end of a set period would win a pizza lunch or some other food that didn't come from a can.
This (obviously) meant war. Each class wanted that goddamn pizza lunch. Kids would go home and ask for cans of food from their mothers, who, being the good citizens of the community that they were, would garnish us with a few items (usually the stuff that had remained dormant on shelves for months). But every kid knew two or three cans wouldn't be enough to win the fucking pizza lunch, so, once the lights went out, we would sneak into our respective kitchen cupboards and steal a few cans from our mothers' stores of food. Not wanting to expose our tactics, we were sure to only take one or two cans at a time—always from the back of the shelf. Anything more would be noticeable and warrant punishment.
In fourth grade, I was assigned the task of food drive organizer. I was ecstatic and also anxiety-ridden: it was my job to produce results. If we won I would be loved and applauded! On the other hand, if we lost, I would be to blame and everyone would fucking hate me. I would probably have to eat lunch alone for at least four days, maybe even a week.
As organizer, it was my task every morning to stand by the big cardboard box by the front of the room and receive and record all the canned donations from the other students as their names were called for attendance, and encourage everyone to do better, to do more. One day during role call, as the drive was winding down and each class particularly starved for a cheese and sauce filled forty-five minute victory lunch, one of my fellow classmates, Michelle Channing, was called by the teacher and proceeded to bring up an oversized can.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Bread."
"What?"
"Canned bread."
"What do you do with it?" I asked.
"Make left-over sandwiches."
This fucked me up. Bread came in a plastic bag, not a can. I took the canned item from her and inspected it. It read: "canned brown bread." I threw the can in the wrapping-paper covered cardboard box, marked down another item donated by our class, and didn't give the canned food much thought after that. We lost the drive that year. I only had to eat alone for three days.
Years later, while flipping channels, I came across the Good Eats with Alton Brown episode where he cooks brown bread in a coffee can. FLASHBACK! Remember the girl in fourth grade that brought in canned bread for the food drive? Did that shit still exist or was it a thing of the past? Phased out like Fruity Yummy Mummy cereal and Giggle Cookies?
I immediately felt the need to do a little R&D and walked over to the 24-hour A&P super mart. As the automatic doors slid open I felt a wave of panic: where would I look? Should I start in the canned food section? Logically, one would think bread would be placed next to other bread, but instinct told me this was not the case. Not knowing where to begin, I started down the produce aisles, as they were (and always seem to be) closest to the entrance, and proceeded to walk down the remaining aisles in search of my prize—all the while trying my best not to look out-of-my-mind high at 2:30 am.
After hitting the pasta and juice aisles, and becoming increasingly nervous that I was being shadowed by an A&P employee, I started to think that canned bread no longer existed, and that I would have to think of something else to buy as to not arouse suspicion. (Paper towels? Didn't we just run out?) But, as I turned down aisle seven, I learned I was wrong—holy shit was I wrong! Right there, sitting between the vegetarian baked beans and corned beef hash, was the same oversized can of brown bread that I remembered from my youth. I made a beeline for the register, paid my $2.59 plus applicable tax, and walked back home.
Upon entering my apartment, I sat down at my kitchen table to inspect my canned good. The label looked enticing: a loaf of hearty brown bread resting on a wooden slab set in front of a glowing hearth. Directions read: "REMOVE both ends of can. If necessary, gently push loaf out one end with a spoon."
I shook the can. It made no sound. This struck me as foreign to all other canned food experiences; the silence departing far from the gelatinous "sllllshhhh" noise that is indicative of whatever solid packed in liquid you would soon be ingesting.
I followed the directions and opened both ends of the can. It did not come out. I used a spoon, like the directions had instructed me to do, and, with a little force, it slid out onto the plate. There it was—can indents and all! I inspected my find and questioned my next move. How should I eat it? Should it be toasted with butter? What was the proper way to cut it? Would it have a crust?
I decided on slicing off the edge closest to me and trying it just as it was so I could experience canned bread in its pure form. Upon cutting into I discovered it was denser than I thought it would be. I took a small bite and its weight hit me head on. This was not what I expected of bread. This was some heavy mound of molasses-infused carbs. This was the fruitcake of bread, leading you to believe it would be good and wholesome, but instead as misleading as hell.
Not wanting to waste my purchase, and also to justify the last forty-five minutes of my life, I finished about one-third of the loaf and covered the rest in plastic wrap, asking myself what I would do with the remaining piece. (How long would canned bread last once opened anyway? Would it go stale just like other bread? If so, could it be made into croutons?)
As I pondered the remaining brown bread's fate I was certain of one thing and one thing only: I wasn't about to go and make a leftover sandwich that was for sure.
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Fabulous Frutini Gum
Submitted by Matthew Mesick
My mother wouldn't let me chew gum. Her rationale was that it wasn't gentlemanly. She was correct, her boarding school- and Seven-Sisters-educated mother had taught her well; and my observations gleaned from movies featuring Douglas Fairbanks confirmed this.
But when I was in medical school, in one of my first acts of rebellion of my life, I thought I would take up gum chewing. I asked my younger brother (who while playing baseball used to mix his Red Man chew with bubble gum) which one I should try.
"Here," he said, slapping an orange packet in my hand.
My parotid and sublingual glands, overcompensated for the artificial sweetener in their midst, shot forth a hot stream of saliva, rich in enzymes, which, were the sugar real, would have broken the bonds and released the chemically stored energy for use by my body. But the active sites did not accommodate the sorbitol, and peptides were spilled, onanastically. My masseter and temporalis muscles strained under the load, and my taste buds and olfactory receptors transduced myriad signals to my cerebral cortex. I was weakened by the experience, as my knees buckled slightly.
"What do you call it?" I asked.
"The real name is Fabulous Frutini, but we just call it Angel Poon."
"Why is that?"
"Because if you were to go down on an angel, this is what it would taste like."
I thought it tasted more like a "Nada-Colada" or "Banana Runts," than the savory, salty warmth I associated with the female anatomy, but I gave him a nod of assent, "Fabulous Frutini indeed."
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Psychedelic Mini-Brownies
Submitted by Kevin Dyerson
I've made psychedelic brownies for a long-time, but now I've started making psychedelic mini-brownies. These are really good cause lots of the time you just want things to be more psychedelic. And you can make lots of them at once and then stash them all over. And then when you want things to be more psychedelic you can have one or two, and if you want things to be really psychedelic you can have four or five. And you sorta over bake them so they get dry and storeable. And you put them in small containers for when you want to make things more psychedelic. Like if it's a long boring day at your dumb job and you want to make the afternoon a little more psychedelic you can have one. Or if your wife is getting all naggy and saying stuff about things you're not doing and you want to make things more psychedelic. Or if the work you brought home is just hanging over your head and you just need, like, for things to be more psychedelic. These are all good times to have psychedelic mini-brownies around.
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