Cuisine Around the World

This was always the consolation prize of babysitting night- when your parents didn’t trust the sitter to go out and not buy drugs with the pizza money, Kid Cuisine was on the menu. And if they really hated the baby sitter, they left her one, too. When I was little, Kid Cuisine came in more varieties than you could count on all of your hands and they always seemed to be testing some child-formulated version of lazy adult products. Salisbury steak, taquitos, and a knock-off of Ellios’s whizzed through the freezer.
I distinctly remember having this once, not because my parents never went out, but because they figured out very quickly that children could also be sustained by leftover duck confit, raisins, and salt-free almonds when left to their own devices. “Canape night! My favorite!” A phrase we never uttered. Today I took one for the team and sampled the least unappealing version of KC that I could find, fun shaped chicken breast nuggets. Though, not gonna lie, I would have loved to find miniature corn dogs to flick at my cats.
The presentation and preparation is overly complex and strange. I gauged myself at being around the stumbling motor capability of a small, dull child as I was hung over from last night’s celebration of Thursday. To read multiple paragraphs about taking out chicken nuggets and putting them back in, gently stirring corn and macaroni and cheese, and not microwaving gummy bugs felt beyond my skill set so I just nuked the savories and kept out the sweets. The gummies were housed in a package that kept them dry but absorbed all the savory flavors, adding insult to injury by not providing them their own separate compartment to rest in prior to consumption. Those suckers had to sit next to the nuggets.
The meal is perfect for children as it is completely devoid of texture, seasoning, and any remote resemblance to the food it is inspired by. Change its color or put some foam on it and it’s practically a Wylie Dufresne kid’s menu. I mean, just look at that macaroni. It has some serious issues brewing beneath its taut, taupe skin. I want to sit it down and refer it to a good psychoanalyst, maybe buy it a drink and just sit back and listen. Kid Cuisine is no place for authentic Italian elbow noodles, I’m sure. It had bigger dreams at one point, but now…just look at it. The nuggets are placidly bouncy and squishy. I’m sure that was intentional but it’s doubly disturbing as they are shaped like bugs.
If you really have to eat this, you could look at it as a more homogenized, muted version of the KFC famous bowl. Like said bowl, it also tastes like a healthy dousing of arrhythmia-topped dairy with a few vaguely crispy nuggets thrown in for protein. Also this dinner is basically a pussy magnet if you have two cats and they can smell chicken from three miles away like ours can. There’s nothing wrong with it, per se, it’s just not as condiment and flavor laden as I typically like my food to be. I wish Kid Cuisine had gone the duck confit route and incorporated just a little more oomph to these. Kids should know what coriander tastes like by their sixth birthday.

Hunt’s, the liquid assets of kids. Insert random story about making friends at Jewish summer camp here, bada bing, bada boom. So! Woe betide the kid whose mom packed peanut butter and jelly on flax bread fo’ sho’. It was almost as embarrassing as for the kids who thought that the Marilyn Monroe quote I invented on a quiet Facebook day was real and not completely made up, but I’m banking that the bulk of them won’t read this, so…I win.
Handi-Snacks has come out with quite a few funky flavors lately, and by funky, I obviously mean designed to make little kids cry. While I’d never tried ice cream sandwich inspired pudding before, I figured it deserved the old college try, as anything that costs under a dollar warrants. Perhaps it’s the power of suggestion, but there’s an aggressive milkiness to this that makes it almost taste like the real deal. Or at least, the chocolate wafer part. Despite its glossy, thick texture, the pudding itself has a certain severe lack of moisture and a dry, very cocoa-heavy aftertaste that mimics the cookie pretty well. The package is also incredibly meta and its enthusiastic visual, an ice cream cookie whizzing at record speeds into a pile of what I assume isthis very pudding, provides a bonus recipe if you don’t care about health or sugar or dignity.
Where things fall apart in the realism factor is the mid-section. Most companies would slap some vanilla in there, call it a day and go home to watch Mad Men on DVD, but Handi-Snaxxx opted to try and flavor it like ice cream with less than stellar results. The end product tastes somewhere in between cereal marshmallows and Splenda and has a snarly, artificial aftertaste that lingers around like a teen loiterer. I mean, just look at that pudding pompadour. Fortunately, this was tempered by the strong and doubled chocolate layers, but still left a dry feeling in my mouth along with that fake sweetener on my breath. Bland. Boring. Lacking substance and riding on a tired gimmick. Ah, such is life.

Well, readers, it’s shaping up to be a pretty crappy day and it’s barely past noon over here. My phone, which I’ve had for the last three years, stopped working today. It registers as on, but the screen is blank and I can’t read texts or receive calls. So it’s basically a light-up brick. I feel overworked, I’m stressed looking for a summer job, I’m the goddamn Batman, and I have an enormous baking project to undertake tonight. So I’m pretty peeved right now.
Luckily, I remembered I had these fries in the freezer to review today, which brightened up my day significantly. These fries are getting more dreamy eyes and shooped tumblr posts than Titantic, One Direction, and puppies with broken legs combined. It fuses together 17 year old girls’ love for their childhood, which they perceived as idyllic and uncomplicated in retrospect, and their projected appreciation of the simple things in life. No joke, I once saw a Facebook status circulate around a specifically dumb group of pre-deletion friends that read something like, “~♥♥♥ i would rather have a boy make me dino nuggets n smiley frys then take me out for a fancy steak dinner ♥♥♥~ REPOST IF U LOVED UR CHILDHOOD!!! Or something like that. And yes, the “then” was spelled like that and nobody noticed that the re-poster made herself out to be an enormous hambeast.
My point is, people, specifically people my age, love reliving their elementary school glory days for no other reason than to relate to people who, like them, were also children at the same time they were. It’s a little pathetic. Likewise, Disney sing-a-longs, Lion King marathons, and Harry Potter fanart also falls into this category of the 90′s Nostalgia Generation. Regardless, everyone can still agree that it’s immensely satisfying to bite an anonymous face apart piece by piece.
I’ve seen grown college students, legally defined as adults by the state of Massachusetts, push each other and grab at these like toddlers lacking fine motor skills. Why? Because they’re absolutely delicious. They’re the best of french fries and tater tots, with the increased crispy surface area of the former and the thick, pasty sustenance of the latter. Salt for all. Even better when you dip them into ketchup because then you can justify eating them due to their extended cranial injuries. Even better than feeling like God when you’re able to injure them at whim and then consume them before anyone notices are the deformed ones.
You’re special in your own way. And possibly incapable of frowning. Smiley fries, you are the best. Your starchy, whipped texture makes cannibalism almost seem pure.

Ernest Hemingway’s shortest tragedy: For sale: baby, shoes (never worn)
The better version (mine): Grew up in Southern Connecticut, hated the beach.
A true story, and a rather pitiful one, too. Growing up, we belonged to two beach and tennis clubs and I hated both equally. The club closest to our house was the most tolerable and thus, the one we went to most frequently. I liked it because it had a killer snack bar and plenty of trees and grass to sit under and read. Less sand, more J.K. Rowling for me. And beach snacks. What is it about salt air that makes people bust out their best stash of mindless foods to eat? Kettle Corn, charred hot dogs, puffy Jax, and Stewart’s Orange and Cream Soda were exchanged and consumed rapidly.
By far, the most superior of these snacks was Shark Bites. Easy to carry and overtly beach-themed, it was voted the best way for children to both absorb and repel the power of the shark. Everyone likes Shark Bites. They’re clearly the best of the fruit snack varieties, with their strange opaque colors and the widely disputed mystery flavor of the great white shark. Sometimes it was orange. Sometimes it was cherry. Either way, it was the most coveted of the pack and if you had two, giving one to a buddy signified a lifelong bond. At least until someone dropped theirs half-eaten into the sand and cried about it. Babies.
The doughy, glutenous chew and generic fruit-flavored profile in no way deters from eating these. With their mild tang and gentle sweetness, it’s easy to go through a pack of these- or three! They truly are the poor man’s Sharkies, and a worthy competitor at that.

It hurts to write this post because it feels like I’m peeling away a very dear, but vestigial part of my body. Like taking out my appendix, or lopping off an earlobe, admitting that Zebra Cakes are an abject failure, the wheezing obese diabetic token of snack cakes, physically pains me. Dr. D used to take me on weekends in her yellow VW bug and typically, our first order of business was to pick up some treats for the visit, forbidden favorites that followed an excursion to an animal shelter or Toys R Us. It was one of my first real feelings of equal power, how wonderful it felt to just hold up a pack of Zebra Cakes and get a nod of approval. Because of that the treat has stuck with me, holding a significance far beyond snack cakes. The zany zebra heralded one of my first brushes with responsibility- the joy and ensuing pain of eating too many Zebra Cakes.
Over a decade and a half later, I decided to revisit them out of pure nostalgic longing. I wasn’t disappointed to eat them again as they did rekindle the same delight I felt so many years back, still best paired with a 4-piece kid’s meal from Burger King and an episode of Angry Beavers, but I was disappointed to discover that a pack of these is worse, in almost every single respect, than eating a McDouble. This is right behind colored sunscreen and puppy feet on the ever-expanding list of “things that are adorable but should not, under any circumstances, be placed in a human’s mouth.” With a flimsy, crumbly structure and a persistent filminess, these things are basically the edible equivalent of the FBI Most Wanted List. They’re nasty hexagonal calorie bombs glued together with sweetened Floam. The texture seizes up and improves when subjected to a bout in the freezer, but primarily remains waxy on the outside and grainy with sugar on the inside. The zebra stripes don’t impart any chocolatey flavor to the cake at all.
While I’d wished the little cakes had tasted better, the reminiscence of kicking back with these and classic 90′s episodes of Nickelodeon is parallel to none, even the post-consumption guilt of realizing how much saturated fat is in these.

Lemonade is pretty nostalgic, right? Well, throw away that Kool-Aid, because there are two new MiO flavors, and two chances to win. MiO has introduced their latest and greatest to the flavor lineup, Lemonade and Blueberry Lemonade fresh for the summer. Wanna win these before the rest of the world gets their hands on them? Thanks to MiO and Kraft, I’m giving away two sets of the new flavors for you to try!
So, to make this fun we’re going to play a little over under game. To be eligible for the contest, simply leave a comment below and let me know what rating you think I’ll give these two newbies. The two people who are closest to the actual rating will win! Remember to leave your contact information in the body of the comment. You can get an extra entry by tweeting this phrase:

If you’re a MiOgician, @FoodetteReviews wants to give you free MiO Lemonade and Blueberry Lemonade! http://bit.ly/miogiveaway
I’ll post the two winners on the day of the review, most likely by 4/5, and will let you know who won! Thanks again to Kraft and MiO for facilitating my sampling and giveaway.

Hey, guys,

Just a quick note to let you know that my new site, Nobly Rotten, is now up and running in its latest and greatest form! If you’re interested in my take on wine critiquing, specifically, German, Austrian, and Alsatian Riesling wine, please check the site out. I promise you it will deliver the same level of dry wit (with perhaps a touch more class!) as you’ve come to know and love on Foodette.
If you could also like Nobly’s Facebook page and follow us on Twitter, I would much appreciate it. Thanks for reading and enjoy Nostalgia Week!

Jess

Lunchables, as much of a household name as Justin Bieber, terrorism, and Alf. If you grew up in the 80′s and 90′s, you know them as the number one underground currency of the lunchroom and playground. Seriously, at 7:30 in the morning in any classroom across America, intense trades were going down with these suckers before Wall Street even woke up. Unless you were one of those kids whose parents stopped giving a crap and just slipped you one of these babies and five bucks for milk every day, having one of these was like Christmas, your birthday, and a surprise appearance by Mickey Mouse all in one.
And the most famous and coveted of all these was the cracker stackers. Long before the advent of deep dish cold pizzas with chewy, dog-treat esque pepperoni and cold sliders was the beloved combination of crackers, a cheese block, and bologna or turkey. For many kids, this was our first introduction to the concept of handheld food and likewise, the very same subconscious reason that compels us to keep eating cracker and cheese sandwiches at parties.
What used to be a grubby, sticky means of self-immunization via finger-transmitted germs atop turkey flavored petri dishes is now a remarkably sterile, kid formulated version of crudites. The crackers are enhanced with whole wheat, the turkey circles are free-range, the Skittles are organic and free of allergens. It’s like they don’t even know me any more, man.
However, the Capri Sun libation remains untouched and the Lunchables folks still had the wherewithal to include the obligatory games and prize on the back of the-what the fuck is this!? Win a trip to Illinois? Why? And not just the awesome, deep-dish pizza eating, Chicago Bears Illinois, the type that brings back aaaaaaallllll your horrible repressed memories of agonizing family vacations. This trip sucks.
But the Lunchables! The Lunchables! They’re just as delicious as I remembered and maybe even more so because they’re now bereft of sticky kid germs. The flavor is classic- creamy cheese product dominated with a slick, liquid salinity from the turkey, shaped in discs sourced from the frisbeenus part of the turkey breast. Washing it down with my Pacific Cooler, a fine example of the classic Capri Sun varietal I know and love, delivering a healthy dose of sugar to fuel a body through recess.
My mind wandered the nostalgic romance and betrayal of trying to woo Allison from the 3rd grade with a pack of contraband filched Doritos, only to discover that she’d been driven to sharing Pat’s cracker stackers with him tableside style, Caramel the lunch lady waiting anxiously to deliver their valet-parked Big Wheel. Damn them all. True to form, as I remembered this awful time in my life, I blew up the Capri Sun container after drinking its contents and stomped on it, the straw shooting out of the box like my disgruntled sexual frustration.
Regardless, these deliver a flavor that doesn’t make me want to run for the garbage can or even trade these for someone else’s gummy bears. It’s both heartwarming and edible, a classic combination almost as classic as turkey discs and Skittles.
Too bad their website is straight-up sketch. Now we’re packing fruit indeed, says the Hannibal Lecter of pineapples.
Also, Allison, call me. Please. My mom made Rice Krispy treats!

I have a problem? An enchilada problem? No. No, no, no, no- you’re the one with a problem. I won’t hear anything else. The problem- your problem, mind you, is that you don’t have a forkful of these crammed in your mouth right now. That’s the story and I’m sticking to it.
These all started when Miss Love, weary of my enchilada fixation, casually suggested we eat something different for dinner outside of the six versions of faux-Mexican we’ve eaten in the last month. As if. Something with a little less corn tortilla and tomatillo. Something with curry, with grapes, with bread, with anything but chicken and hot sauce. Unfortunately, I’d just finished the last of our previous batch of enchiladas and really wanted more. She, in all her wily form, went straight for the heart and suggested chicken tikka masala, one of my favorite dishes.
What I countered with may have changed our eating patterns forever. “How about chicken tikka enchiladas?” And so it began. It wasn’t like we planned on layering charred pieces of chicken marinated in a revamped Russian dressing on corn tortillas with cheese, tikka masala sauce, and topping them with a cilantro jalapeno crema. It wasn’t like we anticipated nearly inhaling the whole pan all the while discussing how good tomorrow’s lunch would be. It wasn’t like we predicted that during all of this, the kitten would teach herself to adhere to the screen door, grapple her way up to the door frame, and balance atop it yelling until we took her down.
And yet, it all came together beautifully. Two stubborn women were momentarily quiet as they ate their dinner, two cats cried for chicken, and the lemony, spicy, sweet, meaty goodness of these enchiladas proved to me that arguing with your lady can sometimes bring wonderful things. Namely, more enchiladas.
Chicken Tikka Enchiladas with Cilantro Jalapeno Crema
Ingredients (serves 4)
3 large boneless and skinless chicken breasts
1/3 cup of sour cream
1/3 cup of spicy ketchup
1/4 teaspoon of minced garlic
2 teaspoons of hot sauce
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 teaspoon roasted ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon chili powder
Dash of red wine
Salt and pepper to taste
1 jar of tikka masala sauce
12 corn tortillas
1 1/2 cups of sharp cheddar cheese
Cilantro jalapeno crema on top
Cilantro Jalapeno Crema
Ingredients (makes about 1 cup)
1 cup of chopped cilantro
2 jalapenos, deseeded and cored
1/3 cup of sour cream
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt to taste
1. Set your oven on broil and prepare your sour cream marinade. Salt and pepper your chicken breasts. Mix together sour cream, the garlic, the spices, and spicy ketchup. Taste and adjust as needed and spread over chicken breasts on a foil-lined baking sheet.
2. Depending on how thick the breasts are, they will need to broil for 12-14 minutes on each side or until cooked and crispy. While they are broiling, prepare the crema by placing all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blending until combined and chopped. Grate the cheddar cheese and set it aside.
3. When the chicken is cool and easy to handle, chop it into bite sized chunks. Heat half of the tikka sauce on the stovetop and dip the tortillas in, one at a time, letting them sit for a few seconds until they are soft. Place the chicken in a bowl and pour more sauce into the bottom of the saucepan, enough to cover the bottom.
4. To assemble the enchiladas, place a few tablespoons of chicken in the tortilla and top with cheese. Roll them up and set them in the pan, lined up until the pan is full.
5. Pour the remaining tikka masala sauce over the top and sprinkle with cheese. Heat on low until cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve with crema and hot sauce to taste.
And we never argued again.

“Hi, uh, what kind of pies do you have?”
“We have apple and cherry, but I really don’t like cherry.”
“Okay, do you have the strawberry pie?”
“The strawberry creme pie? Yeah, we have that.”
“I’ll take one of those.”
It was like walking into a speakeasy. No advertisements, no branded packaging, and no overt mentioning of the new strawberry creme pie existed at this McDonald’s. While I’d been told in advance that it was being sold in my area, proving that we are yet again another awesome pie test market, it was still awfully strange that none of the employees seemed to want to tout its springy goodness.
However, after opening the box, I began to formulate an idea as to why that was. This particular pie was crushed and battered beyond all belief, leaking its red, gelatinous contents out of the box. The underside appeared to have been broken and restitched together with a hasty application of pie glue and the filling sank to the bottom, the top crust bowed and fractured. What was advertised as a sugar-dusted coating was a glaze-drowned layer on this one. However, as I know from many fast food forays before this one, sometimes the ugliest ducklings yield the tastiest meat.
In this case, the pie crust was chewy, but appropriately sweet and heavily improved with the glaze on top. While the strawberry manifested chiefly in the form of pie filling goo with no discernible texture or fruit to speak of, it had a fresh, tangy flavor perfectly complimenting the sunny weather outside. The creme was where I ran into some issues. It wasn’t creamy in the way that I expected it to be, with a pudding-like, runny texture, and instead was crumbly, dry, and baked like a custard. This definitely leeched away some of the more summery implications of the dessert and relegated it more toward day-old baked good central. However, the flavor was fresh and vanilla heavy, so the texture felt like less of an issue in comparison.
Overall, I’m very impressed that McDonald’s is offering seasonal pie flavors for our vacillating New England weather. Color me jaded, but apple just doesn’t reek of spring or summer to me. I liked seeing s’mores in the summer and pumpkin in the winter, and having strawberry creme in the spring is a pleasant way to welcome in the season. While this sort of missed the mark in the texture department, I was pleased enough with it to eat the entire thing and share a little with Miss Love.