Sometime early November, Cassandra Evanas of DivineCaroline published a blog, listing "Seven Terrible Ideas for Breakfast." Among them were Jimmy Dean Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick (the blueberry pancakes looking oddly diseased), Vanilla Milkshake Pop Tarts, Kraft Apple Cinnamon and Cream Cheese Bagel-fuls , and Liquid Cereal. Liquid Cereal happens to be packaged in a pop can and reminded me of two equally questionable foods I came across this summer.

The first, I tweeted about a week ago as something I would "not be trying again", a hash-tagged list of foods one regrets trying that was initiated by the pioneering food blogger Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim:

#nottryingthatagain "barely embryo" milk black tea from the "Go For Tea" bubble tea house in Markham, ON: http://flic.kr/p/7eK49c

Please don't get me wrong, the "Go for Tea" bubble tea house in Markham, Ontario (Unit 2-230 Commerce Valley Dr E) is a fine establishment.

Go for Tea Logo on Menu

Super Cool Wireless Device to Call Waitress
My judgment just happened to slip, when I let someone order me a "new experience" in bubble tea.

Barley Embryo Milk Black Tea $3.99

Barley Embryo Milk Black Tea with Tapioca Pearls Served

Unfortunately, the "Barley Embryo" milk black tea with pearls was not a new flavour experience.

Cereal-tasting Bits
Instead, it was a combination of old experiences that proved disconcerting. It was a mixture of weak tea, enriched with what tasted like whole milk, and cereal-tasting bits. Its texture reminded me of soggy cereal. Add to this softened tapioca pearls and you have something that I'd rather not try again.

The second, is bottled coffee, which I have read is popular in Japan. Loblaws and Loblaws Superstore even included a brand of canned coffee in its "Chinese New Year" sales last year. Having no experience with the specific brand, I opted against trying it. When I was in a Toronto T&T this summer, I changed my mind.

Nescafe Canned Coffee
After all, Nescafe is a trusted brand of instant coffee in North America. What came out of the can was precisely what I expected, cold instant coffee, with milk added. It was rather bitter and had me wondering why such products even have a market. There are times when convenience should not supersede quality. I only wonder when Starbucks will start marketing canned "VIA."

Lessons learned:

• Neither cereal nor coffee should come out of a can.
• Bubble tea should not taste of or like cereal.

Particulars:
Go for Tea
230 Commerce Valley Drive East, Thornhill
(905)886-0221

While it may not seem surprising, certain North American processed food concepts translate well in other countries. Today, the processed food in question is individually wrapped processed cake. You know the ones. They have been tempting children in grocery stores and aggravating parents for years.

Though, I would argue that the grocery store is not its natural habitat. Grocery stores just allow manufacturers to sell processed cakes en mass. Instead, the processed cake's habitat is the freestanding wire display shelve next to the cash and till of many convenience stores. The most familiar has to be the reputed expiry date defying Hostess Twinkie.

The Twinkie as a confection is actually decades old, hailing from the 1930s. It was once banana cream-filled and carries an actual best-before date.

Clockwise from top: A box of twinkies from a grocery store, an indiivdual plastic-wrapped twinkie, a twinkie showing the holes in which its faux pastry cream is injected, and cake remnants in a twinkie's former plastic wrapper

Twinkie cross-section
Twinkies consists of a grainy sponge cake that disintegrates quickly when moistened and a vanilla cream that is non-dairy. The cream is made from high fructose corn syrup.

At the convenience store, the packaging is emblazoned with colour and wording much like the following specimen, a Vachon's Half Moon.

A plastic-wrapped Half Moon

An unwrapped Half Moon
Vachon's half moon is essentially a misshapen Twinkie, consisting of the same cake and faux pastry cream. Though, in Canada, half moons are often seen as "vanilla" versions of the chocolate Joe Louis, which substitutes an almost crimson chocolate processed sponge. It is also covered in a very light layer of chocolate. In the US, the Joe Louis is similar to Wagon Wheels, Wagon Wheels having a marshmallow filling.

Last year, a fried of ours named Lulu furnished us with the following Asian analogues. Marketed as custard "pies", they have no pastry, but closely resemble twinkies.

Egg Custard Pie

Egg Custard Pie Cross Section
The egg custard pie is surrounded by cake that is slightly more dense but equally as artificial-tasting as the twinkie sponge. Its filling is thick and eggy.


Lemon Custard

Lemon Custard Cross Section
The lemon custard pie has the same denser twinkie sponge outside. Inside, contrary to the packaging, there are no translucent lemon segments, only a thick and citrusy filling.

Given that the packaging is stamped with both a "manufacture on" and "best before date", it seems that the custard "pies" have a shelf life of 6 months.

Different shape, slightly different artificial cake, and equally as artificial filling, the custard "pies" are twinkies to me!

A little over a year ago the Ottawa Sun, our local edition of the Sun Media newspaper, published a piece entitled "Bug cuisine", eschewing the benefits of entomophagy, the practice of eating insects.

Culturally, eating insects is only taboo in western cultures. In South America, Mexico, and Asia, eating insects is widely accepted. My being born in a western culture, however has me wonder about the flavour and texture that prepared insects could take. Their nutritive value has already been argued at length.

Bug Cuisine
When I discuss "bug cuisine" with other foodies, I find that I have to remind them that lobster isn't very far removed from crickets. The way I see it, if British restaurants can serve grey squirrel in higher end restaurants, as the foreign and invasive species is quite the prolific vermin across the pond, we can be open minded about entomophagy.

Alas, the only place I could find insects prepared for eating is at Sugar Mountain, a chain of dedicated candy stores that stock insect treats as gag gifts. In fact, when I selected my box of salt and vinegar crickets from the display that included scorpion lollies and chocolate covered ants, I found the cashier eying me suspiciously.

Crickets

Nutrition

Ingredients

American manufacturer
When I went to purchase it, she asked me if these were for me or a practical joke for somebody else. I told her that if one of the lovely tweeps I follow can overcome her preconceptions about pork and eat the dishes she prepared in class, I can dare to expand my diet as well. She wished me well. My better half shook her head.

Inside the box came whole crickets, probably roasted and then tossed in copious amounts of flavouring.

Seasoned Roasted Crickets

Unbagged
I found the artificial flavouring so intense, that I could not determine any of the nuttiness that crickets are supposed carry.

The texture however was a cross between potato chips and carbon paper.

On the whole, the experience was not at all unpleasant, but if we are what we eat, I guess I'm adventurous. Though, for a week after, I found that I could discern cricket song in the evenings more clearly. It was probably a co-incidence.

This morning, during my daily rounds of technology news sources, I came across the following screen capture for a really interesting tool exclusive to Apple's Iphone platform. Called "SnapTell Explorer", the tool provides instant product information for any CD, DVD, book, or video game. All the user needs to do is capture the cover and the application will identify the product and find both ratings and price information online. This is, by far, one of the most useful and tell-tale signs that pervasive or ubiquitous computing is coming to pass. It also demonstrates that computer vision is improving. Nevertheless, the screen capture was horrifying. This is not because of the tool. It is because of the cookbook identified: The Twinkies Cookbook

According to its publisher:

In 2005, as part of Twinkies' 75th anniversary celebration, Hostess put out a call for recipes, asking people to share their ideas for cooking-yes, cooking-with Twinkies. Hundreds of people from across the country responded with an amazing collection of homegrown, creative, and sometimes wacky recipes. Nostalgic, colorful, and a delight for the whole family, this is the perfect book for the Twinkie lover in all of us.

Published in 2006, the "The Twinkies Cookbook: An Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection from Hostess" is currently being sold on Amazon.com for $10.36 USD. The book is also available in Canada (Amazon.ca: $12.37, Chapters.ca: $12.88).

According to its reviews on the Amazon website, the book contains recipes that include twinkie-related preparations of "pigs in a blanket" (with real hot dog wieners), twinkie sushi (with green fruit "leather"), twinkie burritos (chocolate, strawberries, and twinkies in a corn tortilla), and even a twinkie wedding cake.

According to Wikipedia, twinkies hail from pre-war 1930's and originally came with banana and not vanilla cream. Invented by baker James Dewar, they were intended to fill the product gap for strawberry shortcake when strawberries were out of season. Modern twinkies, contain no dairy. Hence, they have a long shelf-life that has been somewhat exaggerated into an urban legend. Contrary to popular belief, twinkies have expiry date less than a couple months after their manufacture.

My most recent reference to twinkies comes from an episode of Chef Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. During the episode, he and his "guides" visit an abandoned Hostess factory in Cleveland, Ohio. There, they walk up to a spigot that is connected to a series of pipes, still containing high fructose corn syrup. Chef Bourdain samples a taste. Afterward, someone narrates that even the factory's infestation of rats want nothing to do with the syrup.

Happily, a twinkie-related cookbook isn't the end of this entry.

This morning, the World Wide Web gave pause when I discovered a cookbook for twinkies. This afternoon, it also gave me relief. Apparently, a group of enterprising youths put together a website to host their experiments with twinkies. "Twinkie the Kid" (right) is its mascot. There, twinkies are shocked, burned, dissolved, and dropped; all in the interest of furthering the frontiers of science!

The researchers also feel that "twinkies" should be an acronym for "Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations."

Kudos to twinkies scientists! Perhaps the Nobel committee will take notice.

Before we begin, let me introduce you to the new rage in breakfast sandwiches: the morning Luther Burger (aka: Paula Deen's Lady's Brunch Burger)

The Luther Burger with an Egg
Source: flickr.com

foodiePrints is already familiar with the Luther Burger concept: hamburger patty, a slice of sharp cheddar cheese, and two rashers of crisped bacon, sandwiched in between a halved Krispy Kreme "Original Glazed" doughnut.

Now, add an egg and serve it with a side of Paul Deen

Did anyone else notice Ms. Deen licking one of the fingers of the hand she picks up the burger with to hand it to her guest?

Forget lame or game...Scary! Scary! Scary!