Tacky Easter Food - Twinkie Twifle

My sis and I visit our cousins every Easter and I have mentioned before that they traditionally make a monstrosity dessert consisting of chunks of angel food cake, strawberries, jello, and frosted with bright pink Cook Whip. You can see a picture of it here.

This year they decided to dispense with tradition and try something different. "Strawberry Shortcake!" they told us, to which Sis and I squealed in glee..."made with Twinkies!" they added. Uh Oh...

We arrived the night before Easter and we discussed the various presentations for the Twinkie shortcake. Should we arrange the Twinkies in a starburst with the strawberries piled in the middle? Should we build the Twinkies as a series of mini Stonehenges with the strawberries artfully arranged to suggest traditional sacrifices?

We didn't want the dessert to be too trailer trashy but we still wanted to maintain complete "twinkiness". We settled on a variation of The Trifle and did a trial run with the Twinkies still in their package.

A perfect concept, don't you think?

The next day the girls (cousin Laura and friend Jenna) began construction. They feared that if all the Twinkies faced one way the complete "twinkiness" would not be maximized. Therefore they alternated them, some showing the rounded side out, some displaying the flat side where the filling gets injected. Nobody could mistake that these are Twinkies!

They filled their trifle with strawberries and fresh whipped cream. Yes, the cream is slightly pink. Was there ever any doubt?

Voila! The completed Twinkie Twifle! The guests pronounced it delicious by devouring the entire thing.

But please don't ask me how it was. I bypassed the Twifle and went straight for the homemade Lemon Cheesecake with shortbread crust, although I did top it with a dollop of fresh strawberries and pink whipped cream. Deeeeeeelicious!

In Bad Taste

I heard the funniest interview today on NPR's Fresh Air. Dave Davies was interviewing a teacher/scientist named Massimo Marcone, whom Davies described as the Indiana Jones of the food world. Marcone says he is more like Mr. Magoo. Nevertheless he has spent the past few years traveling the globe, dodging disease and danger, to collect and taste food that people of different cultures consider to be delicacies.

In his Mr. Magoo voice he described some of the more interesting (i.e. disgusting) foods that he has come across:

Kopi luwak coffee beans scavenged from piles of poop dropped by civets. Marcone said this coffee, which sells for $600 a pound, is notorious for being cut with regular coffee and sold for a high price.

Marcone with a prized bird nest and coffee bean poop:

Argan oil from the kernel of a fruit eaten by goats. In Morocco, argan "nuts" are collected from excrement, roasted and pressed to extract a golden-red oil. Almost as bizarre: the fact that it all starts with goats climbing trees. One of my favorite gourmet websites sells it for $26.50 for 250 ml. They never mention in the description that it's shat from goats. Rather, they say it is collected by Moroccan women. Marcone claims that since deadly scorpions hide in the dung a number of collectors (women) die each year.

Escamoles, the eggs of red ants, are called Mexican caviar. This is a hugely popular delicacy and is served by the best restaurants when in season.

King Scorpions - tastes like crab not chicken.

Italy's Casu Frazigu takes the concept of smelly cheese to new heights (or depths). When it's cut, thousands of maggots crawl out. The mess is smeared on flatbread and washed down with red wine. On his way to taste some, Marcone could smell it as he approached the door and heard the clicking of maggots against the cheese container six metres away. He said it was quite good.

Casu Frazigu after being mellowed and tenderized by millions of tiny maggots:

He probably described more yucky food but these are the only ones I heard him discuss. He wrote a book about his adventures and findings called "In Bad Taste." He claims his book is a study of why foods become delicacies. Ultimately, it is the story behind the food, rather than the food itself, that people find irresistable.

Wow, that story really grossed me out. I think I'll go comfort myself with a bowl of dried and processed seed heads soaked in the bodily fluid of cows and topped by bee vomit.