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Related Reading
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Top Secret Recipes: More Fabulous Kitchen Clones of America's
Favorite Brand-Name Foods
America's love affair with fast food is once again addressed
by Wilbur in his sequel to Top Secret Recipes. In response
to readers, another 50 foods are dissected, probed, prodded,
examined, and refashioned to create taste clones of such treats
as Oreo cookies, M&M/Mars almond bar, Snapple ice tea,
and McDonald's Quarter Pounder. Each recipe includes a brief
history of the manufacturer and the specific foodstuff, as
well as an engineering-like line drawing of the recipe's assembly.
—Barbara Jacobs
The
Junk Food Companion: The Complete Guide to Eating Badly
The Junk Food Companion is Eric Spitznagel's comprehensive
handbook of America's weirdest invention: junk food. Drawing
from a selection of his own gooey favorites, Spitznagel investigates
all aspects of junk food — from the emotional value of
chocolate and the nutritional value of jelly beans to the
sex appeal of chewing gum and the travesty that was New Coke.
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Guilty Pleasures
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I am a food snob.
Cool Whip® and margarine are banished from my kitchen.
I only admit real whipping cream and butter. Vanilla "flavoring"
is barred in favor of pure vanilla extract. I won't use
canned vegetables unless someone threatens me with the sharp
edge of a can lid. I maintain a fresh herb garden. My favorite
meal is a big plate of quality sushi.
However, my bipolar tastes also swing
to the completely processed and lowbrow. Don't rat me
out to the country club set. Don't ask me what's in my
favorite cheap food either. These products were designed
by food
chemists. It's best not to ask questions.
Enter my world of questionable taste.
• Processed meats. Don't tell the doctor who
had me on a whole-foods
diet, but I've completely fallen off the wagon. I
put away more than my fair share of chicken nuggets, undeterred
by the McNoggin.
I love Vienna
sausages, even though I nearly got sick once after
reading a very specific ingredients label. It said something
about pork
spleens. The word "pork" would have sufficed.
I still eat Vienna sausages; I just refrain from reading
the label.
• Raw cookie dough. Martha Stewart probably
eats raw cookie
dough, too, but hers is homemade with sugar she grinds
from her own cane and eggs from free-range hens on her
estate. That's nice, but I really dig the stuff that comes
in a roll. Quit feeling inadequate and just grab a spoon.
• Beef jerky. Over the years, I've become
quite the connoisseur. I know which gas stations have
the best selection and prices. I prefer the big, thin
sheets with dried red pepper clinging to them. Occasionally,
I slide to the low end of the jerky scale and "snap
into a Slim
Jim." Though not as good as pure dried beef,
these made me a happy camper on a recent trip to Belize.
• Pork rinds. Funny how the word "rind"
makes a pig sound like a piece of fruit you can peel.
I don't like the pork rinds that are thick lumps of fried
fat. I like the puffy pig skins that are the consistency
of Cheetos.
I buy the spicy ones for a real taste treat. Though I
haven't tried them for fear of being beaten by disgusted
co-workers, I've seen microwavable
pig skins in a bag you pop like popcorn. I wonder
if this will catch on at movie theaters.
• Sixlets. Though these candy-coated "chocolate
flavored" little balls do break my cardinal rule
about consuming something that is simply "flavored"
rather than actually "being" what it's supposed
to taste like, I can't help but stock up for long road
trips.
Written by Paula Ouder
Tell
us about your favorite lowbrow food.
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On the Web
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American
Junk Food Classics
Gallery
of Regrettable Food
The
Junk Food Mecca
Confectionery
Kibbo's
Junk Food Reviews
When bad food happens to good people
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Food Additives
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I told you not to ask, but if you still
want to know, here's a glossary of some common ingredients
used to hold your favorite junk food together and give it
a shelf-life to rival the cellophane it's wrapped in. Some
of these things sound like biblical plagues or new humanoid
species discovered on Star
Trek.
Lecithin
- It's a floor wax; it's an ice cream topping. In addition
to food, this emulsifier
is found in makeup, paint, and plastics. It comes from egg
yolks and plant and animal cells.
Polysorbate
- Another emulsifier. You can find this one in everything
from frozen treats to vaccines. It is important to the science
of ice cream and is derived from animal fatty
acids.
Mono
and diglycerides - These fats are used to give foods
a smooth texture and to keep oils from separating. "Mono"
and "di" refer to their chemical structure.
Locust
bean gum - This thickening agent from the carob
tree was used by the ancients as a laxative and to make
bandages stick to mummies. Yum! You will find it in ice
cream, cheese spread, and sheets of paper.
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