10 Worst Brit Foods You Secretly Love
Your face says, “Eww.” But your mouth says, “Eh…ok.”
Your face says, “Eww.” But your mouth says, “Eh…ok.”
It’s fast, it’s cheap, it’s wonderfully disgusting. If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to get stomach cramps, try these guilty pleasures from across the pond.
1. DONER KEBAB
THE SPIEL
Exotic mystery meat infused with spices and wrapped in pitta bread.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Not even the greasy, bloodstained, mustachioed kebab man who serves you knows what goes into making Britain’s most popular post-pub snack. Sharing no known DNA with any other butchered beast that passes your plate, the ‘kebab animal’ spins for days awaiting your drunken lust.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
If you’ve written off getting laid for the evening then the doner is hot chili heaven. You’ll smell like a Turkish butcher’s, but sobriety will be yours in seconds.
DO
Expect to wake up next to the remnants of your meaty mate in the morning and vague recollections of a sex act.
2. PORK CRACKLING
THE SPIEL
Tasty pork bites accompanied by a picture of a happy, smiling pig often wearing a chef’s hat and on occasion even brandishing a butcher’s knife.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Though the idea of a grinning, genocidal mister porky butchering fellow pigs and bagging them for your pleasure has a certain dark appeal, the truth is much more mundane. Some time back in UK’s deepest darkest past (somewhere in the Midlands) some one had shit loads of pig skin on their hands and not a clue what to do with it. Shoes? No, too pink. Handbags? Nah, cows got that covered. Hmm, I know let’s dice it, deep fry it, add more fat and salt and flog it in pubs. History was written.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
It’s like these things were born for beer. We’ve even known guys actually dip their salty scratching into their pint before guzzling its greasy goodness.
DO
Make sure you get one that’s still got hair on it and hold it next to your own bare arm… now imagine… now swallow.
3. CHEESE STRINGS
THE SPIEL
A quarter of your required calcium intake in one luscious, tasty cheese stick.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
They don’t look like cheese, they don’t taste like cheese and they are not cheese. Most have names like ‘Mr. CheezeeFingerz’ to avoid complicated issues with people who make real cheese and they appear to have been ‘magicked’ together in a laboratory using nuclear milk by people who missed the cut at NASA.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
It’s totally bland, nondescript munching heaven that makes for a whole host of interesting gags – stir your drink, place behind your ear, hang out of jean zipper and repeat.
DO
Hide them from any family brats who will instantly steal your entire stock of comedy cheese moments and then fail to deliver the jokes with your perfect sense of timing.
4. POT NOODLE
THE SPIEL
The slag of all fast food snacks
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Before they rocked the camera and car world, the Japanese invented the ‘just add water snack’ back in the 1950s. It took nearly thirty years for the dried noodle plus magic tasty bits meal to hit UK shores, but when it did we were spellbound. Just one cup full of boiling water transformed cardboard into cordon bleu.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
The ultimate in instant grub where even fast food is out fasted! Pizza, burgers and chicken curry have all felt the foaming wrath of the boil in the cup king. Perfect for stoner and drunk alike, the noodle equals instant satisfaction. We draw the line at Christmas Dinner flavor and Bubblegum, but Chicken and Mushroom rocks in a dirty secret way.
DO
Go free style and turbo your soya snack with bonus flavorings – Worcester sauce is a must-have.
5. MICROWAVE BURGER
THE SPIEL
MacDonald’s in a microwave.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Lurking at the rear of many 24-hour gas stations suspiciously close to the microwave oven, this ‘burger’ is for the insanely drunk or desperate. Two minutes of hardcore electron exchange transform the once placid bread, cheese and meat combo into a seething orgy of edible lava.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
Eating this bastard son of a burger is a challenge in itself, especially as being booze sodden is a prerequisite for purchase. One misjudged first bite into the burger’s oozing bun could result in a trip to the burn ward, but get it right and you’re in processed heaven. It tastes nothing like a burger and we’ve no idea how they make them ‘live’ for three months on the shelf, but there’s something rewarding about defeating Satan’s burger in the parking lot of a gas station at 2am.
DO
Bleach everything when your body decides to purge … thoroughly. This is the delicacy of the Devil and not to be trifled with. You have been warned.
6. TOAST TOPPERS
THE SPIEL
It’s a can of stuff.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
These wholly unhealthy toppings resemble baby vomit and are designed to transform a single slice of bread into a pizza or the medium sliced version of a calzone when wedged into a sandwich maker. When your dad was marveling at the magic of his family’s new toasted snack maker, these were all the rage. With a half-life of about 10,000 years, they’re only to be found in discount shops where two can be purchased for just one of your golden nuggets.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
All those chemicals and buckets of salt do indeed make for bread nirvana, but know this, the chicken and mushroom flavor has never so much as heard the cluck of poultry and is further removed from a chicken than a fish stick. Know this also, one bite of a Toast Topper will mean that your body will never decompose and will trigger Geiger counters. You will also never be seen on an X-Ray machine.
DO
Hunt some down and see why your dad glows in the dark.
7. DEEP FRIED MARS BAR
THE SPIEL
Devil-may-care food merriment from don’t-give-a-shit Scots.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
This comedy drunk food surfaced in the cities of Scotland when a genius decided to start deep-frying Mars Bars for kids. In an ironic finger to the world and patronizing reports that the Scottish had the shittiest diet on Earth, the chocolate, toffee, nougat and batter delicacy became a menu must-have and a people’s favorite after a Scottish session (that’s about eight pints and four whiskeys).
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
If you can hold one down long enough to digest a chocolate bar that’s been fried in the same fat as fish and sausages, they’re actually surprisingly good. However they offer absolutely zero nutrition and regular late night encounters with this whore of the fast food world will mean you’re a sweating, fat obese lard ball by 35 and dead by 40.
DO
Experiment with other fat fried offerings as more Avant-garde artisans out there have since served up Bounty bars, Twix and even pizza to the intoxicated masses.
8. INSTANT MASHED POTATOES
THE SPIEL
Fluffy white mash like mama used to make by just adding H2O.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Instant mash is the food of aliens. Just look at the guy on the can.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
What they lose in taste and variety they more than make up for in price and ability to satisfy an appetite. Many crusty, hard up students still swear by them and expect dorm floors to be littered with empty boxes of dehydrate potato cubes. The downer: They look like you should be hanging wallpaper with them (you probably can) and they taste like pureed toilet roll.
DO
Grab a handful, stuff them in your mouth and let your saliva do the rehydration. Now choke to death on alien potato.
9. SPAM
THE SPIEL
Versatile spiced ham in a can…
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Okay so it sounds genius – a block of ham you can unlock from its cozy tin bed and eat cold, or hot, or slice and fry and dice and toss into pasta… the list is endless. Sounds heavenly until you look at the ingredients. If processed ham gets the last rotting scraps of pig flesh and the knuckles, toenails and scrotum, Spam gets what’s left after that. Now check lower down and see how they bind together said Spam… Sodium fucking Nitrite, that’s how. Yes, the very same stuff that vaporizes termites and protects potato, binds your block of spicy ham.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
Fried and wedged between two slices of bread and suddenly Spam (and Sodium Nitrite) takes on a taste of its own. The alchemy of fire and animal fat, even if it is the last dregs of the abattoir floor, make for junk food heaven and total salty decadence.
DO
Eat a block and shove your hand down an ant’s nest. Now pull it out and see how many have succumbed to your Sodium Nitrite powered forearm.
10. FROZEN ROAST DINNER
THE SPIEL
The perfect Sunday roast for one, on a plate in minutes.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
How it’s possible to freeze cooked roast potatoes, sliced meat, Yorkshire pudding, an assortment of veggies and gravy then blitz it all together in one foul electron swopping swoop for it to reemerge from the micro looking like Gordon Ramsey’s been sweating over it all afternoon is beyond us. This is witchcraft on a plate.
WHY YOU CRAVE IT?
It doesn’t taste remotely like your mom’s Sunday roast. In fact it doesn’t much taste of anything apart from mono sodium glutamate and that jelly that holds cat food together, but if you can’t be bothered with dishes or friends, this is fast food royalty. See any bloke dragging a few of these out of the freezer of your local supermarket and you’ll know he’s either widowed, dumped or a serial killer. The frozen roast is his best and only friend; it gives him culinary comfort and time to a) stare into the middle distance lamenting lost love and those ‘special moments’, b) sharpen that hunting knife and roll out that duct tape, or c) masturbate again until it bleeds.
DO
Hack a frozen roast into strips and make meaty ice-pops… hmm, cold gravy juice.