So many of the great scientists have suffered or sacrificed for their work. Jonas Salk gave the world a vaccine for polio without patenting it (and therefore majorly profiting). Marie Curie actually died from prolonged exposure to radiation as a result of her research. Giordano Bruno was imprisoned and executed by the Catholic Church for his belief that the stars were actually distant suns! All of these guys are total chumps though, because food writer Dennis Lee has actually broken ground on a “fart dip” using his own body as the test subject—now that is commitment. What would inspire someone to develop such a dangerous chemical weapon?

I imagined myself at a fancy party where I served a magical delicious dip. It would be addictive and wonderful, but what people would not know is that every ingredient was picked to maximize flatulence. Then, a few hours later, everyone would secretly start farting uncontrollably and pass out. Everyone would be so embarrassed that all these dumb fancy food parties would go away forever

Chaos, destruction—I like it! (He is also about to be unemployed, which I think might be a factor, if not a motivation.) Unfortunately the dip—made up of onions, lima beans, sour cream, cabbage and prunes (some of the most flatulence-inducing foods, according to Lee)—looks disgusting every step of the way, and results in a flavor he initially likens to vomit, and later “hummus that has been mixed with French onion dip and sweet dried fruit.” As for its efficacy, Lee felt sick after eating an entire bowl, and from what he could tell, the dip only produced a single (though massive) fart.

We’ll call it a prototype?

The recipe, after the jump…

 
Despite the sledgehammers, chainsaws and occasional police-instigated violence that became heavily associated with Plasmatics’ shows, the late, great Wendy O. Williams was first and foremost a gentle soul, with more than a touch of hippie influence. As a teenage runaway she bounced around the Rocky Mountains and sold crafts, moved to Florida to be a lifeguard and even cooked at a health food restaurant in London before making the stage her home.

Wendy was also an advocate for animal welfare and a vocal vegetarian. One might understandably assume that her dietary choices were entirely ethically motivated, but this 1984 interview from Vegetarian Times (see her as the adorable cover girl above) shows she was also incredibly health-conscious—a serious urban gardener who avoided drugs and alcohol, exercised regularly and sprouted her own macrobiotic diet from a Tribeca loft. Williams actually taught a macrobiotic cooking class at the Learning Annex!

The best part? The article includes Williams’ own super-hippie recipe for salad dressing—it actually sounds like a pretty intriguing flavor profile too. Save it for your next Plasmatics themed dinner party!

Wendy’s diet is very heavy on live foods and sprouts. The salad dressing is the result of experimentation in the blender and it’s rather unique in that it includes fresh greens chopped up into the dressing. She advises that its [sic] best to use two different types of greens; one for the dressing, one for the salad.

  1 1/2 cups rejuvelac (soak a cup of wheat berries in 3–4 cups of water for 3 days or until berries settle; then strain)
  1 clove garlic
  1 Tbs. miso or soy sauce
  2 Tbs. lecithin
  1 Tbs. cumin
  1 tsp. basil
  1 tsp. oregano
  Fresh herbs of your choice
  Mixed greens (parsley, celery, sorrel, lettuce, spinach, or green    
  beans, sprouts)
 
Add seasonings to rejuvelac and whir in blender. Add, little by little, 1 pound of mixed greens, Until greens or chopped and mix well. Best when used fresh.

Below, Wendy and her fellow Plasmatics go on a safari with John Candy on SCT.

 
As I am more gourmand than gourmet, and more human garbage disposal than either of those things, I refuse to turn up my nose at any dish I’ve never eaten. Texture doesn’t throw me off (I love escargot and gelatinous Chinese mushrooms) nor does appearance (paneer saag—looks unholy, tastes of the heavens). But I have a mental block over the traditional Scottish dish, haggis. It’s not the idea of a sheep’s heart, liver and lungs boiled with fat and oatmeal inside its own stomach—I’ve no aversion to organ meat. For me, it’s the trypophobia—fear of a dense collection of holes, or rather the revulsion I feel upon seeing the honeycomb pattern of something like tripe, which is the casing of haggis. (Trypophobia is not however, named for tripe—they’re false cognates.)

I was actually under the impression that there would be no way to make haggis seem more repellent to me, but then some culinary sadist went and produced them in hors d’oeuvre “pop” form. Yes, like a haggis lollipop. A tripe lollipop. A tripe fucking lollipop garnished with a little tartan bow. In an attempt to overcome my completely irrational phobia, I’ve been subjecting myself to the images from this tutorial for haggis pops over and over again, and if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to narrate my disgust.
 

 
Guts! No problem there! I can watch graphic surgeries or brutal Hollywood gore with no problem. I cook my own meat—guts mean nothing to me, man.
 

 
This is where I start to get uncomfortable. This is the stomach and while I can’t see the honeycomb holes, I spot a glimpse of the villi—tiny little wormy hairlike structures that aid in digestion by increasing surface area. I don’t like villi either.
 

 
That is a disgusting amount of villi and I am openly shuddering right now. The tiny residue of cavewoman survival instinct and my brain is screaming at me to find whoever this person is and save them from the poison they are about to eat.
 

 
Oh thank God, we’re back to guts.
 

 
Hey it’s starting to look like food!
 

 
Okay, it is food now.
 

 
What are you doing?!? What are you doing with that?!? Nothing should ever look like that!! You’re making something evil!!
 

 
There is no God. We live in a bleak amoral universe. When we die, we’re meat, just like these… pops.
 

 
[Vomits. Screams. Pours bleach in eyes. Self-immolates.]

I honestly hope that you don’t share my lizard-brained aversion to the tripe surface of haggis, and I hope you’ll check out the full tutorial below—Burns Night has come and gone, but it’s never to early to start planning your next haggis-based soirée! If you are a fellow trypophobic, I sincerely apologize, I and hope you understand that the people of Scotland are at least partially responsible for your current condition. Blame them!

Via Instructables

That’s a lot of butch in one photo

My favorite Hemingway anecdotes always revolve around him being absurdly macho—like when he mocked F. Scott Fitzgerald for his monogamy, or when, in an attempt to prevent sharks from eating the tuna he had just caught, he opened fire with a Thompson submachine-gun directly into the water. This, of course, was pretty counterproductive, since it only produced more blood, attracting more sharks and exacerbating the feeding frenzy.

It only makes sense that Hemingway would tire of shooting fish at some point, and settle himself down for a nice, slow-moving animal like a cow, and it turns out that he had very interesting (and totally delicious-sounding) specifications for his burgers. Below is his recipe for an ultra-manly, super-robust burger. Apparently, Mei Yen Powder is no longer on the market, but you can approximate the rich, umami flavor with nine parts salt, nine parts sugar and two parts MSG. For 1 teaspoon of Mei Yen Powder, use 2/3 of a teaspoon of the mix, plus 1/3 of a teaspoon of soy sauce. (And don’t believe the hype about MSG—it’s harmless and delicious.)

Ingredients–

1 lb. ground lean beef

2 cloves, minced garlic

2 little green onions, finely chopped

1 heaping teaspoon, India relish

2 tablespoons, capers

1 heaping teaspoon, Spice Islands sage

Spice Islands Beau Monde Seasoning — 1/2 teaspoon

Spice Islands Mei Yen Powder — 1/2 teaspoon

1 egg, beaten in a cup with a fork

About 1/3 cup dry red or white wine

1 tablespoon cooking oil

What to do–

Break up the meat with a fork and scatter the garlic, onion and dry seasonings over it, then mix them into the meat with a fork or your fingers. Let the bowl of meat sit out of the icebox for ten or fifteen minutes while you set the table and make the salad. Add the relish, capers, everything else including wine and let the meat sit, quietly marinating, for another ten minutes if possible. Now make your fat, juicy patties with your hands. The patties should be an inch thick, and soft in texture but not runny. Have the oil in your frying pan hot but not smoking when you drop in the patties and then turn the heat down and fry the burgers about four minutes. Take the pan off the burner and turn the heat high again. Flip the burgers over, put the pan back on the hot fire, then after one minute, turn the heat down again and cook another three minutes. Both sides of the burgers should be crispy brown and the middle pink and juicy.

That is one hell of a specific hamburger is it not???
 
Via Open Culture

 
Yes, the man who played most of the famous monsters of filmland (see what I did there, Forry Ackerman fans?) was “Mad About Mexican Food,” and really, who isn’t?

This piece, from an unknown newspaper isn’t dated, but it’s apparently from a time when you had to explain guacamole to readers. (It’s “an avocado-based sauce.”)

2 avocados

1 med. tomato, chopped fine

1 small onion, minced

1 tbsp. chopped canned green chiles

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp sherry

Dash cayenne, optional

Salt, pepper

Peel and mash avocados. Add onion, tomato and chiles, then stir in lemon juice, sherry and seasonings to taste, blending well. Serve as a dip for tortilla pieces or corn chips or as a canape spread. Makes 10 to 12 appetizer servings.

The consummate English gentleman, Karloff apparently imbued his cosmopolitan dishes with a bit of refinement—I’ve never heard of adding sherry to guacamole, but I am so, so into it.

Via Badass Digest