Stupid Internet Food

Food is one of the great unifiers of humanity. We needed a book to be told that everyone poops, but it's common knowledge that everyone eats. No matter who you are, where you're from, or what you believe- everyone needs to consume nutrients and energy, somehow. And so, food and the culinary arts spans all cultures, and having the opportunity to try meals from around the world is one of life's greatest pleasures. And, if you can't travel, virtually every recipe for every delicacy imaginable is on the internet somewhere, for anyone with the time and patience to cook themselves.

There's also some bad food online, though.

Whether it's a joke, engagement bait, or just a genuine lack of sense, there's a lot of really stupid, bad food floating around online. Call it 'food crimes', or whatever you want, people like Ordinary Sausage, or the earlier HowToBasic have built careers around doing horrible - or at least ill-advised - things to food.

And, for better or worse, I figured I'd try some of them.

Pilk

Pilk is really what kicked this idea off. It was a huge meme for a little while, and eventually Pepsi got in on the trend and used it in an ad. It's a 'dirty soda', a term I didn't even know existed until writing this, consisting of equal parts Pepsi and milk (hence the portmanteau).

The 'joke' of pilk is that it sounds disgusting. The sort of thing you post to get an 'ew, what?' reaction. But it's not like it's hard to make, or uses anything exotic, it's kind of a mundane grossness. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I figured I may as well try it.

I mixed about a 1:1 ratio of milk and Pepsi, with my college roommates watching, and drank it quickly after- I'd heard that the carbonation can cause the milk to curdle, if you let it sit too long.

Verdict

It's fine? It sort of tastes like a root beer float. Honestly, not a bad flavor. In hindsight, 'sugar + milk' really doesn't sound that bad, it's really the carbonation that causes issues. But, assuming you don't run into the curdling issue, I really have no complaints.

It wasn't so good I'd go out of my way to make it, again, but if someone gave me some, for... some reason, I probably wouldn't turn it down.

Twinkie-Wiener Sandwich

Okay, calling this 'internet food' is kind of a stretch. It came from the mind of Weird Al, though, so I feel like it fits in spirit. The Twinkie-Wiener Sandwich is a creation of America's favorite polka parody musician. It made it's public debut in Al's film UHF, but I think I remember hearing he would eat them occasionally, before he became a vegetarian.

The sandwich is constructed as such: Flip over a Twinkie, slice it lengthwise into a hot dog bun shape, stick a hot dog in there and top with spray cheese. Just like Pilk, it sounds gross.

I ended up being inspired to try it by a video by Binging with Babish, where he makes one only to find it's actually... really good? Once again, I was curious, and ended up finding the ingredients to make it.

Verdict

Yeah, no this tastes great. The sweet and salty work together well. I didn't dip it in milk, like in the film, but I don't think I'm missing much from that. The biggest issue is the feeling of shame I got while eating it. I'm someone who can enjoy an indulgent, obviously unhealthy meal now and then, but this just felt like... too much. Not in terms of quantity, but how processed the whole thing was.

That said, Babish was right, this tastes really good.

Hot Dr. Pepper

Another soda one, this time it's a little different.

Back in the 1960s-ish, Dr. Pepper decided to market their drink as something you could heat up and enjoy with a slice of lemon, as a way to make it more appropriate to drink in the colder months. Almost like a sweet hot tea kind of beverage. Apparently this has gone viral on TikTok and other platforms semi recently, but I learned about it from another source- the Radio TV Solutions streaming group would occasionally reference this video, recorded 13 years ago to the day, where a young MatrixSlide explains the history and preparation of Hot Dr. Pepper. The energy of a kid trying to explain something is awkwardly endearing, and there's some really incredible line reads.

"If you're using a glass glass, glass, made of glass like I am, put it slowly, wait like 5 seconds between each spill so it doesn't melt cuz, you know, when glass melts, it's glass."

Anyways, like the others, I got curious and gave it a go.

Verdict

I didn't have any lemons, so not popping bubble, but I added a bit of lemon juice to make up for it. Shockingly, this is somehow the first thing on this list that was just bad. Not disgusting or anything, I could drink it just fine, but it resulted in a muted flavor that really wasn't that good. It... well, it tasted like hot, flat soda. It's anyone's guess why Dr. Pepper doesn't try and advertise this, anymore.