The Lumpty Oatmeal

a bowl of food inspired by the song "The Humpty Dance"

Hey, clowns!

Thanks for hangin’ in there while I was out cooking at a charity pop-up last week. I was part of a guest crew of four, cooking at Publican Quality Meats here in Chicago.

Here’s a fun fact: PQM is one of the restaurants briefly featured in the TV show The Bear in season 2. It’s in the scene where Sydney learns how to butcher an animal from my real-life friend Rob Levitt.

We had originally intended on selling 100 tickets total, but due to a clerical error, we ended up selling about 270 of them. As you can imagine, we got our asses kicked in the best of ways, but it was in the name of the greater good, raising funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association in support of our friend Billy Z, who has limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.

And one more thing. I’d also like to direct your attention to something else I’ve contributed to, which is an upcoming book called Super Pizza World. My friend John Carruthers put this thing together, and I’ve got a recipe in it. If you’d like to snag a copy, just head on over through this Kickstarter link and get one for yourself. The shipping date is still to be determined, but it’s best to lock your copy down now, because the last book John put together, Pizza For Everyone, sold out multiple times and is now in its sixth printing.

Phew. Sorry, I know that was a lot.

This week’s edition of Food is Stupid comes from an idea suggested to me by my dear friend Taffy Elrod, who’s a chef and one of the authors of The Juneteenth Cookbook. Taffy messaged me and asked me if I could come up with an experiment based off the lyrics to the song “The Humpty Dance” by The Digital Underground.

I’m probably dating myself here, but DJs used to blast this one at school dances every now and again, which is hilarious. I’d never really paid close attention to the lyrics to the song until now, but it turns out they’re pretty filthy.

Taffy pointed out that there’s a ton of mentions of food in the song, so I scoured it and plucked them all out. In total, rapper Shock G (R.I.P.) talks about Hennessy, lumpy oatmeal, crackers, licorice, a Burger King bathroom, a pickle, and biscuits.

So what the fuck could I, Dannis Ree, the greatest food writer in the world, make with all of these ingredients?!