Welcome to the holiday from hell

dinner is served

Hello, clowns!

As promised, I went through all your comments last week regarding your family’s worst holiday recipes, and man, you all have some really interesting things to say. Just to be clear, I am not necessarily here to rip on your family’s cooking — I just wanted to experience the holidays in your shoes.

But wow, the things that some of you guys have had to endure are wild. For example, reader

Kate Walker

mentioned some type of French poo sausage called andouillette that I couldn’t get my hands on even if I tried, so I had to skip this one. But hearing that the family dog was even distressed by this Christmas “treat” was amazing:

My mum's a brilliant cook so I grew up spoiled, but I will never forget the time we were in France for Christmas and bought a traditional andouillette sausage (NOT the Cajun one, the French one made using actual faeces) and when it smelled too bad for humans we gave it to the dog and he backed away from his bowl whimpering and then howled till we buried it.

So try making pigs in blankets with one of those.

There’s something about the British spelling of “faeces” that makes dookie sound so much, I don’t know, classier, than the American version.

Reader

Caecilie

mentioned a napa cabbage salad that their boyfriend’s family makes:

A head of Napa cabbage, chopped into fine stripes + 2 cups of white sugar + 2 cups of sunflower seeds. Just before serving, douse liberally with lemon juice from a bottle (the artifical kind, ideally) and mix. The sugar needs to stay crunchy.

The Korean in me could not even picture sullying our precious kimchi cabbage this way. My ancestors would weep. Then, of course, there were some mentions of good ol’ Jello salad, unseasoned Chicken Divan, and something inexplicably yet hilariously called “Moon Soil.” You’re all incredible, and should applaud yourselves for dealing with these terrors beyond all imagination.

In the end, I picked three things that caught me particularly off balance and decided to put them together in sort of a cobbled-together meal. It’s not really cohesive per se, but it’s all loosely classified as food, I guess, so why not?

The first thing I decided to make was from reader

Nathan

’s comment:

Oh god, my wife’s family makes “banana croquettes” and they’re vile. They’re bananas, cut in half, then slathered in Miracle Whip™ and then rolled in crushed roasted, salted peanuts. Do, and I cannot stress this enough, not make or eat these.

Huh. These banana croquettes don’t sound half bad until you read every single thing about them. Like the fact that they’re covered in Miracle Whip, then rolled around in peanuts, for what, nutrition? I particularly admired the fact that Nathan called them “vile,” which is a really strong word, and that he states specifically to “not make or eat these.”

Challenge accepted.

I started on the banana croquettes by chopping up some salted roasted peanuts.

The knife is there in the photo so you know I did this all by hand, like a real chef. Did you know that my bhole was just awarded a Bib Gourmand? True story.

“Hey Davida,” I said, to Davida, “When someone says ‘slather,’ what kind of cooking implement do you think I should use?”

“A spatula,” she replied. “But I feel like the word ‘slather’ has negative connotations.”

I thought carefully and said, “‘Slather’ makes me think of suntan lotion.” So I slathered up the banana with a bunch of Miracle Whip, while a lot of weird imagery played in my head.

Then I rolled the Miracle Whipped banana around in those hand-crushed nuts.

What’s kind of remarkable is that I don’t think I’ve ever used Miracle Whip for the newsletter. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even bought any in decades. This is the first time we’ve had it in this apartment, that’s for sure, and I have a feeling it’s going to just sit in the fridge untouched until we move someday.

I put my nutted bananas on a plate and stashed them in the fridge while I got started on the next dish.

Speaking of nutted bananas, my next choice was something indelicately called “jizz grapes.” I imagine that sound I heard just now was half of you spitting out your water.

This one comes from reader

Laney

, who says:

My partner's family makes something I call j!zz grapes. From what I can extrapolate it's a mix of green and red grapes - some cut up and some whole, for unclear reasons - mixed with mayo and a splash of vanilla, maybe thinned with a little water? The consistency is always perplexing and visually upsetting. Sometimes there are mini marshmallows, others times it's just the grapes. Haunting either way, but at least they keep it simple and include a fruit (for health).

Okay, you might note that Laney was trying to be polite by typing them out as “j!zz grapes,” but because I’m a hard-hitting journalist, I know how to read between the letters. Let us speak their truths and drag them out into the light!!!

Something cool I discovered is that at the wonderland known as Aldi, you can get both green and red grapes in the same package.

I found that fact endlessly entertaining, because that was specifically what I’d needed. I almost cheered, which would have been weird, because I was shopping by myself that day.

I cut some in half and left some whole, as Laney described the jizz grapes to be, and then threatened them with a huge spoonful of mayo.

After stirring the mayo in, I added a splash of vanilla extract and tossed them together even further.

And finally, I threw the optional mini marshmallows in just for the hell of it.

The mixture was extremely thick and I did not enjoy the way this smelled at all. It was pretty much just plain jiz—mayo, after all, and I couldn’t really detect any vanilla over the off-putting sour scent of the mayo. Laney’d mentioned that there might be some water involved, but I omitted it thinking that the salt from the mayo might eventually draw out some of the water from the sliced grapes. (

Neurozach

had expressed the same possibility in the comments section.)

The jizz grapes went into the fridge next to the banana croquettes, and I got started on my main entree as described by reader

tom

. I’m going to preface this with the fact that Tom mentions never having tried this one, but the concept was way too good for me to pass up:

I never actually witnessed it but when my uncle (who is actually a very good cook, he always prepared the turkey/ham/etc and it is some of the best food I've ever had) learned I was getting into trying new recipes he sat me down and told me about a great salmon dish. You poach the raw salmon in the microwave in milk.

That's it, that's the dish.

Holy shit. Raw fish. Microwaved in milk. That has to violate some kind of natural law, right? I busted out laughing when I read this comment. The thought of doing this was so unexpected I had to try it, even if there was no mention of this being a holiday food. And the fact that Tom’s uncle sat him down specifically to tell him about this blew my mind.

Aldi came through yet again, this time providing a perfect-sized salmon filet.

Man, what if this was just one really weird sponsored edition of the newsletter? Anyway, Aldi provides you with all the affordable food and goods that your household depends on. Shop Aldeez Nuts. Shit. I just blew it.

I wasn’t quite sure how much milk to poach the salmon with, so I basically just used enough to cover the filet.

Then there was the matter of deciding how long to microwave it for.

Since I’d never cooked raw meat in the microwave before, I pretty much had to guess, though I’m sure there are plenty of online resources out there to help me out. But I like playing life fast and loose, so I just picked an arbitrary number.

“Does seven minutes sound like a proper amount of time to microwave raw salmon in milk?” I asked Davida.

“Our frozen lasagna says you need to microwave it for 18 minutes,” she said, extremely helpfully.

“Okay, seven minutes.”

Turns out seven minutes was in fact the magic number, because the fish came out well-cooked without being shriveled up and overdone.

I was particularly impressed by the milk skin that had formed on top of it, which I decided to leave intact. After all, if there were only two ingredients in this dish, might as well celebrate both of them entirely.

I brought the gang out to admire my three-part holiday meal from hell, and Mr. Bee looked particularly concerned.

He appeared to be fixated on the jizz grapes for some reason.

I cut into

Nathan

’s “vile” banana croquettes, first.

Bananas, Miracle Whip, and peanuts. Who comes up with this kind of thing? The bananas and peanuts, okay, those make sense together, but Miracle Whip?!

Hmm. Maybe I’m a garbage person, but the banana croquette wasn’t actually all that awful, and I have an idea why. The banana I used had been at the perfect eating ripeness, yellow, with some freckles on it. That meant it was pretty sweet, but not overly mushy. The sugar from the banana and the salt from the peanuts ensured that I wouldn’t be able to taste the sharp tanginess from the Miracle Whip, which meant I’d dodged a serious incident.

I’ve learned something since then, however — these banana croquettes are a real thing people eat. In fact, there’s lots of recipes on the internet for them. They’re just new to me.

I don’t know about these jizz grapes, though.

The mayo hadn’t thinned out like I’d hoped it would, and I’d accidentally used so much of it I could smell it while I was taking my usual shitty cell phone photos. It’s kind of a marvel that this regular mayo was making me feel upset after I’d just eaten a banana with Miracle Whip and peanuts on it.

Man, this wasn’t just bad, this was fucking upsetting. There’s no way

Laney

’s partner’s family doesn’t thin this dressing down a bit with cream, yogurt or water, because grapes in unsweetened vanilla mayo with marshmallows is foul. There had to be something in the execution I was missing, but that’s somewhat understandable, considering I was trying to recreate family food based off of written descriptions alone. Anyway, mayo and vanilla extract-covered grapes with mini marshmallows is revolting and I’ll never do this again. Five stars.

Lastly, it was time to try the gourmet microwaved salmon in milk from

tom

’s intrepid uncle.

So the good news is, the salmon was perfectly cooked, and I mean that genuinely. It was soft and flaky while still being totally opaque. The meat wasn’t tacky, either, it was just a little bit plain. Any seasoning like salt or black pepper would have helped immensely.

But what wasn’t so great was the aftertaste, because the fish left that sort of film you get in your mouth after you drink warm milk. That’s probably because I ate a bunch of the milk skin along with the fish. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Maybe next time I’ll take it a little further and slop together some chum with some yogurt and nuke that for 18 minutes instead.

I drank some of the poaching milk to wash it all down, because hey, why not?

Interestingly enough, the milk was only faintly fishy, but I guess if you realize that your milk tastes that way, you should probably throw it away. I still couldn’t quite get over this whole unseasoned poaching liquid thing, and plus, why milk? But I vaguely remember hearing about fancy recipes involving fish and milk, and sure enough, people do this, albeit generally not in the microwave.

Well, I guess that’s a legacy recipe I’ll be handing down to the cats someday. But that’s what holiday gatherings are for, spreading cheer through sometimes really weird family food choices. Thank you all for sharing your memories with me, even if I couldn’t try everything. I think banana croquettes, jizzed-out grapes, and milky salmon is enough for me to be extra grateful for my hybrid Korean-American holiday experiences growing up.

And if you invite us over for holiday dinner, don’t be surprised if Davida and I are conveniently “out of town.” We’re really just hiding in our apartment eating McRibs, because they sound like the safer option.

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Today’s edition of Food is Stupid was a super fun one. If you enjoyed the newsletter, I’m still trying to figure out how to grow this thing (it’s not easy), so please share it any way you know how — Bluesky, Reddit, Discord, all that wacky shit works wonders:

And of course, I can always use your support running the newsletter. Every other edition’s behind the firewall so I can keep it running. I won’t push it too much today, since your wallets are probably pretty fatigued from holiday shopping right now, but consider that upgrade if you haven’t done it already:

Okay, this might be the longest one I’ve written all year, so I’ll just have to leave you here today. As always, I love you all, and I’ll pop into some of your inboxes again next week for this year’s final newsletter drop.