Find me a person who says he doesn’t like YouTube and I’ll find a video to put him in stitches.
Facebook might currently have a firmer grasp on the limelight (aided by that recent blockbuster replete with computer geeks and asian girls), but in today’s digital wild west our friends behind the user-made video revolution have quietly changed the way we quote funny sayings with our buddies.
Listening in on any given conversation at Paly, you’d be hard-pressed to wait 20 seconds before you hear that Darren Sharper is one of the most hardest hittin’ safeties in the league or, a personal favorite, that somewhere in Alabama a leprechaun is still hiding in a tree (Everybody who seen’ da leprechaun say ‘Yee!’). Everyone has got their personal favorites and anything close to home always makes a splash; just ask one of the ladies from the office about our football team’s teenage dream video. The point is, YouTube is a wonderful outlet for comedy, and probably the only place where a lot of the humor found there could exist. Take, for instance, a combination of gluttony and testosterone so ludicrous they aren’t man enough to play it on Spike: Epic Meal Time.
For those of you who haven’t seen this calamity of cooking, Epic Meal Time is best described in four words: Bacon, Alcohol, Excess, and Bacon. Essentially, an angry bearded man concocts mountains of mind-boggling, artery-clogging feasts invariably wrapped in bacon while a calorie-counter alongside skyrockets into the tens of thousands. Then he and his friends (who have somehow avoided morbid obesity) devour the meal which sometimes looks delicious but often turns out pretty disgusting (Four Loko Chili anyone?) I’ll warn anyone who wants to see this, it’s pretty darn inappropriate, can sometimes be nauseating, and your parents will be very mad if they see you watching it (which also means you didn’t hear about it from me).
Nonetheless, it also provided the inspiration for a very necessary follow up to the competitive eating challenge The Viking tried just 3 issues ago.
If you haven’t read the story three issues back, don’t worry—we got crushed. I still have nightmares about that bowl of noodles…. The point is, I left that experience with a chip on my shoulder, a score to settle with the world of giant food. And what better way to enact our revenge could there be than to take up the reigns (and aprons) of food’s monstrous side for ourselves? Now, I’m not positive if there are very clear guidelines established on food vengeance—it’s a relatively specific brand—but I figured that we here at The Viking might recover just a little of our dignity by creating an epic meal all our own. Do I smell a hint of bacon?
To join me on this epic tale of edible redemption were candyman Cooper Levitan (’11), bacon specialist Alan Lamarque (’13) and fellow veteran of the Pho Challenge ordeal Josh Chin (’11), along with my perennial Viking Tries partner in crime, Sam Maliska (’11). We assembled on a February afternoon and proceeded to season, batter, re-batter, pan fry, bake, assemble and serve until we had produced a thing of beauty (and/or heart attack on a plate). The final result? Think “San Francisco classic takes an oil-slicked ride through Dixieland”. We took sourdough bread bowls and filled them with all manner of pan-fried goodness. Chicken, steak and the hidden gem of the meal, Jalapeno chip-breaded breakfast sausages, all found their way into two cavernous, sourdough homes. We topped them with cheese and then lowered our hand-woven bacon roofs onto them… just in case it were to rain hot sauce or something. There were also brown sugar candied sausages and bacon, the latter of which we burned to a crisp by accident. For dessert? How about fried brown sugar bread balls, injected with raspberry jelly.
We’d created something that was both a masterpiece and a cardiologist’s nightmare, but no matter how you look at it, it was certainly an epic meal. We swelled with pride as we sat around the table with grape sodas on hand to help wash down our soon-to-be-classic San Francisco Fried Meat Bowls. Sitting in cholesterolic bliss, surrounded by friends and unconcerned about the unholy mess to be cleaned up, I finally felt at peace with the world of big food. As I began to nod off under the oncoming food coma, I smiled, knowing the days when that giant bowl of noodles haunted my dreams were gone for good.
An hour and a half of painstaking dishwashing brings us pretty near where we started. So what is there to take away from all this pan-fried pandemonium? Well, besides settling my personal score with the food gods, I suppose that for one, I’ve learned that cooking with friends can be surprisingly enjoyable, especially when you set your sights on making something monumental (Remember, of course, that epic meals come with epic clean-ups). Besides that, my faith in the power of YouTube is edified once again. Inspiration can come from the unlikeliest of places, but just because your idea came from a silly video someone showed you on YouTube doesn’t mean that you can’t take it, run with it, and end up with something… well, epic.
