Colman's Instant Beef Gravy

Things are different in Australia—profoundly, mystifyingly, adorably, offputtingly different—so there's no reason this should startle us.


But it does.


Because, to demonstrate the agreeable flavor of their meat-based food moistener, the Colman's Instant Beef Gravy people have introduced us to a beef paste-born bovine reincarnation springing forth from his sacred gravy boat. Look at him, freed from Death's grim shackles, leaping above the table top, destined to splash himself all over your plate! 


Of course, it's only what any right-thinking animal offered a second chance at life would seek out: not escape, but a quick trip back to the conveyor belt of consumption and nothingness.


Thus has suicidefoodism ever represented it. So eager are the animals to die that their most numinous vocation is not to die once, but to return to life to die again. The second death is sweeter, surely, because they rush into it with eyes open. Having already savored their own destruction, they hasten back to their utter negation, the no-time and no-place where they are finally at home.

And so Zombie Gravy the Bull soars. He cavorts and poses. He dances and sings. 


And what a song it is! For reasons we can't begin to explain (no, not even with all our big words and pointy-headed ideas), he croons "I like the way you moo!" He likes the way we moo? (We weren't aware we were mooing.) But you try arguing with a reanimated bull made of gravy.


See the whole thing for yourself. 


(Thanks to Dr. Julian for the referral.)

Vintage Thanksgiving Day Roast Turkey

You there! Am I to understand you feel yourself qualified to dine upon my roasted flesh? Pardon me, but it is to laugh!

Have you failed to take note of my breeding, my station? My top hat is cocked at a superior angle. My cape hangs off my shoulderless frame in such a way as to convey the pride of my lineage. My walking stick—purchased from the finest bird haberdasher on the eastern seaboard—is worth more than your great aunt Myrtle's trousseau.

That you should partake of me. Why, it strains propriety.

I shall wander these forlorn streets in search of the man who deserves this bounty. Today is my day, and I will have satisfaction.

Until then, good day!

(Thanks to Dr. Bea for the referral. You should know the good doctor has a knack for digging up turkey-themed horrors. "Enjoy" these posts about Spammy, Manny's, and the Turkey Hooker.)



Addendum: Visit with the ghosts of Thanksgivings past: 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

Thighs-N-Pies

She's got thighs—has she ever!—and she's got pies. Put them together, and she's got thighs-n-pies. While this image scores high on the Truth in Advertising Meter, it does raise a vexing issue.

Namely, does this lipsticked chicken in Daisy Dukes have pies in the same way she has thighs?

We think not. The pie is an item she holds aloft. When she shows it off to you, she's inviting you to select it from the menu. But when she struts and shows off those long legs, she's inviting you to select it from her body.

When you tell your server you'd like the Smoked Chicken Thighs (Hot, BBQ, or Mild), the chicken steps out back for a rendezvous with the cleaver. Which, apparently, is what's in it for her.



Addendum: When it comes to Pies 'n Thighs, a similarly named establishment, it's the pies that receive top billing. And among the wide assortment of pre-dead animals clamoring for you attention, there is, surprisingly, no leggy chicken hoping to catch you eye.

Frosty Morn Pigs: Update

You remember Frosty Morn, don't you? Besides the oddest sausage-related name imaginable (Frosty? Morn?), they are known for terror-delighting millions throughout the South for decades.

As we said long ago, Frosty Morn made its mark by employing a cunning strategy built on suicidal animals and a relentlessly repeated jingle. So significant was Frosty Morn that a second look is in order.

In the animated advertisement under discussion here, a meat elf instructs a class of pigs on the benefits of Frosty Morn ham. That is, he inspires them to grab their destinies with both hands, to rush headlong into their hickory-smoked future and dive into their sugar-cured doom.

Not, you understand, that they require much coaxing. They're practically prancing in expectant joy! These pigs are the aptest of pupils. They need very little convincing. Hell, they came to school pre-convinced that their lives are already spoken for.

Sing it over and over and over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!
Sing it over and you sing it over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!

The height of a piggy’s ambition
From the day he is born
Is hope that he’ll be good enough
To be a Frosty Morn!

(Solo pig, spoken) All Frosty Morn meat is government inspected.

For meat that’s wonderfully different
They tenderize these hams.
They sugar cure and hick’ry smoke
That’s Frosty Morn—yes, ma’am!

(Meat Elf) So everybody join in!

Annnd…

Sing it over and over and over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!
Sing it over and you sing it over again!
(All) Frosty Morn!

It's almost charming how blatant they are. The repetition is no hidden technique. It's front and center! Sing it over and over and over again! Repeat it until you're ready to believe anything. A destructive absurdity will do as well as a consoling truth. A proposition's value depends not one scrap on its intellectual rigor, its logical consistency, its congruity with the facts. Instead, it depends on its ubiquity. And, of course, on the degree to which it leads animals to seek their own deaths.


(Thanks to Dr. Tom for the referral.)

Vintage Crawfish

In his pan, the crawgentleman salts himself judiciously and checks the results with his hand mirror.

You know how we sometimes believe that our modern world, with its hurry-up underpinning, its speeding technology, its celebrity scandals, is a breeding ground for absurdity and insanity?

Well, sure, maybe.

But things were plenty crazy back in the days of celluloid collars and toothbrush mustaches, too.

For instance, this crustacean has clearly gone around the bend. He can manipulate objects. He demonstrates a sense of self. He cares about his appearance. And yet he cooperates with his killers. He will season himself, thank you very much. No, no, don't bother setting him in the—no, he will arrange himself in the pan. He can do it. If you would just let him—please! Just have a seat. He'll have himself brought out to you when he's ready. There's a good man. Yes, thank you.

(Thanks to Dr. Javier for the referral.)

Snapper's Saloon

With a little imagination and a whole lot of unpleasant warping of one's mind, any edible thing can become a violent, sexual trigger.

For instance, the Lobstress.

Granted, compared with hooter, it takes plenty of effort to turn snapper into a word charged with erotic possibilities, but it can be done!

Just picture gleaming chitinous claws, crimson claws that mock-snap your most delicate regions, and that lipsticked mouth looming above them, she's just laughing at you, her cruel, painted eyes smile, she strokes her hair, long earrings dangling and tinkling, and it's all you can do to lift her above the boiling water and pry those succulent claws apart, dunk her in, and slam the lid down tight, chest heaving, your face flushed with the heat from the stove, your fists clenching and unclenching in spasmodic rage.

But they saw! They saw it all! She forced you! It was all her fault! That lobstress didn't know when to let it go. She had to keep snapping, clacking again and again. That snapping never stopped. Playing, she called it. Playing?! Yeah, well, who won the game? Huh? Who won the game?

(Thanks to Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood for the referral.)

Foies Gras Marie

A joyeux Tokyo Rose for the the worldwide war between Human and Animal, Foies Gras Marie purrs like a seductress. Telling you lies so blatant you have no choice but to surrender and believe, she flaunts her liver and the livers of her fellow ducks.

For reasons best known to their psychiatrists, the purveyors of foie gras—the gavageoisie—always, always, always make sure to draw your attention to the birds' throats.

The birds are taunting us. With their big bows, their bonnets tied so gaily beneath their chins, the loose ends snapping in the breeze, those damn, depraved ducks are taunting us.

They want us to remember their necks and to envision the feeding tube and the gunk it extrudes. They want us to picture it, to bear it in mind as we dine on the mush that used to be their livers.

And they laugh! They delight! They cackle! These waddling, paddling she-demons cackle!

(Thanks to Dr. Adrienne for the referral and the second photo.)

Hog Time!

One crucifixion the hard way, coming up!

In this delightful art to be found at Portland's Hog Time! food cart, a peppy pig is willingly drawn into hell by a grasping area code.

(Thanks to Dr. Steve for the referral and photo.)

Gatorama

One of the inspiring things about the study of suicidefoodism is its reach. No matter which twig of the tree of life you study, no matter what rock you turn over, you can find something happy about being eaten. And not only that, but you can find creatures happy about dying and being killed. Lobsters longing for the Big Boil. Pigs enamored of knives. Chickens prepared to angle their necks just... so.

And while alligators are not entirely unknown around these parts, they are still curiously rare. Perhaps their primitive reptilian brains have a harder time imagining the glories of death and dismemberment. Maybe they lack the brainpower to understand the many benefits of dying for no good reason.

Could be, but this healthy specimen from Gatorama (if you can call him "healthy" while he's in his death throes) sure seems to get it. The cauldron bubbles, and the gator's tough hide cooks. (That hide, of course, is suitable for wallets, belts, and key fobs, all of which they sell down there at Gatorama.) And he gives a generous wave good-bye as he dies so that he might—at last!—be turned into economical portions of alligator ribs and tail meat.

(Thanks to Dr. Kevin for the referral.)

NRV

We are proud to present the winner of Suicide Food's first-ever George Orwell Award for Excellence in Distorting Language and Generally Making Us Feel Like We Need to Sit Down in a Quiet Room (the "Georgie" for short).

Do the fine folks of NRV take care of calves naturally by providing a safe and enriching environment for calves and their mothers to bond and grow? Yes, of course! Which is to say, no, of course not.

In "naturally" taking care of calves, NRV has made it their business to manufacture "replacement" milk for them. That is, a substitute for the mother's milk the calves would naturally drink.

And why? Because the milk produced by their mothers is already spoken for. The calves have only a natural—not a spiritual/economic—claim on it. The milk already belongs to those who manufactured the calves' mothers.

This stuff is evaluated on the basis of everything you might expect—fat and protein content, and even taste, but also on the basis of so much more. For instance, at NRV's own lab, they can analyze the "meat color status" of the calves! (Take that, your mind!) This must be the detail that has their mascot smiling.

Naturally.