Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Day Two Hundred and Eleven - I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For...

After watching DOOL on tape the other day the TV was clicked on to the Food Network with the vile Rachel Ray doing her Rachel Ray thing. I think she was making some sorta ice cream float [because she's too cool for baking as she points out roughly every four minutes], but she was once more talking about her days as a fountain girl. This seems very old fashioned to me so I can only assume that Rachel Ray is a million years old and has some sort of evil pact going that allows her to continue to look young [and to continue to have like 87 TV programs, all of which suck]. Anyway, she mentioned something about egg creams. I had heard about egg creams, but naturally thought that they must be some sort of drinkable that involved egg [ew] and cream [ew]. My curiousity peaked, I turned to faithful Wikipedia to discover that an egg cream contains neither egg nor cream.

I still think it's probably an acquired taste. I acquired the ingredients after work today and then later on tonight I made and drank an egg cream. For the uninitiated an egg cream is a drink served in a tall, preferrably chilled glass. It is built with one inch of chocolate syrup, one inch of milk and then the rest is seltzer. Stir it up and enjoy. Errrr - that should be - *try* to enjoy. Because it's so very gross. For one, I don't enjoy ice cream floats @ all - much to my father's chagrin. And now that I've tried an egg cream I think I know why - because fizzy dairy products just shouldn't be. Very unpleasant on the senses and makes me think that something has gone horribly off.

[I just realized that I haven't mentioned MilkPop. MilkPop seems like it would have been a lot like the egg cream. It seems that my friends Seth and company were even more hip to urban flare than previously thought while growing up in small-town Ontario. I have just recieved an update that MilkPop was never successfully created. Concept is everything though.]

I only managed to down about half of the egg cream before turning back to pomegranate tea. However, the notion of egg creams being very New York made me think - what food can Toronto lay claim to? I think of many foods for NYC, Philadelphia has its cheesesteak, Montreal its poutine, Cincinnati its chili with cheddar, Seattle its coffee, Brussels its mussels [okay, and I guess its sprouts], London its fish and chips and even Denver has its omelette. I'm sure there are more cities out there with famous foods [and please tell me what they are if you know], but since Canadian cuisine is kinda...not entirely existent...and Toronto is a total immigrant city - we got nothing. What should Toronto's unofficial official food be? Suggestions please!

I actually have photos of the ill-fated egg cream[eeeee!], but I have to install the software on my femputer and stuff and I'm lazy. Watch this space though. I might become magically un-lazy.

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