FOOD FRIDAY: Blue pilled
Indignity Vol. 4, No. 225
FOOD FRIDAY DEP'T.
The Generic Antacid Tastes Upsetting
I HAVE TO take medicine, and the medicine gives me heartburn, so I have to take medicine for my medicine. At bedtime, this means taking a couple of calcium carbonate tablets to help dinner stay where it's supposed to be once I lie down and gravity stops helping out.
I had prescriptions for stronger medicines than calcium carbonate, but we have a pharmaceutical benefits management company that blocks prescriptions if you don't order certain drugs from them via mail order, while also not necessarily making certain other drugs available for mail order, so eventually as long as I was still able to get the medicine for my actual medical condition, I gave up on trying to chase down the side-effect heartburn drugs and started buying Tums.
The Tums tablets were basically candy, maybe not as good as the old unsafe children's aspirin, or actual candy Smarties, but at least as good as Necco Wafers. I got through a whole bottle of them and then when it came time to buy more, I cheaped out and grabbed a Value Size bottle of the store brand, in assorted flavors.
The store-brand tablets taste cruddy overall. I have conflicting feelings about this: it's self-indulgent and dangerous to want medicine to taste like candy, but given that the technology to make the candy-grade Tums exists, I can only conclude that the generic-brand calcium carbonate tablets are intentionally designed to taste bad, to punish the customer—the patient—for not buying the premium brand. It's exploitative, like Hewlett-Packard selling low-end printers with special modifications to make them print more slowly than the high-end printers.
All of that would be forgivable if it weren't for the blue tablets. The cheapo antacids come in four colors: pink, orange, yellow, and the other color. The label has a little stock-photo-style still life of a cherry, an orange wedge, a lemon wedge, and, peeking out from behind, a wedge of lime. This suggests that the fourth tablets are supposed to be green and to taste like lime. To my sense organs, though, they're blue—the institutional blue of a classroom chair—and what they taste like is cleanser.
And I always get them. Logic and a glance inside a new bottle say that the four kinds of tablets occur in equal proportions. That means that if you tip over the bottle and shake one out, there's a 75 percent chance it should be pink, orange, or yellow. If you shake out two tablets, the chance of avoiding a blue one falls to 56.25 percent—still better than a coin toss. Subjectively, in my experience, the chance of avoiding the blue ones feels more like 10 percent. They come out of the bottle with the cursed persistency of pasta coming out of Strega Nona's cookpot. If you chew one in combination with another flavor, the effect is even worse.
To deal with the annoyance, I decided to start consuming the blue ones on purpose—converting them from a disappointment into a grim obligation. Get the punishment over with, and then have nothing but tolerable flavors left until the big bottle is empty and I can buy some brand-name Tums again. Every day, the inside of the bottle is more abundantly pink, orange, and yellow. Most every day, I still get a blue one. Then I fish around to find a matching one. They have to run out sometime. They haven't run out yet.
BELCH OF CHRISTMAS PAST DEP'T.
RECIPE: Hmm Daily Holiday Alco-Nog
Originally published in HMM DAILY, Dec 24, 2018
Happy The Holidays! It’s time—the only time— for EGG NOG! The one thing you do not need right now is MORE STRESS trying to make some sort of elaborate recipe with raw eggs and a Nutmeg! Keep it simple, Crimbles!
This recipe calls for an optional maximum of one ingredient (two if you count the glass) and a maximum of three ingredients if you can remember the family recipe for ice cubes.
1.) Obtain a bottle of pre-made alcoholic egg nog, one with as many alco-ingredients as possible. The bottle of PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH EGG NOG we have in the Hmm Daily Test Kitchen contains rum, brandy, and blended whiskey, all in one place already!
2.) Pour a happy amount of nog into your favorite glass and add a shot or two of brandy. We’re partial to Christian Brothers because it’s at an accessible price point. Blurp! Hic! Uh-oh! Let’s go-ho-ho!
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, December 19, 2024
★★★ The morning air was already so cold and dry it was surprising to see the damp stretch where cars had recently left the curb, and the puddles on the lids of the trashcans. Well-shaped white clouds, shaded with gray, touched at their edges to outline pools of blue. It wasn't worth the risk to try to put the hat back on when coming out of a restaurant with a takeout cup of tea in one hand. The afternoon light turned wintry and forbidding, but the late dimness was the kind of dimness that made holiday lights look extra cheery.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Hygienic Cook Book: A Collection of Choice Recipes Carefully Tested, by Jacob Arnbrecht, published in 1914 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
EGG SANDWICHES
3 hard boiled eggs
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/8 tsp. celery salt
Salt to taste
1 tsp. finely chopped parsley
Chop the eggs or put through a colander, and mix with the other ingredients; spread on thin slices of buttered bread, cut into any shape desired and serve.
JELLY SANDWICHES
Spread three thin slices of buttered bread with a liberal layer of good jelly; trim the edges, cut into fancy shapes and serve at once.
NUT SANDWICHES
1/2 cup minced protose
1 hard boiled egg
2 tbsp. chopped nuts
2/3 tsp. celery salt
1/2 tbsp. lemon juice
Salt to taste
Put the egg through a colander, then mix all the ingredients together ; spread on thin slices of buttered bread, cut into any shape desired and serve.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
