Go large

Pimp That Snack is an entertaining website that showcases grotesquely enlarged versions of popular food items – think XXL pork scratchings, giant Jaffa Cakes and Wagon Wheels the size of actual wagon wheels.

The pimped snacks demonstrate remarkable levels of ingenuity on the part of their creators, who post step-by-step photos of the pimping so that visitors to the site can recreate it, if by some remote chance they desire to do so.

The pimpers go to great lengths (and expense) to ensure that their snacks are authentic replications of the original - in taste as well as appearance.

Nobody really knows why, but it's probably the same sort of drive that motivates some people to create record breaking food, like this ill-fated attempt on the "World's biggest steak and kidney pie"

It turns out that Health and Safety considerations scuppered the success of the mammoth pie, which is unappetisingly described as being "as heavy as three elephants". The project fell behind schedule and the pie was in danger of being declared unfit for human consumption. Still, it broke the record, so that's the important thing.

Supersizing is nothing new. Anyone who's ever flicked through one of the many cook books devoted to the private culinary life of Elvis Presley will know that The King was going large long before the phrase "supersize me" had even been invented.

To illustrate the point, here's a favourite recipe of Elvis that you might (or might not) like to try...

Fool's Gold Loaf
(Serves 1 obese rock star, or 8 ordinary people)

Take a loaf of Italian bread, and smear softened butter over its entire surface, then bake it in a 350F / 180C oven until it's golden brown and crispy.
Meanwhile fry a pound of bacon rashers until they're crisp.
When the bread is done, slice it lengthwise and scoop out some of it's insides so you've got a hollow space for the filling.
Layer the bacon inside the loaf with generous amounts of peanut butter and grape jam.
Put the top on the bread, slice and serve.

Legend has it that one night in 1976, Elvis and some friends took a two-hour flight in his private jet from Memphis to Denver to collect 22 of the freshly made sandwiches, which they ate at the airport before immediately flying back to Memphis. Must be good.

See the sandwich that killed Elvis being recreated here...

Not on your Natto

It's hard to fathom how anyone could ever had had the idea of eating natto – a fermented soya bean dish that has been consumed in Japan "since ancient times" – the mere description of it has the power to repulse:

"The first thing noticed by the uninitiated after opening a pack of nattō is the very strong ammoniacal smell, akin to strong cheese. Stirring the nattō produces lots of spiderweb-like strings. The nattō itself has a taste somewhat akin to glue."














Make your own natto.

Maybe it's appeal lies in the very fact of it's putridity - after all, durian, papaya and Parmesan cheese all have their devotees. Or it could be that natto lovers are attracted by its many health benefits (Warning: not all health benefits are proven), including: prevention of osteoporosis, reduced risk of blood clots, beneficial to the skin, may help to prevent Alzheimer's, cancer, dysentry, obesity, hair loss, ageing – the list goes on.

A comment left on a rather astonishing You Tube video about the joys of Natto seems to sum it up:

If foreigner ask me why we eat natto, I'm not sure what to answer...I don't think the word ''delicious'' is proper. How does it taste like? I DONT KNOW...All I can say is sometimes I get to be dying for it after I haven't had it for a while.

Worringly, the comment was left by someone calling themselves runnyrunny999...

Sweet and innocent?

Who'd have thought there was a dark side to the innocent world of children's sweets? Not content with popping space rocks and smoking candy cigarettes, news reports today reveal that kids have taken to snorting crushed up Love Hearts and Refreshers.

Tell-tale signs of doing lines of Love Hearts include a sticky foam oozing from the nostrils; amusingly named drug expert Peggy Sapp is worried that it could lead to children becoming interested in illegal drugs.

Love Hearts have always been something of a controversial sweet, what with their salacious messages like "Be Mine" and "I Want U", so it's hardly surprising they're at the centre of this latest outrage.

Perhaps a campaign against irresponsible confectionary manufacturers is called for. As well as Love Hearts, here are a few others that might warrant some attention:

Allens "Chicos" are a chocolate flavoured jelly baby-style sweet, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but there's something slightly unnerving about the idea of naming a sweet Chicos, not to mention the sinister packaging design.













If they have to have a sweet based on a racial minority, at least choose a name that's a bit more PC. Surely "Native Americans" would be more appropriate.







"Fads" used to be called "Fags", and they taught a whole generation of youngsters how to smoke. The change of name is a step in the right direction and will no doubt have pleased the anti-smoking people, not to mention the gay rights lobby. But "Fun Sticks"? What kind of message does that send out?

Choc till you drop

Most of us know “Death by Chocolate” as an outlandish dessert, but the recent story of Polly the Patterdale Terrier, who narrowly survived after chomping her way through a plate of chocolate cakes, begs the question – is death by chocolate actually possible?

For dogs, chocolate is poisonous – it contains theobromine, which can lead to internal bleeding, heart attacks and other potentially fatal reactions.

Squirrels apparently don’t get on to well with the good stuff either. Elizabeth Taylor says she never quite got over losing Nibbles, her pet squirrel, when the actress was a teenager. Nibbles found young Liz’s stash of Easter eggs and helped himself – she later discovered the thieving rodent lying dead next to a half-eaten egg.

But what about people? There’s an urban myth that Robert Hershey, founder of Hershey’s Chocolate, died after falling into a vat of the stuff, but this remains frustratingly unconfirmed. However there's at least one recorded case of this actually happening – in 2002 a 19-year old in Philadelphia drowned in 1200 gallons of dairy milk.

Apart from drowning in it, people can be allergic to chocolate – celebrity sufferers include, Latoya Jackson who says she will die if she ever eats it. Happy Easter, Latoya!

(B)eat that

Joseph Christian “Jaws” Chestnut isn’t exactly a household name, but in the world of competitive eating he’s right up there. Winner of countless titles, Jaws’s most recent triumph was taking the world record for macaroni cheese eating – he managed to put away 10 and a half pounds of the stuff. Here he is at a 2007 contest, scoffing 66 hotdogs to edge out Japanese legend Kobayashi and set a new record.

Jaws makes his living as a professional competitive eater, or gurgitator – with big prize money up for grabs it can be quite lucrative and you get free food – a bit like being at a permanent all-you-can-eat-buffet.

On the downside, gurgitating can be risky. For every success story like Jaws, there’s a tragedy. Like 48-year-old Russian Boris Isayev who collapsed and died last month in mid-chew after eating 43 cream and banana filled pancakes (he was posthumously declared the winner).

Or the 32-year-old Canadian woman who choked when her throat became blocked with a sticky mass of half-chewed marshamallows. Contest rules demanded gurgitators say the words “chubby bunny” each time they stuffed another marshmallow in.

If that doesn’t deter you and you reckon you’ve got what it takes to gurgitate, check out the official website of the International Federation of Competitive Eating. You could soon be adding “World Deep-Fried Asparagus Eating Champion” to your CV.

Hone your competitive eating skills…

Man with a flan

As well as being tasty and nutritious, custard seems to have become the dessert of choice for political protesters.

The recent direct hit on the unremittingly suave Peter Mandelson by an environmental protester with what was described as “green custard” brings to mind a similar assault a few years ago by the Biotic Baking Brigade (Campsfield High Command branch) on the then Shadow Home Secretary Anne Widdecombe. On that occasion, a fully formed custard pie, complete with pastry base, was used, presumably to highlight her half-baked ideas about law and order. It led, inevitably, to her being dubbed ‘Flan Widdicombe’, but in her case, even a face full of custard couldn’t make her more ridiculous than she already was.

Like eggs, and rotten tomatoes, the custard pie and its variants have a rich heritage of use as humour-laden projectile. Immigration Minister Phil Woolas was hit with a “creamy vegan pie” in Manchester, Clare Short got a first-hand taste of a weapon of mass delectation at the University of Bangor, and Bill Gates famously sampled a “tarte au crème-Anglaise” while on a trip to Belgium in 2000. Lucky him – the Belgians do really good patisserie.

Swedish King Karl Gustav was hit with a strawberry tart, ably thrown by a 16-year-old boy who was subsequently wrestled to the ground by Queen Silvia, but a tofu pie hurled at Karl Lagerfeld by anti fur group PETA unfortunately missed its target. On the plus side, it hit Calvin Klein instead.

“Flanning” or “pieing”, as it is known, is not as ad-hoc as you might think. The Biotic Baking Brigade are a highly organised San Francisco-based outfit who have notched up successful hits on high-profile targets around the world and even released a video and cookbook chronicling their pastry action.

And never to be outdone in the political protest stakes, the Dutch have their very own home-baked flan-flinging collective – TAART. To their credit, they use 100% organic ingredients…

Hone your pie throwing technique here.