Welcome to Delicious or Distressing, where we rate recent food memes, videos, and other decidedly unserious news. See last week’s about Olive Garden’s Twitter controversy.
Suppose you were asked to analogize the task you most despise to the food you most despise. Kanye West, for one, says he hates reading (he’s never read a book, in fact) as much as he hates brussels sprouts. In the same week that Ye dropped that grenade via podcast, Beyond Meat’s chief operating officer bit a man’s nose in a fit of road rage (skin was broken). If you’re understandably searching for some levity from those two distressing revelations, look no further than a deliciously simple TikTok of a cake mechanically frosted to perfection, plus Pepsi’s newest s’mores flavor, delicious for its novelty if not its taste.
Beyond Meat’s COO Doug Ramsey tried to eat the ultimate impossible burger this past weekend by biting an actual human man’s nose. The man’s Subaru had allegedly hit the tire of Ramsey’s Bronco in a parking garage at an Arkansas football game, which ensued in Ramsay punching through the Subaru’s back windshield, beating up the driver, and chomping on his nose—“ripping the flesh on the tip,” in case you were wondering. Local police arrested Ramsey for “terroristic threatening” and third-degree battery, and Beyond Meat has suspended him from his role, which he took on in December. (Before that, he was Head of Retail Poultry Operations at Tyson Foods.) Meat jokes aside, this counts as 5/5 distressing. —Karen Yuan, lifestyle editor
In a baffling soundbite, Kanye West divulged to Alo Yoga Yoga’s podcast this week that he’s never read a book. “Reading is like eating brussels sprouts for me,” West asserts. “And talking is like getting the Giorgio Baldi corn ravioli.” Putting aside his anti-reading manifesto (news to me that reading is the opposite of talking), I’m amused by and skeptical of West’s personal delicious to distressing spectrum, which positions the very broad category of brussels sprouts on one end and a very niche, very expensive menu item on the other (it’s $30, I looked it up). I love brussels sprouts and okay, yeah, I don’t see a world where I don’t also love the corn rav. Your analogy is moot, Kanye! 2/5 distressing. —Li Goldstein, digital production assistant
I swear, this isn’t one of those Is It Cake? moments. Spoiler: It is cake! The only shock factor here is my realization that maybe I can’t perfectly frost a cake at home because I don’t have whatever this two-ruler spinning DJ booth situation is. Or maybe it’s because I’m a famously unreliable and impatient baker—but enough of that. These industrial cake-frosting videos occupy a decidedly more peaceful corner of TikTok than pimple-popping videos or those accounts where everything just gets crushed, but the result is the same: I want more. 5/5 delicious. —Elazar Sontag, restaurant editor
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Pepsi announced a new limited flavor collection that features drinks flavored Toasty Marshmallow, Graham Cracker, and Chocolate. The idea is that you combine the three cans to make an ultimate S’mores drink. On their own, Graham Cracker and Marshmallow are each decent. The Graham Cracker tastes a little like Pearl Mining Company’s butter-flavored maple syrup, but fizzy, malty, and smelling faintly of graham cracker. The Toasty Marshmallow tastes mostly like an untoasted marshmallow—slightly sweet with a mallow-y aftertaste. The Chocolate tastes cloying and synthetic. Mixing them is added work. Is it gimmicky? Yes. Does the final result taste like a s’more? Kind of. It ends up tasting like slightly burnt caramel with a hint of marshmallow-y sweetness and a pinch of synthetic chocolate essence. Is it worth trying? Meh. It really makes me just want a real s’more. 3/5 delicious. —Urmila Ramakrishnan, associate director of social media.
