CNN and others are reporting that a retiring Army Colonel, Henry Moak, opened and ate a Vietnam War-era army ration can of pound cake at his retirement ceremony.
A 36 year old Can of Pound Cake.
WITH A CEREMONIAL SWORD.
"To most people's surprise, the opened can revealed a still-edible yellow cake. The ceremonial sword used to cut Moak's real retirement cake was also used to dig into the can and cut out the cake.
Moak took a bite and put up his thumb, "It's good, it's still kind of moist," he declared."
Already having served his country until retirement, Col. Moak took things to another level here. I am not a scientist, so I don't understand how any product with eggs in it wouldn't be deadly 36 years later. What happens inside a can that is properly sealed for the battlefield? Apparently time stands still, is what happens.
When I was a kid, in the early 80s I went through an "army phase" - I had old army clothes and toy machine guns, and liked to run around in the woods pretending. Once, my mom took me by Brock's Army Surplus and I bought a set of rations, which included pork-n-beans and pound cake. They were good then, but they may have been less than ten years old then. And I never ended up joining the Army.
Can you say that you've ever eaten an antique?
Awesome Andy. Using the ceremonial sward is a great touch.
ReplyDeleteHere is a related video by this guy Pea Hix who is THE Optigan guy... has a band called Optiganally Yours and is a hoarder of all things weird and electronic..... anyway, funny 'eating antique food' video..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfOUWaFQSsA
This is so weird. About an hour before I read this, Jeff and I were discussing the fact that we had no wedding cake and therefore no wedding cake to save and eat years from now. He wondered aloud how many people get really sick from eating old cake.
ReplyDeleteThey were eating Pound Cake over there??? No wonder we lost the war...
ReplyDelete"Lt. Farbelo Furlo, Ret."
Mark:
ReplyDelete1. The Pea Hix vintage peanut video is just great.
2. Before this I never heard of "unboxing" videos. I did a search. Now my life is ruined.
I was thinking that unboxing videos couldn't have existed in the days before user-created-content on the internet. It's a whole new category of soft fetish.
My sister dated this guy who was kind of weird for a while, like a long while. They were living together and stuff for a few years. Mostly he was useful to me as a person who was willing to buy alcohol when we were still underage, so I suffered his weirdness gladly.
ReplyDeleteUntil this one time, when we went by his house and asked him to get some tequila for our margarita party (to which he was not invited). While he was out at the store, we sat around the living room with my sister, talking and laughing. There was a tin of altoids on the lampstand.
We helped ourselves to the altoids, asking my sister first. While the altoids were still mostly whole on our tongues or in our cheeks, the guy came back with the tequila. Just then, my friend Dan started kind of puckering. "Is there something wrong with these altoids?" The weird dude started laughing his weirdly loud laugh. Then he said, "No, why?"
"Now that you mention it," I added, "these altoids are kinda strangely chalky. Like more gritty than altoids usually are." Weird dude laughed again, louder.
"Take a look at the folded parchment paper on the inside of the tin, tell me what the most recent date is."
1972.
Weird dude reached into his pocket, pulled out another tin of altoids, "Now take a look at the folded parchment on the inside of this tin, and tell me what the most recent date is."
1992.
"I found the altoids that are in your mouth in my mom's attic and just put them out to see what would happen." More loud laughter.
So that's how I ate an antique. Only 20 years old, but still.
JRoot
About three years ago, I copped from Dr. Wax a couple wax-packs of Cyndi Lauper trading cards from probably the mid-eighties. The gum was still intact, though it had mostly fused with its foil wrapper. But I am not about the half-stepping, so I went ahead and ate a piece. As I gnashed Richard Kiel-style on the erstwhile chicle, it didn't soften so much as it shattered endlessly into ever smaller splinters of fading pink that then lodged painfully like dumb-cane into the soft tissue under my tongue. The process of the inseperable foil raking my teeth as I chewed was not only excruciating but also resulted in 1) a thin trickle of poisonous-tasting aluminum saliva that ended up permanently staining my shirt and 2) a faint metallic "skree" that sounded like distant robot death.
ReplyDeleteI tossed the second piece.