Food is Good, More is Better

     You know what's great? Food is great. And, by all that is wholly unnecessary, we here in the loosely unionized provinces of America do our best to make it greater, do we not? You bet your biscuits we do. And let me tell you something in exchange for nothing but the time it takes you to read it (which may be more of a bargain for me than it is for you, really,) I couldn't be happier about it. We took the English muffin and turned it into a breakfast sandwich bun, same with the croissant. We even turned pizza and doughnuts into sandwich buns, I've heard but unfortunately not experienced for myself.
     All good ideas, in my book, but I am here today to tell you, and should it listen, the world, that we do more for the culinary arts than just turn everything into a means by which we can consume food that does not necessitate the use of bothersome utensils and plates.
     For example, we can turn food into a receiver of passive aggression, a woman in Connecticut claims. She had a man arrested after he threateningly carved a watermelon at her, because she previously tried to get him arrested for marijuana possession. He was not arrested for said possession, but later, apparently, she found a watermelon on the counter with a knife stuck in it, and then the man came in the room and started carving it, which as everyone knows is a punishable offense. Oddly enough, the article doesn't say anything about their relationship outside of drug possession and fruit murder, leaving me and you (and perhaps the aforementioned world) to wonder whether he was generally allowed in the house in the first place. Perhaps this is truly a matter of domestic unrest, for which a juicy, delicious, innocent watermelon was forced to pay the ultimate price?
     I can't say. What I can say is that our culinary abilities, as a culture and a country, are not limited to violently venting our vexations on vine grown fruits and vegetables.
     We also excel at making foodstuffs way too big. Take for example the long adored and thoroughly treasured taco. You know who loves a taco, friends and neighbors? Every creature who has ever known love, every being who has faced the harshness of this world and managed to keep any quantum of hope intact, every vessel of consciousness that has ever had any honorably conceived notion of goodness and justice, loves a taco. So wait until I tell you that at Ranger's Stadium, in Arlington, Texas, you can purchase for yourself a taco that's two resplendent feet long.
     That's right. Two. Feet. Long. For the first time ever, I understand jealousy. I understand the true concept of envy, and I feel it in the depths of my soul for any and every person who has managed to convince themselves that watching Baseball is an enjoyable pastime. Believe me, if I had one wish now, it would be to join their ranks, so that I might one day myself partake of the myth made real, the Two Foot Taco. Alas, it is once again with great regret I realize that the pointless pastimes I have chosen come not with such rewards, but instead with an extensive knowledge of things that no right-minded person above the age of eight would give a poorly sewn stitch about.
     Woe, thy name is me. Wherever can a man go to salve these feelings of anguish?
     Funny I ask, because I've an answer. Taco Bell has announced its intentions to further push the shimmering, greasy envelope of what can be categorized as food, this time by unleashing upon us their protein packed "Cantina" menu. This, amidst ever increasing numbers of research findings about how high protein diets are surprisingly less healthy than all of those purveyors of proteins both bar and powder previously led us to believe. The fine folks at the Bell, famous creators of Fourth Meal, are even working on the "Cantina" breakfast menu, to go along with the astonishingly successful waffle taco (a sweaty masterpiece of appetence abuse if ever one existed.) It will, of course, include Greek yogurt, because this is a free country, and the health conscious Taco Bell customers deserve to have their trendy appetites sated as well.
     Now, when it comes time for us, as a nation, to stake our claim in the world of comestible innovations, I for one feel secure. I know that we are not the first to make food an art form, nor will we be the last. We are, however, never likely to be surpassed when it comes to making food a victim, making food monstrously big, or, in what is perhaps our greatest towering achievement, stuffing it with huge quantities of meat and calling it a healthier option.
     This, by the way, is what happens when I forget to eat before I sit down to write. Now, someone please get me a giant hamburger with giant tacos as the bun. For glory.
-John