Odd Food Marriages

There are some pretty strange food marriages out there. Look at the pizza burger or batter friend iced cream. Or even a chili dog which is a scoop of chili over a hot dog. We make up some weird combinations and then eat them.


As I‘ve written the pizza burger is a pretty strange duck. I couldn’t find the origins of this. Maybe some just figured that a burger mixed with pizza sauce and topped with mozzarella tasted good. There are a lot of recipe out there for it , the best being canned sauce (yes, surprisingly!!) mixed with ground beef and a little oregano. Another strange idea are those fried sandwiches like the Monte Cristo. This started in 1910 and was an offshoot of that famous Parisian bistro sandwich ,the croque monsieur, it was first served in this country in the 1960’s in California. Something got lost in the translation however. The finished sandwich was dusted with confectioners sugar and served with a side of grape jelly???!!! Talk about bizarre!!!!

Fried ice cream is another oddity, melding freezer cold with hot oil. It’s a staple in Mexican restaurants and despite the oxymoronic name is really pretty tasty. It’s just taking a scoop of hard ice cream , dipping it into raw egg and then frying it in either batter, crushed corn flakes or bread crumbs. Mexican restaurants then serve this with a dusting of cinnamon. Another odd sweet treat is the national craze for chocolate dipped wasabi or chili peppers. There’s this wacko relationship of sweet dark chocolate offset by a fireball exploding in the mouth. Years ago we had this craze for dipping insects in chocolate. To be honest, thank heaven’s that ‘s over

The wildest I’ll ever go is maybe the fried iced cream or caramels infused with French sea salt. That’s about it. Anything other than that, nah, I like my food plain and simple. Life is too bizarre as it is without strange food pairings.