before i get started, i want to tell you about my step father. a little while ago, my good friend zach posted a touching, heartfelt little entry about his step father on his blog, and while i was getting ready to put this episode of the taste test together, i couldn't help but feel compelled to do something similar, seeing as we had similar situations. my father passed away while my mother was pregnant with me, so the man you see pictured below has always been "my dad." like zach's step father, he's lived an extremely colorful life. he'd seen more of the planet than i ever will by the time he was the age i am now, knows more about art and art history than anyone i've ever met, and if the shit hit the fan, could seriously make his living playing vegas style solitaire in the casinos. also like zach's stepdad, he never had a family in mind, but when my mother chanced along, recently widowed with a 12 year old daughter and an infant son, something just clicked in his head, and he took us all on, relocated us to the east coast, and proceeded to provide for us for the next two decades and onward.
but it's funny, the things you get from someone. we didn't play a lot of catch. he let my mom handle the parent-teacher conferences. our "quality time" was usually spent playing pool or pinball in smoky bars, listening to working-class blues bands from around syracuse crank out "sweet home chicago" one more time to rooms full of world war 2 vets, sixties burnouts, off duty auto mechanics, and the lifers, all the lifers, career barflies, most of whom knew me by name. i learned to love soul music, robert crumb and mystery novels from growing up with him. he was an art professor who never thought to teach me to draw. i remember smoking a joint with him when i was 19 walking down the street in greenwich village and thinking i had died and gone to heaven.
what does all this have to do with today's entry in the taste test? what if i said nothing, it had nothing to do with anything, and i was just trying to hold off having to taste this swill? what then? sadly that's not the case, as the more perceptive among you have probably put together for yourselves by now, i was also inspired many times in my young life and into my adulthood to try some truly nasty food and beverage items from hanging around with that lunatic (you too, mom. braunschweiger, anyone?) and today is probably the crown jewel in our family's legacy of consuming royally awful stuff: frank's sauerkraut juice. i can still remember the looks on the faces of the cashiers at the IGA in strum wisconsin as we'd buy stacks of this crap, and the look on my dad's face as he'd pound it down. it seemed to me, as a child, the epitome of that "what is wrong with grownups" feeling that so many kids have, so much of the time. i tried it once when i was about 9 and couldn't get the taste out of my mouth all day. i have not tried it since.
what is it, you ask? surely it can't be just the straight liquid from like a bag of sauerkraut, you're saying? i'm afraid that's exactly what it is AND AS AN ADDED BONUS i'd like to point out that in years past they used to sell it in manageable, 7.5 oz pop top cans, like so:
about like a v8 can or so, with a little sealed top that you could easily rip off and chug down. that, i could do. that's what i thought i was going to be getting when i emailed my dear mother and asked her to send down a can. what did i get instead?
THIS slobbering 14 ounce behemoth, almost TWICE the size of the nice little manageable can from my childhood memories. they say the world gets bigger and scarier the older you get and i've always believed that to one degree or another but i had no idea this is what they meant. the nice people at frank's have done away with the pop top at some indeterminate point in the past, probably to discourage people from doing what i'm about to do, but if there's one thing i hope we've learned on our journey together so far, dear readers, it's that a stupid man with a bad idea will NOT be denied, so here i am, staring down my white whale. it's not solely procrastination that's accounted for the monthlong gap between the previous taste test and this one, i promise you. i knew what was coming, even if i have no idea what i'm getting myself into.
one final aside, my dear mother took it upon herself to send TWO cans of this shit down for some reason, leaving me with an entire can's worth left over once i finish this test (IF i finish it) so if anyone wants to try it for themselves, i'll have a nice cold one waiting for you in the fridge. otherwise maybe i'll boil some brats or spike someone's gatorade at work or something. who knows.
okay, enough foreplay. time to crack this bad bitch open and see what she has to say for herself.
ugh. oh. i just sniffed the CAN OPENER and started coughing and gagging a little. let's see what the can has to say for itself. ingredients: cabbage juice, salt. i think they forgot "death" on there somewhere. there's a recipe for something called "tomato tang" which i will not insult you by replicating here, and then four bullet points. here they are, verbatim. parenthetical commentary is mine.
- miracle meat tenderizer - marinade (MEAT TENDERIZER? what is this going to do to my stomach lining?)
- adds a zest to mixed drinks (oh that i will definitely have to try - sauerkrautini, anyone?)
- natural laxative (oh that's just great)
- known to heal canker sores (wtf)
the whole time i've been typing this the smell has just been insinuating itself out into the room. i need to take drastic measures before it's too late. if anything happens to me, you can have my stereo. no, not you, you. yeah, you, in the back.
okay. here we go. i love you, mom and dad. this is all your fault.
wow. i honestly do not know what to say. sour, sour just sour beyond all description, and really really salty, the "entry" as they'd say is just this total bitchslap across your entire palate, with this lingering kind of rotten sour saltiness that just goes on and on. holy god. after the initial wave of your entire body just reacting with utter instinctual horror and revulsion, however, there's a kind of moment of clarity not unlike hurling yourself into an icy lake after sitting and soaking in a hot sauna for an hour or two. i can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and it all looks like sauerkraut from here.
honestly, it's not as bad as the yogurt soda. it's bad, don't get me wrong, it's horrible, but it doesn't have a) the chunks (OH GOD THE CHUNKS) or b) the lingering sourness and disgusting curdled cream taste of the abali. i say this all after my first healthy swig, however, which i would roughly estimate took care of about 1/3 of the can. we still have a long road ahead of us, friends and neighbors, and i may not get there with you.
that's right, i just quoted martin luther king jr. whilst discussing sauerkraut juice. nowhere else on the internet will you find such a sublime mixture of high-minded ideals and outright nastiness, i promise you. okay, time for round two.
oh. oh man. well, it turns out on the second pull off the can, once you've coated the inside of your mouth with this mess, the taste lingers on a whole lot longer, and you don't pass that initial rush of disgusting rotten sour saltiness quite so quickly. in fact as i write this i am still waiting for it to fade. i really totally understand why they used to make these cans single chug servings, i totally do.
i seriously don't know if i can do this. it's not just that it's bad, because it is, if that isn't coming through quite clearly enough for everyone, it's just... there's so god damned MUCH of it. i felt like i took another decent pull off of it, but just by my guesstimation i'd say there's still just under half the can left. i've fought long and hard through thick and thin (and chunky) to get through every drop of every beverage that i've personally hand selected for this experiment, dear readers, but i am honestly not sure if my body or the laws of nature will allow me to consume the rest of this can. i think we might have to call it a day.
...
...
screw it. you know what? this can is going down. right now. this is the last big hump, the final hill i have to crest in this tour de pain i've set up for myself, and i am not going to let a measly 7 ounces of fermented cabbage liquid deny me my glory. you wanted this showdown so god damned badly, frank's kraut juice, well guess what? you've got it.
MORTAL KOMBAAAAAATTTTTT!!!!!!
djhfajsdhflasdjbfhlkasjdbflaksdjfbalksdjfalsfghirugalivbzdkjvhlesirthlzskjfhzldkjfhzlkjfhlskfjhalsdjf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YO ADRIAN!!! AAADDDRRRIIIIAAAANNNNN!!!!!!
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES!?!?!?!?!?\\\
oh, the humanity!
the call was coming from inside the house
bruce willis' character was actually a ghost
the coin was in his other hand the entire time
wow. i can smell colors and hear tastes now. okay, maybe not. but i did just drink a whole lot of nasty crap. all of a sudden that "natural laxative" bullet point on the side of the can looks more like a warning than just a friendly bit of information. i suppose i'll find out later.
but for now, in this moment, let me bask in the glow. i might not be an andrew zimmern (although i've eaten more durian than he has) or anthony bourdain level connosseiur of the disgusting, but i'd like to think i can hold my own. i did it. i actually did it.
so what have we learned here, today? well, for one, i will apparently drink just about anything. also, my dad is a complete and utter lunatic. and finally, and perhaps most importantly, you don't get to pick the things that you take from the people around you, nor what they take from you... all you can hope for is that you don't inspire them to chug an entire can of sauerkraut juice on the internet for other people's amusement, because that is a really messed up thing to do to a kid.
just kidding. thanks for reading, everyone, and thanks for all the pool lessons, quarters for pinball, and cherry cokes, dad. you were the coolest. all of my friends are still scared of you.
see you next time
love
d
