Thursday, July 26, 2012

Doubling Down

America isn't exactly known for its haute cuisine. Indeed, as regularly readers of this blog will be aware, its culinary innovations - viz deep-fried butter or Paula Deen's Heart Attack - are more likely to trigger head-shaking than salivation in those of us who didn't grow up over here.

Being the country that gave the world convenience and junk food, much of the developments by restaurants tend to be related to fast food. So it is with two recent novelties that even go one step further by cannibalising (if you'll excuse the pun) on the fast food concept and could therefore be termed autophagous.

The first such aberration comes from Pizza Hut, a chain that could charitably be considered the second-lowest common denominator in Italian food in the US (outdone only by the Olive Garden chain). Clearly eager to muscle in on the gustatory heights attained by McDonald's, Pizza Hut has taken a leaf out of the hugely successful burger joint's book to create the Crown Crust Pizza.

This may sound harmless enough, suggesting that the periphery of said oven-baked delight has somehow been embellished, perfected
, anointed. But it ain't.

What Pizza Hut has actually done is threefold: Firstly, they've liberally sprinkled a pizza base with small meatballs. That's slightly odd for a pizza, but not entirely alien since America  also invented the "authentically Italian" spaghetti-with-meatballs that is available only in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Secondly, Pizza Hut has clearly taken a side salad and emptied it slap-bang in the middle of said pizza. Stranger still, sure, but not completely off-the-wall since this is also practiced by "fusion" restaurants such as California Pizza Kitchen.

Finally - and this is the crème de la crème - they have studded the crust with a dozen hamburger patties ... topped with melted "plastic" cheese. The net result: a cheeseburger-and-salad pizza.


Meanwhile, Taco Bell - which probably did for tacos what Pizza Hut did for pizza - has hit upon a similarly noteworthy concoction. Painfully aware of the irresistability of Doritos chips (a fact that I and my bulging waistline can attest to), this pseudo-Mexican fast-food chain has hit upon a way of making its supremely resistable fare somewhat less unpalatable: the nutritionists at the Taco Bell development lab have jettisoned their boring, Mexican-tasting hard tortilla, and replaced it with .... you guessed it ... an oversized Dorito.

It's hardly surprising, therefore, that Taco Bell christened its new fast-food-meets-comfort-food "Locos Tacos" - i.e. mad tacos. I concur: it is mad (not to mention daftly plural for a singular noun).

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