FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Food

It's Thursday, February 28, and Testicle-Flavored Beer Exists

Also, the company responsible for the UK's KFC shortage is now handling the country's medical deliveries.
19436466_1557829514249085_1164289217887469568_n
Photo: Steffi Grado

Welcome to Off-Menu, where we'll be rounding up all the food news and food-adjacent internet ephemera that delighted, fascinated, or infuriated us this morning.

  • Last February, hundreds of KFC restaurants in the United Kingdom were temporarily closed because they ran out of chicken. Deprived of that irreplaceable combination of herbs and spices, residents responded in a calm, rational manne–wait, no, the police actually asked people to stop calling 999, because “I couldn’t get my Boneless Dips” isn’t considered an emergency. KFC blamed the shortages on “teething problems” that happened after they switched all of their deliveries to DHL.

Advertisement

Now, because we live in History’s Dumbest Era, government ministers in the UK have announced that, in the case of a no-deal Brexit, the National Health Service (NHS) will be relying on DHL to deliver medical supplies, medications, and equipment to its citizens. The NHS says that reminding people that DHL had some issues transporting not-at-all lifesaving chicken breasts is “a misleading comparison,” but some members of Parliament are less forgiving. “The idea that vital medical supplies will be handled by a company incapable of delivering chicken to KFC is truly frightening,” Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said. No, what would be truly frightening is a shortage of prescription drugs AND Boneless Banquets.

  • Icelandic horses are beautiful, and all of them seem to have the kind of perfectly windswept bangs that you could never pull off. Apparently, Icelandic horses are also delicious, and horse tenderloin is a reasonably common entree at restaurants throughout the country. But how do farmers decide which of their horses will be trained and ridden, and which will be salted and served with a side of potato wedges? Let’s just say that, if you’re a horse, this is probably a good time to adjust your attitude.

“Some horses, though, turn out to be unsuitable for riding, on account of being bad tempered or too difficult to train, or perhaps injured to where it would be inadvisable to ride them. Those horses are eaten,” Sveinn Steinarsson, the head of the Icelandic Horse Farmers Association, told the Reykjavik Grapevine. “[T]here are some farmers who are raising horses to be eaten, while there are other horse farmers who are trying to raise riding horses, but for those horses that don’t make the cut, they are slaughtered. The farmers have to choose. It’s pretty simple.”

Advertisement

  • During what felt like two straight weeks of testimony from Michael Cohen, Twitter was essentially a giant version of that GIF of Michael Jackson eating popcorn by the handful. But while most of us picked imaginary kernels out of our teeth, one guy was caught on camera housing a slice of pizza as he stood in the hallway outside the proceedings. “tfw you go to eat your hallway pizza and get told you’re in the live shot,” Mike Uehlein tweeted. Personally, I’m just impressed at the confidence and bravery of anyone who eats pizza that quickly while wearing a solid white shirt.
  • Have you always wanted to eat a meal while being watched by more than a dozen security cameras? Then you’re going to love prison! You’ll also feel completely at home at Noosh, a soon-to-open San Francisco restaurant that promises cashless transactions, facial recognition technology, and a shitload of security cameras keeping an eye on its customers. “The vision for this is to start bringing in tech solutions to restaurant problems, which is where the whole direction of casual dining is going,” co-founder John Litz said, adding that the restaurant would “function like an Apple store.” Or a minimum security correctional facility, but mostly like an Apple store.

  • Yesterday, we learned that testicle-flavored salsa was a thing, but only because a man named Howard Matthew Webb decided to dunk his balls in a customer’s Dinner Delivered order. Today, we’ve learned that testicle-flavored beer is a thing, and this time, it’s on purpose. Denver’s Wynnkoop Brewery originally launched its Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout as an April Fool’s joke, but their customers actually liked the combination of barley, grains, and roasted bull testicles, so now they release it as a limited edition every year. If the highlight of your trip to New York was the photo you took beside the Charging Bull statue’s smooth bronze sack, then do we ever have a beer for you.

  • Trying to keep up with the ever-increasing list of potential Democratic presidential candidates is like trying to play the shittiest possible game of Pokemon. (KLOBUCHAR used EMBER! SANDERS used FUNDRAISING!) Every candidate is trying to make a positive early impression, holding Don Lemon-moderated town halls, admitting that they smoked weed or, like, promising to stop claiming Native American ancestry. Earlier this week, New Jersey senator Cory Booker appeared on BuzzFeed’s AM2DM morning show and showed that he might be a good president, but he’d definitely be a shit bartender. When asked to name the ingredients in a margarita, Booker hesitantly named fruit, ice, and…vodka. BOOKER used CONFUSION!