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Food

There's Great Beauty in Other People's Burnt Pizzas

The internet wasn't just made for pretty pictures of food. Some people eat burnt pizzas and microwaved beans from a mug, and the success of the dimlylitmealsforone Tumblr proves that these people deserve a platform to share their meals, even if it is...
All images supplied by the author

Since starting the anti-food porn blog Dimly Lit Meals for One back in January of this year I've received a number of interesting submissions and heartbreaking messages from readers. There have been two proposals of marriage, one invitation to accept Jesus Christ into my life, countless students sending me their burnt pizzas, and a long, highly involved rant from a Men's Rights activist who thought the whole project was an example of "fashionable misandry".

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The blog initially came about through some photos my friend at work showed me of an old schoolmate's dinner picture, then, free of any explanation, images of mangled carrots and poorly cooked meat began appearing in my inbox. They were deranged—bizarrely composed, and hinting of such bleak isolation they had me crying with laughter at my desk.

But then it struck me—my own sad bachelor meals were no better. In fact, they're often much worse as a result of years of learned helplessness. So, I did what people do nowadays and made a niche Tumblr to share the pain. People responded immediately. Soon, my inbox began overflowing with pictures and stories from equally destitute readers. A few of them are students still learning to cook for themselves, others are terrible cooks driven half mad by loneliness, while some are simply fed up with the deluge of smug food pictures they see on social media and on the saccharine blogs of amateur cooks who want you to "join them on their culinary journey". Sometimes, you want a sharp shot of reality.

I have a huge amount of love for the people who send in their pictures, although that love is often tempered with a healthy fear. Sometimes it all gets a bit real and I wonder what the fuck I've got myself into. Here are a few of my personal favourites from the inbox.

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I was sent this picture in the early days of the blog by a guy who got extremely high and incinerated his pizza. He ate around the charred bits and used the remains as a receptacle for his roach. I don't know if there's anyone alive who can honestly say they've never carbonised a pizza while under the influence of drugs. If there is, I don't want to meet them.

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I try to make reference to bodily fluids as sparingly as possible on the blog. This one broke me, though, as it seems to be an unholy blend of everything that could feasibly be secreted by a human being. It was like the climax of a German scat porn that was passed around my secondary school on pirated VHS.

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I don't have a dishwasher or a freezer and three of the four hobs on my oven don't work. That's because my landlord is a slum baron and I'm too lazy to move. Therefore, my heart went out to this contributor who couldn't see the point in washing their bowl in between meals. It's like chopping vegetables—after a while you just think, what's the point? I'm going to die anyway. Does it really make any difference if this carrot is neatly diced or boiled whole? Also, of you don't have space in your shoebox flat for a dining table, you perch where you can. Sometimes it's on the washing machine, sometimes it's over the bin.

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This "piece" evoked the image of a perpetually weeping Cyclops scavenging loose fragments of dried pasta from the nuclear bombed remains of a Tesco Metro. Your thoughts do tend to wander when presented with so much needless pain.

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Beans in a mug. This is a classic, Alan Partridge-inspired dish, needlessly tampered with by the addition of grated cheese and frankfurters. This was one of mine. You can tell because I'm inordinately proud of my Black Flag mug, which is the perfect size for eating hot beans out of in front of Netflix, in my pants, very much alone. Were I to make this again, the only thing I'd do differently would be to buy slightly more expensive hot dogs. These ones were packed underneath much opaque fat it made me feel like I was retrieving a body from a frozen lake.

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It's the peripheral details that often make a picture for me—the out of focus copy of Rear Window, what appears to be contact lens formula, and a student's forearm. Everything comes together and frames the plus-size plate of white rice and frozen pie perfectly. It's like alchemy.

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I couldn't compile a list of my favourite submissions without one of Kev's mayonnaise and ketchup-drenched plates. I believe that a third of what this gentle Scottish man eats comes from a squeezy bottle. Every picture he's sent displays a manic urgency in the sauce work. Kev is clearly a man with demons. He hasn't sent anything in for a while. I'm sure it's just a case of him moving on to brighter Tumblrs, but part of me worries if he's okay. You see, he's a fan of the other type of sauce. By which I mean alcohol.

Kev, if you're reading, get in touch.