Adventures in Food

As most people already know April is National Grilled Cheese Month. For those of you who did not know that fact until I dropped some wisdom on you at least feel thankful that there is still half a month left to celebrate in the cheesy goodness that is a grilled cheese sandwich. And we’re not talking about one of those fancy grilled cheese sandwiches made with artisanal cheese and things like figs or some other hippy crap. It must only be American Cheese because it is the national cheese and what other cheese could you use for National Grilled Cheese Sandwich month. And I’m not talking any American Cheese either. Forget that white crap. It has to be that day glo orange, no natural ingredients whatsoever, individually wrapped slices version of American Cheese. That is what makes this nation great.

(It’s also National Marching Band Appreciation month so, uh, if you happen to cross paths with a marching band be sure to appreciate them. And then ask them to kindly get out of the way so that you could cross the street.)

Since I am on the topic of food I might as well discuss the KFC Double Down especially since it is, in a sense, a grilled cheese sandwich. I’ve known about the national launch of this product for weeks now and have held off on discussing it mainly because I couldn’t figure out how to have my commentary top the description of the product itself. Take two KFC fried boneless chicken breasts (original recipe of course) and in between them place a couple slices of cheese and some bacon and heat up the entire thing. That’s it. There is no bun. Just two chicken patties, some cheese and bacon. It’s a grilled cheese sandwich made entirely out of meat.

There is no way to spin this into a healthy product. True, the lack of a bun does reduce the carbs but my god, just looking at it is frightening. I believe that it is the equivalent of swallowing a salt shaker in terms of sodium intake and this might be the first thing that isn’t better with bacon. This is the first product since the Domino’s Pizza pasta bowls to legitimately frighten me. (Loved the pasta bowl idea though: Let’s take our woefully below average dough and fill it with a pasta product that we’ve never been associated with! We’ll make millions!)

The big thing about this is a point I read online today which is the KenTacoHut franchise is slowly amalgamating itself into something rather frightening. The Double Down is purely a Taco Bell concept. Let’s face it, Taco Bell has six ingredients that they combine in every way possible and simply give it a new name. That is all the Double Down is. Take random ingredients that you already have, slap them together and call it something new. I fully expect the next product to be a slice of pizza rolled up and placed in a taco shell. We’ll call it the Paco.

Sigh. At least health care is free now. Right? Right?