This should be a rule about food: If you wouldn’t put two things in your mouth at the same time, they should not be combined into a single food. E.g., chocolate and peanut butter: good! Chocolate and mayonnaise: Bad! Therefore, a peanut butter cup is a good idea, and a mayonnaise cup is not. Here is a case study in why we need this rule: Bratwursts stuffed with Gummi Bears.
These abominations originated in Minnesota, Forbes reports:
Grundhofer’s Old Fashioned Meats has been around since 1983. Its menu boasts 29 flavors of brat—all for $5.49 a pound—including (brace yourself) Bloody Mary, Cherry Almond, Blueberry, Pizza Brat, Chicken Bacon Ranch and, of course, Gummi Bear (followed by the word “seriously” in parenthesis).
Now, see, Bloody Mary and bratwurst: yes. Go for it. I would sip my Bloody Mary while I still had meat aftertaste in my mouth. Gummi Bears and bratwurst: LESS SO.
Even the proprietor of this shop, Spencer Grundhofer, was skeptical of the Gummi Brats idea. A friend suggested it and pushed it hard, sending astroturfing customers into the shop to ask specifically for the sweet sausage. Eventually Grundhofter made the brats just to shut the guy up — and apparently they tasted pretty good? Or possibly they just became a staple for (literal) gag gifts. Either way, they sell well enough that the shop still makes them.
It’s not clear that anyone ever buys them more than once, but the idea’s spreading. Another Minnesota shop whipped up batch, and now a Tennessee Whole Foods is carrying them. This is what they look like when you cook them:
There’s probably a pretty good political analogy to be made here about how lawmaking is like Gummi Bear-studded sausage-making — like, nobody wants to see the process, and also, nobody wants to see the end result? But all we can think is: Seriously, WHAT?
