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America's original dollar menu
by Mark on 3/5/2004 (7) 
 | | America's original one-buck treat! Now available in Lite! | |
Long before Wendy's highly successful dollar menu, a virtual smorgasbord of one buck-or-so treats have long been available on Convenience store shelves nationwide
Ever been broke? I mean really, really, 2 quarters, 3 dimes and 3 nickels sluiced outta the couch cushion and 6 rusty pennies from under the car mat broke? I have, and to those who have walked a weary mile in my dreary shoes, you may recognize some of these classic dollar-or-so All-American culinary treats.
1. Vienna sausages: Ever wonder what they do with the lesser than prime rib parts of cows, pigs and chickens? They do with them what the Germans figured out a thousand years ago: Grind them up fine, and mold them into the shape of a wiener. I'm not quite sure why it works, nor am I inclined to dwell too deeply on the subject, but work it does. You can take every conceivable meat by-product, from anything with four legs except a coffee table and everything with wings except an airplane, make a hot dogger out of it, and people will eat it. Go figger, Oscar Meyer Freud.
2. Armour potted meat product: Take animal byproducts, grind them fine again, pump the vile pallid paste into a tin and call it "potted". I'm not sure why Armour calls it "potted". It's in a can. I guess they want to harken back to a gentler time when meat spreads were kept in ceramic crock pots in the pantry. At least that's my guess. I'm not sure what's really in the stuff, but I think they sell the same toxic mix as cat food by merely changing labels. Poor kitties.
3. Canned corned beef: When Wendy's spokeswoman Claire Peller shouted "Where's the beef!", she wouldn't have found it here, either. It ain't corned, and it ain't quite beef, but some mushy kind of bovine tooth paste in between. Woe to those who know thy nose, King Corned Beef, primary export of Uruguay, Venezuala and Argentina.
4. Prince Edward sardines: This one is a bit confusing. You would think that sardines would be more expensive. After all, you have to send a boat out on the ocean and catch them, right? So what's the catch? Sounds expensive, but they're not, typically 2-3 cans for a buck. I actually enjoy these neatly rowed out fishies from time to time, available in plain salted, atomic hot mustard and tomato sauce. Just be sure to triple wrap the empty tin and bury it in a Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Lead container at least 15 feet underground. Hmmmm...maybe that's the catch...
5. Artifically flavored fruit chews: The only thing fruity about these things is fact that there ain't any fruit in them. Flavored with such mouth watering coal-tar derivatives as Acesulfame Potassium, Carboxylmethylcellulose Sodium and Guaiacol, and colored with red dye number 5, yellow number 2, and green number 4 (shown to cause cancer in lab rats, but not human rats), who can deny these orginal buck-on-the counter, mondo chewy, chemical-factory-in-a-bag treats their place in American culinary history? Not I. In fact I've got a half eaten bag on the dashboard of my car, the other half being firmly lodged in my duodenum.
post script
A recent anaylysis of the average fast food dollar-menu hamburger has revealed that any single pattie may contain parts from as many as 80 different animals! Make mine a triple!!
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