By Myra Chen & Stephanie Pham
The Bill of Rights ensures that people have the right to personal autonomy and self determination. Many exercise their right to freedom of choice by inputting their creativity to make out of the norm combinations. This creativity can be questionable at times, leaving us wondering how these ideas came to be about. Nonetheless, follow us, Myra Chen and Stephanie Pham, as we try six popular and unpopular food combinations circling the media.
Bacon and Peanut Butter
Elvis Presley was a dominating figure in the music industry, but not so much in the food industry. Maybe because of his interesting food preferences, which included a peanut butter sandwich… with a few crispy pieces of bacon.
To achieve the full experience of the clashing flavors, we decided to omit the bread and dip one bacon chip into the peanut butter in a one to one ratio.
“Not bad” is certainly a way to describe the combination. Texturally pleasing, the creaminess of the peanut butter compliments the crunchiness of the bacon, working similarly as a spread of crunchy peanut butter.
Because the two components were so drastically different, the flavors didn’t work simultaneously. The liquid properties of the peanut butter were the first component of the snack swallowed. However, the lingering peanut taste was more than enough to contrast with the sodium levels of the bacon, causing the bacon to taste more salty than usual.
While it isn’t something either of us would go out of our way to make, it isn’t bad. Almost addicting and a combo that you have to finish eating, we ended up rating it a solid 7/10.
Hot cheetos and cream cheese
We’ve all seen the TikToks by now. The trend that sent many to the hospital: Takis and cream cheese stuffed in a jalapeno. To reduce the risk factor, we removed jalapenos from the equation and replaced Takis with Hot cheetos.
The use of both regular Philadelphia cream cheese and honey pecan cream cheese most definitely added varying flavors. We were pleasantly surprised. The crunch of the Cheeto blended into the smooth, rich cream cheese.
The spice of the Cheeto was heavily muted, while the tartness of the cream cheese was enhanced. For someone who loves that immediate spice factor, this combo might not be for you, but for people who want a less spicy chip, this is a must try.
The honey pecan added a factor of sweetness that was unexpected, but not unwelcome. The intense honey and nutty flavors from the cream cheese and the crunchy spice coming from the Hot Cheetos creates the perfect ratio of opposing flavors in the mouth.
So, we gave Hot Cheetos and cream cheese a rating of 8.5/10. This was a snack that we ended up going back to multiple times throughout our experiment.
Popcorn and Sriracha
Spicy popcorn sounds really tasty, in theory. But in reality, it was an anticlimactic tasting; we were disappointed, to say the least.
Tasting like Sriracha on styrofoam, the Sriracha overpowered any popcorn flavor. And within the Sriracha, the topnote was the vinegar, not the chili or the garlic, making the combination both sour and chunky. It had a puke-like aftertaste that lingered for moments after.
The combination excelled in both the appearance and smell categories, making it a shame that the taste was not up to par.
If the spice was cooked into the popcorn, it might have been a different story. But the dripping Sriracha made the popcorn cold and displeasing. While we wouldn’t try it again, this duo definitely was not the worst combination on this list, with a score of 4/10.
Pickles and banana
One thing for sure: pickled banana peppers taste nothing like the combination of pickles and bananas. Sour, crunchy, sweet, soft… you name it, the texture or flavor was all there. While the combination of components don’t work well together, when eaten separately, they can contribute to a meal’s greatest elements.
Even when plated to the best of our artistic ability, the combo was not appealing to the eye. The neon yellow-green pickle with the dull, light slice of banana makes possibly the worst color combination known to man. And its smell was striking, it was fuming its vinegar scent into our nostrils, already making us hesitate.
The pairing of opposing textures hits the tongue with an immediate aversion, instantly making our eyes water and a gag erupt from our throats. Not even a palate cleanser could remove the aftertaste from our taste buds. By far, pickles and bananas were the worst combination that we tried, with a rating of 0/10 from both critics.
Ice cream and soy sauce
The salty and sweet combo isn’t new; people have been adding salt to desserts in the form of salted caramel on ice cream, or even straight up salt on fruits. So the idea of soy sauce on ice cream wasn’t scary to us at all. Combining the sauce with its complete opposite, dessert, introduces a variety of new flavors to the taste buds.
Despite how absurd the notion sounded, the soy sauce’s intensely umami and salty overtones blended pleasantly with the sweet, creamy ice cream, giving each bite a nutty flavor. Although it wasn’t catastrophic, the combo did have some drawbacks.
The combo was only tasty when the proportion of soy sauce to ice cream for the meal was perfect: 1 drop of soy sauce to a spoonful of ice cream. When the ratio was achieved, it tasted similarly to vanilla extract, from the slight bitterness of the soy sauce to the sweetness of the vanilla ice cream. The ratio could quickly be disrupted, however. When this occurred, the flavor of the vanilla was entirely masked by the strong soy sauce flavors, resulting in complete disgust and the scrunching of the nose.
This concoction earned a rating of 7/10 from both food reviewers.
Frozen Berries and balsamic vinegar
The mixture of berries and balsamic vinegar has been around for many years, involved in many fruit salad recipes. It has the potential to be a delicious combination for berry lovers, with its acidic spark. The sourness of the vinegar, however, overpowered any flavor from the berries, which might have been due to the fact that the berries were of the frozen variety.
Nonetheless, the combination reminded us of a universal experience. Imagine sitting in a dumpling or sushi restaurant. You are waiting, waiting and waiting for your food to arrive. Ten minutes pass. You are so hungry that you whip out your chopsticks in your dish of black vinegar or soy sauce. You bring it to your lips and bring your tongue out to taste it. That flavor is a near exact replica of the berries and balsamic vinegar, with the bland berry being the chopstick, wood or plastic.
Berries dipped in balsamic vinegar can definitely be coined “mediocre.” It’s a snack, if you’re craving sour berries. Overall, berries and balsamic vinegar was a 6/10 experience.
Food has always been a source of creativity and personal exploration. It provides opportunities for new approaches that cater to one’s personal palate. With these new experiences comes differing opinions that will always contradict one another, but that’s one of the greatest elements of foods in the first place. Although some of these combinations may be strange and definitely out of the ordinary, these combos have the ability to connect people.
