fandomhigh | Retro Recipes: This Sh*t is Bananas; First Period [07/11].

"Soooooo," said Summer, once everyone was there in the home ec room and it was time for class to begin, "last week was kind of a bust, huh? Most of you were gone because of goblinnapping or peaches, I'm assuming, and I was a weird furry creature that tried to take Wayne's head. Sorry about that, Wayne. Now, I can't guarantee that I'll never try to remove your head in future classes, but I can guarantee I will not try to remove your head in today's class."

So that was reassuring, right?

"Either way, things are somewhat normal this week, at least during the day, so we can get started in earnest. Because there is literally a whole book from the '70s called Be Bold with Bananas that is every bit as awful and terrible as it sounds to get through, and we do not have a lot of time to do it.

"So, to those of you returning to my kitchen," HIII SHURRRIIII, "welcome back, and I'm sorry. And for those of you who are new....welcome. And I'm sorry. I hope you come out of this never looking at food the same way again, but, if not? Well, I'm sure Dr. Lecter would love some new patients, and I'm sure you'd be a shoe-in."

All said with the utmost love, of course.

"Without further ado, then, we're going to start out with something simple, but don't let the simpicity fool you. This one's pretty bad. I mean, whose mouth doesn't just start to water at the words 'banana candle? Let's get started.

[[ ocd is up, y'all! ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Just light it up.

Wayne

Vette

Shuri

"Now, one thing to note before we dive in," Summer started, "is that it's actually more common to see this recipe using a ring of pineapple for a base rather than jello, but, come on, if I see an opportunity to use jello, I'm going to use it. But since the rest of the recipes is pretty easy and straight forward, I'm not going to have us sit around and wait for jello to cool. I've pre-made some for you all. If you want to go with just a pineapple ring, go for it. But I've got some cranberry, some pineapple, and some lime jello here for you to choose from. I've also got a variety of cookie cutters so you guys can choose what shape you want the base to be. So pick what you'd like and we're going to spend a few minutes just getting a few bases cut, like this."

She grabbed a star-shaped cookie cutter, pressed it into one of the pans of cranberry jello, and carefully peeled it out to show them.

Once it looked like everyone had a few bases to start with, she continued. "Now, we want to go ahead and cut a circle at the center of each of our bases in the same diameter of our banana to help it stand. Then go ahead and peel your bananas, trim one side to the desired length, then go ahead and fit it into the hole."

So you literally just had an erect banana sticking out of a piece of jello and/or pineapple. Nothing awkward or phallic about that!

"If you like," Summer added, "before you put the banana in the jello, you can take a moment, slather on a little of the mayo there, and roll it around in some nuts to give it a unique texture and crunch. Or you can just leave the banana as is, and drizzle a little mayo around the top like thiiiiis so it looked like..." Okay, okay, even she was having a little trouble getting this one out with a straight face, "melted wax," ahem. "Plop a cherry on top to represent the candle's flame," ahem, "and voila! Garnish that shit with a little bit of salad greens and, duh, obviously, mayonaisse and you are good to go!

"Any questions?"

And, really, if the end result didn't get at least one of them giggling, she was going to be severely disappointed.

Number A: Apparently, the teacher was not some weird furry creature that tried to make soup out of his limbs and, worst of all, attempted to remove his head from his neck at all, but instead the girl from the T&C?

Number B: Even without the fact that all those bananas were way too curved to make effective candles in the first place, that was sort of a lot to process.

Number C: Those bananas were way too curved to make effective candles in the first place.

And Wayne was clearly having a difficult time getting his to stand up in the jello, anyway, which he really felt the need to point out was not at all metaphorical, but that would only be drawing attention to the fact, now, wouldn't it? After several failed attempts to get his banana to stand up properly, his frustration was quickly outpacing his embarrassment.

"I don't think," he finally said, frowning at his failure and unconsiously making a faint echo of his own roommate's reaction to this class last semester, "food should be made to look like other things that aren't food."

Especially not...

....candles.

Was Vette snickering like she was twelve the entire time she was doing this?

YOU BET SHE WAS. The combination of banana and mayo wasn't even overtly horrifying to her, but the phallic nature of the whole setup? Oh yeah, that was getting the reaction out of her.

"So, why do people make, um, candles out of bananas, anyway? Is there some practical purpose?"

Because they were probably too, uh, squishy, for the one that jumped immediately to mind.

"Absolutely not," said Summer, without missing a beat. "Keep in mind, this recipe dates back to the 1920s, aka the Dark Ages, when they didn't have television, they didn't have internet, they barely had phones and cars and airplanes. All they had were bananas, apparently, and a weird urge to make their food look like candles."

Which might not have been entirely accurate, but she didn't think anyone was really going to care enough to fact-check her on that.

"And I guess it just stuck around because in the '30s they were desperate, in the '50s, they were batshit crazy for weird crap like this, in the '60s, everyone was on drugs...it probably began to peter out in the '70s, then, because everyone was too traumatized by Vietnam to make banana...candles, anymore, and in the '80s, everyone was too busy doing coke and trading stocks...and then a recent resurgence, I guess, because Mormons, and the Millennial desperation to cling to a deceptively simpler and romanticized past because the world we live in now is essentially terrible, while all the generation coming up after them," here, she proudly hitched two thumbs at herself, "cares about are memes and suicide jokes because we stopped caring before we were even born."

So thanks for coming to her TED talk, 'A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Summer Smith.'

Edited 2019-07-11 15:05 (UTC)

Vette stared. And blinked.

"... I caught about half of that," she offered.

Shuri's sex ed class wasn't until later today but, "...they're really going with 'candles'? Because that is not what I see."

There's plenty of room for creativity! And it's not like there's anything about this recipe that might be slightly uncomfortable and put to mind completely different things whatsoever, right?

[[ all links are TECHNICALLY SFW. But not SFL. ]]

Who is looking smug, for some reason.

I think...

...I think someone needs to come and revoke my internet for the good of all humanity now.

NO REGRETS. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY MADE THESE.

Retro Recipes: This Sh*t is Bananas; First Period [07/11].

Sign In - RR, 07/11.

Re: Sign In - RR, 07/11.

Re: Sign In - RR, 07/11.

Re: Sign In - RR, 07/11.

Listen to the Lecture - RR, 07/11.

Re: Listen to the Lecture - RR, 07/11.

Re: Listen to the Lecture - RR, 07/11.

Re: Listen to the Lecture - RR, 07/11.

Re: Listen to the Lecture - RR, 07/11.

Re: Listen to the Lecture - RR, 07/11.

Present your Candles! - RR, 07/11.

Talk to Summer - RR, 07/11.

OOC - RR, 07/11.

Re: OOC - RR, 07/11.