On his home planet of Armulus Four Zeta Zombort, Loaf is a guest on an intergalactic cooking show, preparing the authentic human dish "Hash Browns," and answering questions about transdimensional spatulas, flaming salads, and good recipe substitutes for snails.
Mini-Episode 7: Sustenance Party
[10 seconds of Dolphin noises]
AI voice: Translation matrix now active- Armulan to Human Standard. A certain error rate is expected.
OCU: Good morning everyone and welcome to Armulus Radio. As you can probably smell, I’m Optimized Cooking Unit and this… is sustenance party.
Host: Hello, my name is He Ee-eh Eh-ee, and today we have a very special guest here in the studio, all the way from Earth, they’re home visiting their family, please welcome Eeheehee heehee.
Loaf: Hello! It’s nice to be on the radio again.
OCU: Your last IFM 2 appearance was only four weeks ago.
Loaf: Yes, but the passage of time is confusing and subjectively inconsistent.
Host: It certainly is. So, our listeners are melting to hear all about Earth! Tell us the slimy details. Tell us everything you don’t say on your show.
Loaf: Well, I don’t spend a lot of time on Earth proper. The station is actually in orbit of a... construct? And the construct is in orbit of Earth.
OCU: But you do spend a considerable portion of your time with humans. What is one fun thing you have learned about humans that you can share with us before we begin the culinary program?
Loaf: Well, humans are still fairly new to space travel, compared with us. They still haven’t had time to glom together into one monoculture, so there’s still lots of different kinds of humans. But one interesting thing I’ve noticed is they all love hoarding useless objects. And bestowing them upon each other for various reasons!
Host: That is fascinating. Well, since this is Sustenance Party, it’s time to prepare nutrients for consumption. So I hear you have a human recipe you’d like to share with us. What will it be today? Perambulated Eggs? Mark Ruffalo Chicken? Meat Fries?
Loaf: So a lot of the dishes you find in human restaurants are not actually enjoyed by humans themselves. This is something I’ve actually encountered on most of the worlds I’ve visited, actually. Cuisine gets localized and twisted into a strange and terrifying perversion of its former self. But today I’ll be teaching you how to make an authentic human dish. They call it “Hash Browns”.
OCU: Library circuits indicate this is a meal traditionally eaten at the beginning of the day, is that correct?
Loaf: Traditionally yes, and it's served with fried avian eggs, but personally I like to eat them morning, noon, and night.
Host: Alright, let’s brown some hash. Get your olfactory muscles ready, listeners.
Loaf: Okay, so potatoes are a very popular earth foodstuff. They’re hard to get here, so I’m going to use the closest thing I could find- Kloptor grubs! Potatoes are basically the Kloptor grubs of Earth anyway.
Host: Interesting. So are these “potatoes” eaten live or do the humans generally kill them first?
Loaf: Actually, humans almost universally prefer their food to be dead when they eat it. Also, unlike Kloptor grubs, potatoes are actually a member of the plant family.
OCU: It would seem that substituting a large insect for a plant would not make for a recognizable dish.
Loaf: You would think that, but I made them this way for my broodlings and they were very popular. I think when you fry something in enough oil and salt, all other distinctions become meaningless.
Host: I didn’t realize they had oil and salt on Earth!
Loaf: The mineral composition of the salt is different, and obviously each planet has many kinds of cooking oil, but it tastes the same to me.
Host: Alright, well let's get started. What’s the first step?
Loaf: Well, first we’re going to “peel” our “potatoes”- by which I mean remove the exoskeletons.
*Insectoid screaming*
OCU: I thought you said the grubs were dead?
Loaf: I did request dead grubs.
Host: Well, that’s probably my fault. It was just such a weird request I decided to ignore it. Can I borrow that electro-neutralizer?
[catches a heavy object, followed by a zapping sounds and the cessation of the insectoid screaming.]
Host: Alright, all set. Let’s get those exoskeletons off. It seems that eating food after killing it is a particularly brutal practice. Why induce unnecessary suffering when the first stomach will dissolve their brain stems so quickly and painlessly?
Loaf: Ah, human stomachs only contain various acids and microbial communities, so the dissolution process takes many hours longer. Occasionally they do eat certain foods live, such as goldfish and “gummy worms”.
OCU: Human anatomy is gross and therefore interesting. Now, I would like to note that the exoskeletons should not go to waste. They can be repurposed in a number of interesting and useful ways.
Host: This is true! I like to put them in stock, but my fourth proto-husband, they like to grind them up and make an exfoliating scrub. It’s very useful to remove the slime after a long day in the pits, as it leaves the membrane a nice, slithering green.
Loaf: Okay… now while we shred the “potatoes” let's put some oil in the pan and get it nice and hot. As you can smell, the heated oil has a different aroma than the non-heated oil. The smell is hotter, and therefore more voluptuous.
Host: Now, I smell that you also have a bowl of plant mass.
*sizzling*
Loaf: I do. These are “onions” which were extremely difficult to get through customs, by the way. The onion, which is a root vegetable, is ubiquitous in many human cuisines because it is in the dirt and therefore cheap. They are also one of the only vegetables that tastes even more delicious when grown in radioactive soil, which contributed to an onion surplus about two hundred years ago. So, while customs was difficult, it was fairly easy to cheaply acquire three tons for my broodlings.
Host: Is it true that these ‘onions’ can cause extreme weeping?
Loaf: Ah yes! Humans are well known for preparing and consuming foods that make them physically uncomfortable or injured. Take the pineapple, for example, which is full of hazardous enzymes that eat away at the lining of their single, horrible mouths. Listeners, I am going to begin slicing the onions now, which is going to produce a smell that may be unsafe for work. While the fumes of the onion cause unrestrained weeping in many humans, it has many properties in common with Armulan aphrodisiacs. These fumes break down in the pan to become suitable to feed your broodlings, but I would caution against having them in the kitchen while it’s being made!
Host: It’s true, it’s quite arousing. How strange that humans are so fragile that they are brought to complete emotional chaos by a chemical of true seduction!
OCU: These “onions” have a similar flavor to Armulan sea kelp, although they soften as heat is applied, unlike kelp, which is known to become harsh and weaponlike.
Loaf: Now that the onions are sliced, we can add them to our heated oil, along with about a quarter teaspoon of salt. As the OCU said, we must let them soften some before adding the grubs, which increases their flavor.
Host: How will we know the onions are ready?
Loaf: The onions will become translucent as the heat is applied, at which point we can add the grubs. This may take several minutes.
Host: While we wait, let's answer some listener questions!
Loaf: Oh, I didn’t realize you did listener questions. That… kind of feels a lot like work? I am on vacation.
Host: Our questions are about cooking and cuisine, Which should be a fun departure from the fraught inquiries you face.
Loaf: Alright, just as long as there’s no infidelity or cultural confusion.
OCU: Oh, you joker. Question 1: What’s the best kind of spatula to use for transdimensional pancakes?
Host: Do you have any feelings about this one?
Loaf: Well, I prefer transdimensional waffles myself, but if you are making pancakes I would probably use a spatula that exists in all universes simultaneously. I think the Spatulon 4000 is pretty good for that, plus, according to my friend Janet, you can also use it to rig a Do-it-yourself paradox detector.
Host: That’s good advice! I would also make sure its a duranium-composite, because when your pancakes passes through the so-called “hell dimension” it can melt most lesser metals. Alright, that was fun. What’s next?
OCU: Question 2: I keep burning myself while making salad. What should I be doing differently?
Loaf: Maybe I’ve been away too long, but I am not sure we’re working with the same definition of “salad” here.
Host: You have been away quite a while. Flaming salads are very hot right now. Proverbially. Also literally.
Loaf: Oh. Well, I will have to, uh, try that. But I am not equipped to help this person.
Host: It’s alright. I’ll take it. We actually have a whole segment on flaming salads coming up later this week, but for now, I’ll just leave you with this little tidbit: asbestos aprons. Surprisingly affordable. From the smell of things it looks like we have time for one more question.
OCU: Question 4-
Host: Hold up! We skipped three.
OCU: Three was frivolous. Question 4: I just started my fifth molt, and now every time I eat snails, I get hives. I miss my beta-parent’s home cooking. What are some substitutes we can use so I can keep enjoying our traditional recipes?
Loaf: This is not an uncommon problem for fifth molts. I went through something similar, actually. What I discovered, and this may not be true for you, was that it was actually just the mucuspedal glands of the snails that I was allergic to. Removing those and washing them thoroughly cleared it up. But if that doesn’t work for you, there are a lot of snail recipes that can be made with a combination of mushrooms, larvae, and the shells of crustaceans ground up for texture.
Host: Larvae really is a miracle food. And ground crustacean shells are pretty tasty too. So it looks like we’re ready to add our “potatoes”, this part takes a while, doesn’t it?
Loaf: About fifteen minutes, depending on the quantity and the size of the pan. But we have a finished batch here ready for us to taste- and for all of you to smell. Let’s take them out, shall we?
OCU: My sensors indicate that this both tastes and smells delicious. I wish that I could consume and enjoy the fruits of my labor meaningfully, but I am but an optimized cooking unit, not an optimized tasting unit.
Host: Oh, OCU, you say that every time!
OCU: Were that I could produce a wistful sigh. This simulation will have to do. *wistful sigh*
Host: Well, that’s all the time we have for today. Big thanks to Eeeheehee for joining us! As I like to say at the end of every show, may your taste buds quiver in anticipation of the mushroom goddess and her bountiful harvest!
Solutions to Problems was created by Austin Hendricks and Nathan Comstock. It is produced and musically scored by Michael F. Gill. Season 3 was written by Austin, Nathan, and Michael. This mini-episode features Nathan Comstock as Loaf, Optimized Comstock Unit as the OCU, and Android F. Gill as the host. There’s more information about us at stppodcast.com, where you can find full transcripts of every episode, as well as links to support us through PayPal and/or Radiopublic. We’ll be back again in two weeks with another mini-episode. See you then!