I came across something that's been sitting in the back of my closet for at least two years now. Given that this 'something' is edible, that's probably not a good thing. Expiration dates and spoiled food aside, the scariest part of this special something is the mere fact that it exists. Many of you have seen the infamous Hello Kitty Vibrator. Did you know that the stupid cat had her own line of Salisbury steak?
Now, I don't know if it's actually a Salisbury steak. Hello Kitty's holding this plate of meat on the box art, and that's what it looks like. This could be something entirely different, but it's certainly made from animals and it's certainly Japanese. I don't know what Hello Kitty's saying in that word balloon, but after seeing what was inside, my best guesses are 'Danger: Poison!', or 'Give To Your Worst Enemy.' I'm pretty sure an X-E reader sent me this with the Kinder Eggs years back, but it's entirely possible that this thing just materialized like that puzzle cube from Hellraiser, just waiting for an unsuspecting victim to unleash it's unholy terror on. Guess I'm the victim.
The meaty meat is protected by a silver foil pouch, which would actually be kind of pretty in its own little way if it didn't have alien spew inside. That whole thing about not judging books from their covers works both ways. This Hello Kitty snack might look cute, but as we're about to find out, cute sometimes masks pure evil. Now that I think about it, I've always been a little suspicious of Hello Kitty. She seems so sweet on the surface, but how many times have you seen her actually hang out with Chococat? Damn racist. I hope that green frog all the high school girls have on their t-shirts swallows her whole.
The box also contained a set of Hello Kitty gift tag stickers. I think it was meant to keep you from suing the Hirohoshiwakka Wakka Food Corporation for feeding you rat shit in a silver bag.
You may want to rethink this. Put the kids to bed. Don't continue reading if you get queasy easily, are pregnant, nursefeeding, or under 5'2".
Okay, maybe it's not really vomit. Maybe making food look like this is how Japan keeps their kids so skinny.
Upon closer inspection, there's a few larger chunks of 'meat' within the 'digestive fluids', right next to the small chunks of blue stuff that just has to be 'dog eyeballs.' I can't read the box, so I have no idea how this stuff is supposed to be cooked. Then again, even if I did, there's little chance I'm going to eat two-year-old defrosted Japanese steak that I found in the back of my closet. A guy's gotta have limits.
Don't worry about my kitten - I only let her have a bite or two before wrapping up this shit in a radioactive waste bag and mailing it back to Japan. Still, I can't help but notice that the cat now has three eyes, two tails, and the ability to hum the theme song from 227. Maybe I should've let her eat more of it. Maybe she would've turned into some kind of mutant Super-Cat, ultimately ending up so famous that she gets to market her own brand of fermented steak just like Hello Kitty. Maybe not. This stuff is god awful. I'm not advocating the dropping of any more atomic bombs over there, but I'd be lying if I said the thought didn't cross my mind. Between this crud and Pearl Harbor, I'm ready to boycott negamaki and smelt egg altogether.
REPLIES: 33 comments
WoW, what can be said about that hidden desire to open food that is way past the date.. Hell what can i say i was in the Navy and had to eat MRE, Just think about eating something that dates back to WWII. NOw that is some "Good Eats"
Chestnuts roasted by Issac johnston @ 11/06/2002 08:45 PM EST
Isaac: if you come back, PLEASE tell me the intricities of the elusive MREs because I've been obsessed with the things for years. This camping/army surplus catalog I used to get always sold them, and I've long wondered how they were. I must know!
Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 11/06/2002 08:47 PM EST
Mres aren't as bad as all that. The hot dogs are a bit rough, but the one time I ate them I was in ROTC and had been walking all day. I could have eaten ANYTHING and said it was good. They were salty and full of dead animal goodness.
The creamed, or crushed pears were good, I more or less drank them while carrying an M-16 with my off hand.
You can also make things called MRE bombs, which are made by putting the crushed insta-heating bits of an MRE into a coke-bottle or something similar and adding some water. At least, that's close to the way I remember making 'em. They explode loudly but do no real damage. But it's incredible fun to do for no real reason other than you've got a spare MRE heater.
I've also eaten K-, or was it C-rations. Basically really old food from before MREs were invented, which my dad, being an army reservist, had down in the basement. It was actually pretty damn good, aside from the chocolate bar, which was scary.
Chestnuts roasted by Bill Hannings @ 11/06/2002 11:27 PM EST
Oh man. That Hello Kitty vomit stuff must be REALLY bad if YOU said it was beyond your limits. I mean, you ate Nads for Christ sakes.
On another note, it really does look like cat food. A lot. Wet cat food is so nasty. There's nothing like opening a can of wet cat food to make me quesy. I swear, where do you get all this crap?
Also, I actually remember that GI Joe vehicle. That, Trypticon, some video games, and Voltron are pretty much the only stuff I remember from the 80's.
Wow. This message was a deffinite ramble.
Chestnuts roasted by Speedy Service @ 11/06/2002 11:45 PM EST
i'm sure it's been discussed before on xe and i just haven't read it yet, but does anyone remember the gi joe space shuttle? as i recall (and my memory is a bit fuzzy) the thing was almost as tall as me and cost nearly as much as a real space shuttle. this thing was huge. only the richest kids on the block got one, and when they did you'd definately hear about it. "oh nice viper, alex. i bet, oh say 34 of those could fit in my SPACE SHUTTLE." i still, to this day, think my life would've turned out better had i aquired one.
Chestnuts roasted by alex kidd @ 11/07/2002 08:55 AM EST
Being from a military family, I've eaten my fair share of MREs. Last ones I ate was when my brother was in the reserves and sent me a duffle full of them in college. Nothing like gettin drunk eating nasty-ass food with a bunch of people who'd never eaten a hamburger hockey-puck.
Now, this is strictly from memory, but this is what you'd be likely to find in a pack:
Every pack of MREs come in the "surprise package" format of thermo-sealed brown bags. Although each said the name of what was inside, it was NEVER quite what you expected.
A packet of meat-like substance that looked very similar to the Hello-Kitty thing. Depending on what you got, some of these weren't too bad (most of the less-sauced poultry dishes were edible, but stay away from any of the beef ones). However, you can only eat something that looked like cat food so many times before the leg of the guy you were sitting next to started looking appetizing. Remember, this comes from someone who wasn't actually IN the military, so could have actually gone to get something else to eat... there must be something in the freeze-drying process that makes your friend's leg look that much more like leg of lamb.
A "side" dish. These ranged from good (applesauce) to ludicrous (mashed potatoes with gravy -- as appealing as it sounds). Then, there were the strange ones... like candy and "chocolate bars" (think a brick, with a little less flavor, but colored to look like a piece of especially dark crap).
Then came the staple of any good MRE -- the crackers and the topping for the crackers. The crackers generally had a stale taste to them, but when topped with the jam, peanut butter, or chez (think cheese-whiz in a squeeze tube), they were pretty good. Of course, this is relative to eating the rest of the stuff in the MRE, so it's kind of like saying that getting a papercut is good compared to being castrated by a dull pair of scissors... we're talking scale, here.
Next, you'd get a dessert, which was generally some sort of cookie, or maybe apples or some other fruit (always vacuum-sealed with some sort of sauce). Oddly enough, these were pretty good. The cookies tended to be a little tough, but all in all, you didn't really hate eating them, and I'd rank them a little above the crackers.
A powdered beverage. This and the one I'm saving for last were the real reason I think the name "Meals Ready to Eat (MRE)" is kind of misleading. You got a packet of powder, which was generally hot chocolate, but unless you REALLY like eating chocolate powder straight, you were pretty much stuck if you didn't have a canteen handy. Plus, mixing this with beer DOESN'T TASTE GOOD... just thought you'd like to know. All in all, this was pretty standard fare -- they probably just got Swiss Miss or something and put it in the packets.
Next thing you got was a little bottle of hot sauce. And I mean LITTLE. But these were cool because they're only about 3/4 - 1 inch tall, and when you have a dozen lined up on your desk, you're thought of as pretty damn cool from that point forward. Either that, or people like you because you've got the fake ID. Either way, pretty snazzy. It's kind of like getting a good toy in a Happy Meal -- if the food in the Happy Meal tasted like crap. Oh, wait, it's EXACTLY like getting a good toy in a Happy Meal.
Finally, you get the accessory pack. This included a set of waterproof napkins, a "pack" of toilet paper (it was literally enough to wipe maybe half a butt cheek -- and it was single-ply. Cheap Bastards). It also included tea and/or instant coffee (same principal as the "beverage packet"), salt, sugar, and my personal favorite, a pack of the smallest chicklets (gum for the uneducated or uncaring) known to man.
And that there was the MRE. The most fun you could have for $5. I seriously recommend you buy one to do an article on.
But wait, as an extra special feature, the scariest thing to find when you opened your MRE:
THE HAMBURGER HOCKEYPUCK OF DOOM!!!
You knew you were screwed when you open your packet and you see the circular bumpy outline of a hamburger in the vacuum-sealed pouch. Because these things are hamburgers only in the loosest sense of the word. First off, they're dehydrated... meaning that unless you like your meat EXTREMELY dry, you're going to need to boil them, kind of killing the whole "Ready to Eat" concept. Now, imagine if you will taking one of those styrofoam-tasting rice cakes, coloring it an off-gray color, and boiling it. That is what you ended up with to eat as your main course. A mushy grey rice cake. It was at least as nasty as it sounds. The good news is that these things flew well -- so a game of hallway frisbee was always guaranteed whenever you got one of these (replacing the tabasco sauce as my favorite MRE toy). The other good news is that since they knew they pretty-well screwed you with the hamburger, the meals with this thing always included the best sides... so you weren't entirely out of luck.
Chestnuts roasted by Chris Rouillard @ 11/07/2002 10:24 AM EST
D'oh!!! I meant "waterproof MATCHES" in the accessory pack. Waterproof napkins, as neat as they'd be, wouldn't be too effective.
Chestnuts roasted by Chris Rouillard @ 11/07/2002 10:28 AM EST
Jesus christ. I got queazy just looking at it one the screen. That shit is disgusting and I eat cannibal sandwiches every sunday. If you don't know what that is the ingredients are raw hambuger, rye bread, onions, and pepper. A great Wisconsin delicacy.
Chestnuts roasted by Nathan Melby @ 11/07/2002 10:45 AM EST
Wow, this went from a Hello Kitty article to the various ingredients of MRE's. I'm amazed, and I now know to stay the hell away from both.
Chestnuts roasted by Tim @ 11/07/2002 01:38 PM EST
Hey are you sure this is soup?
It looks like curry to me. Japanese curry, you can put it on rice and eat it.
I don't know why there are chunks of steak in it. That's just wrong!
Chestnuts roasted by Dominique nomura @ 11/07/2002 02:20 PM EST
i'd eat it.
Chestnuts roasted by xxxcurrymanxxx @ 11/07/2002 05:07 PM EST
Oh really yummy stuff. Should be force fed to someone who deserves it, like Carrot Top.
Chestnuts roasted by Nancy @ 11/07/2002 07:31 PM EST
I'd hit it.......2 TIMES!
Chestnuts roasted by bunnymud @ 11/07/2002 07:52 PM EST
reminds me of tremors 2. the mre's. not the hello kitty food. i think it probably must have been cat food. much like garfield has (or had) a line of cat food here in the good us of a. do they have pet cats in japan? i think i would rather eat the food we feed our cats than the hellow kitty food...
Chestnuts roasted by Jasen @ 11/07/2002 10:27 PM EST
The katakana on the package actually identifies it as "Hamburger Curry"... You're supposed to put this stuff on rice before eating it; even if you dilute it with about eight pounds of steamed rice it's still hot enough to boil away your head and most of your upper torso. This is supposedly kiddy stuff though, so it might be a little less hot.
In the Japanese curry place I went to for awhile they would serve you curry rated from 0-10 on the hot scale, but to get anything above level 5 you had to sign a release. Level three, the highest I went, was the rough equivalent of gulping down burning gasoline.
Chestnuts roasted by Byydo @ 11/08/2002 01:45 AM EST
I was lucky.
In the Navy we never had MREs.
Cooked food.
It wasn't particularly GOOD food, but it wasn't bad either.
Our idea of roughing it was potato chips, cold beans, and boglona & cheese sandwiches.
Hell, a couple times overseas, people from other ships came on ours to eat.
But Beer on the Pier? Those were the good days overseas. Pay a buck or two, get a couple of beers and some grilled burgers.
Beer and grilled hamburgers are love.
Chestnuts roasted by Bloodcat @ 11/08/2002 04:13 AM EST
I am a self avowed Hello Kitty obsessive. It's almost as if Hello Kitty symbolizes something more than we're led to believe, like she's really a secret religious totem and an evil cult worships her. Just think about this for a moment: Hello Kitty has no mouth. And she has no fingers so she can't sign. She's like that mouthless girl in Twilight Zone the movie, probably the scariest movie of my childhood.
Now chew on this a moment. A person could, potentially, live their ENTIRE LIVES swathed in nothing but Hello Kitty merchandise at all times, and never have to touch anything without her chilling mouthless face on it. Harrowing thought, isn't it? They even make Hello Kitty cars in Japan.
So, I worship Hello Kitty, not because she is a benign and benevolent goddess, but because she is jealous and wrathful, and the salisbury steak is proof that she is infinitely crueller than Kali on a bad day. And I don't want to get on her bad side.
Chestnuts roasted by Max @ 11/08/2002 04:26 AM EST
Did you ever get the idea that maybe they put Hello Kitty on the front trying to tell you that it's CAT meat in there? It is from Japan...
Chestnuts roasted by Cara @ 11/08/2002 08:18 PM EST
There was a Hello Kitty vibrator?
...
I feel ill.
Chestnuts roasted by The Mysterious Dr. X @ 11/09/2002 12:42 PM EST
You can even buy one...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1785590203 (or just search Ebay...you can always find 'em there)
That steak stuff frightens me though...
Chestnuts roasted by Kitty @ 11/09/2002 04:47 PM EST
This proves that there is life on other planets. You have found ALIEN INTESTANAL FLUIDS!!! Coincidentally, this also proves that Hello Kitty is pure evil, but, we knew that, right?
Chestnuts roasted by KevinG @ 11/09/2002 07:40 PM EST
there are TWO hello kitty vibrators
Chestnuts roasted by yes @ 11/10/2002 09:06 PM EST
In Reference to ther person who mentioned the G.I. Joe Space Shuttle...there were actually two. My brother had the smaller of the two. And if memory serves, it's dimensions were rougly: 18 inches wide, 32 inches long, 7 inches high. ok, those are complete guesses, but it sounds reasonably accurate. The cockpit held three Joes rather well (until the clips holding the canopy on broke). In the back, you could stand about 8-10 Joes, but stuff in a whole ton. It had two bay doors (like those on the real shuttle) that broke with ease given that you drop the thing once (it was quite heavy for a kid's toy). And on the bottom was a little escape hatch should you ever feel the need to bail out of a speeding shuttle in the middle of space. It also had some small wings and maybe a tip on the nose...I don't remember because in all likelyhood, they broke off within a week.
But the best part of this monster? It floated. It floated very well. And with it's hefty size and mass, a good throw would send this thing surging across an entire pool only to crack the tiles on the opposite side. Good times.
Then there was the "big" shuttle. My brother and I never had it and my friend Shaun that always played G.I. Joe with us opted to get the enormously massive battleship that cost about the same price as the big shuttle and was at a comparable size, only horizontal, and had room for multiple Joe planes to dock. The Big Shuttle, though, had a place to mount the shuttle my brother had (which in all honesty was pretty big to begin with). All in all, you're looking at a toy the average 6 year old has absolutely no use for. And in fact, i'm willing to bet there were numerous injury reports at hospitals simply from the damn thing tipping over and crushing poor Junior's skull.
This is all just how i remember it. If i'm wrong, so be it.
Chestnuts roasted by Scott @ 11/11/2002 12:05 PM EST
Can you get Tom & Jerry and Tweety cooked ham there? The Tweety variety is shaped as the head of the bird with dark parts for eyes and mouth.
Chestnuts roasted by F-13 @ 11/14/2002 07:15 AM EST
Actually, the word bubble says "a fun mascot is inside!" and the other thing below that says something that I can only translate as "the hamburgers became big!" >_> If that clears anything up.
Chestnuts roasted by Ri @ 11/14/2002 06:02 PM EST
I think that constitutes cruelty to animals. Wait... Its from an oriental country... Maybe your cat smelled a ground up distant relative in that stuff.
Chestnuts roasted by The God of All Media @ 11/21/2002 04:57 PM EST
that was the funniest thing i have ever red....and i didnt know there was 2 hello kittie vibrators...that rules
Chestnuts roasted by jessica @ 12/23/2002 07:02 AM EST
ok hey the GI Joe space shuttle... let me racall it by memory, it was pretty damn big altho i don't recall the weight of it, because we wher not allowed to play with it, nor do i really trcall any of it's features, i am 23 now, and i think was in 3rd grade, when i seen it, so i was probably like 8... anyways, i am pretty bad with estimations dealing with feet, so let me say, it was almost as long as a guitar, and it had some sort of space station thing around it, it was like probably as tall as my knee is now, and probably like as wide as an 18 pack of bud lite cans.... eeeewwwwww, sorry for the crappy anaolgy, i don't drink them, but these chicks came over the other day, and they bought one... anyway, i don't really recall the specifics, but i think it had like a smaller space shuttle that hooked up to it some how, or maybe even fit inside the cargo doors, or somethingm but i do remmeber it was built pretty flimsy, and the small things on the hanger or space station or what ever it was did fall off pretty easily, i think this is the bigger of the 2 space shuttles, but i am not certain, it is hard to imagine anything bigger, and if it was the smaller one, then OMG, how friggen cool would that have been! but this kid had everything, and got anything he wanted like the day it came out too! it wasn't like he had to wait till the price went down or anything... i only had a few GI joes, and i thnk the only vehicle i had was the black cobra tank that was pretty small it was like taller in the front, and had a seat for the driver, and one joe could stand in the machine gun turrette... now the dude that had the space shuttle, you probably would have guessed his name was Greg, and he lived across the street from me in balair trailer park in Browns Mills, NJ, he was an only child, and had the blue cobra harrier, and the tiger force one, remember them? they wher the cobra vehicles that wher supposedly shot down, and recovered by the joes, they wher like painted like a yellow tiger camo patern, and had panels with like bullet holes in them and stuff, he also had some sort of jeep thing that had a missle launcher on the back... and like the plane that had the drop down cockpit... this dude had like every single GI joe, and cobra dude you can think of too! he sucked! he got just about everything he wanted too! if you know him, kick his ass! he deserves it, he had everything he ever wanted growing up, he is like a year older than me... i agree with you alex kidd, i also beleive my life would have turned out better had i aquired one! and as far as the hello kitty food goes, i thought baby food came in jars? or maybe that stuff is pumpkin pie filling for use with the easy bake oven? well actually i just scrolled up, and looked at the picture again, maybe not.... maybe someone ate a tv dinner that had creamed corn, and salisbury steak, and they didn't eat the cherry cobler, thats why there is no red in it... and then they drank an 18 pack of bud lite, and puked, and decided to package it, and being hello kitty is a cat, it was some sort of plot to like sprinkle it in front of her house to attract defenseless baby birds looking for regurjitated food? it's just a thought....
Chestnuts roasted by Anthony P. Husarenko @ 12/23/2002 08:10 AM EST
LoL i have a choco cat sanrio charecter but hello shitty kitty vomit wow it makes me want to eat it not!
Chestnuts roasted by Jeff @ 06/09/2003 06:29 PM EST
I was in the US Air Force for 6 years and ate a few cases of MREs. They weren't too bad, as long as you didn't have to eat them consecutively (breakfast, lunch & dinner) for too long.
My worst moment was eating an MRE, that came with a pack of M&Ms. I ate the dinner, I think it was eggs & ham, and starting popping the M&Ms. It was a commercial bag of M&Ms, and they had a contest on the package, WIN TICKETS TO THE OLYMPICS.
Out of boredom, I begun reading the fine print. It's for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. This was in 1996.
Chestnuts roasted by Greg @ 07/06/2003 02:35 AM EST
she is a racist she never shows choco cat on her show when choco is awsome
Chestnuts roasted by jeffo @ 07/25/2003 05:23 PM EST
and I thought that "I" had crazy shit in my closet
Chestnuts roasted by bulletproof moth @ 08/21/2003 11:09 PM EST
hellow kitty stupid
Chestnuts roasted by jonathan @ 09/16/2004 06:44 AM EST
