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Wednesday, November 18, 1998
Funny Foods
Collection boasts culinary creations with a sense of humor
By John Przybys
By John Przybys
Review-Journal
It all started with a bag of pinto beans that were alleged to prevent -- well, the physiological phenomenon often associated with dining on beans.
Nancy Murphy and a friend saw the bag o' beans during a visit to Death Valley nine years ago. "We just had to have it," she said.
Murphy bought the beans and put the bag on a counter in her kitchen. From then on, whenever Murphy happened across other such varieties of weird foods, she'd pick them up, too.
Today, that lonely bag of anti-flatulent beans has been joined on Murphy's kitchen counter by more than 200 other specimens of unusual, weird, odd, sometimes borderline-obscene foodstuffs.
Murphy calls them "funny foods." There's Alamo Crackers, a Texas variant of the basic animal cracker. There's canned penguin and "roadrunner eggs" candy. Scorned Woman hot sauce. Smokin' Granny butter cookies. Mashuga Nuts. Alien Ale. Even a box of Roadkill Helper.
Why collect weird foods? Why not, Murphy says.
"I don't think you choose to collect something," she says. "I think a collection chooses you and it takes on a life of its own."
Soon after displaying that first bag of pinto beans, "people noticed I had a tray (of funny foods) in my kitchen, and they started buying them for me," she says.
In fact, Murphy estimates 70 percent of her collection of foods -- which, sprawled across the counter, looks like a slew of groceries not yet put away -- was purchased for her by others.
Airport gift shops are a prime hunting ground for funny goods, Murphy notes. That's perfect for Murphy, who travels a good deal in her job as director of sales for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
And, don't misunderstand: Murphy isn't obsessive about finding funny foods. "I'm not really looking hard for it," she says, but she is happy to pick up a new item whenever she sees it.
Everything in the collection is edible, or at least once was edible, Murphy says. Not, however, that anyone would necessarily want to eat or drink them.
Take Armadillo Droppings, which, despite the unappetizing name, are dark pralines. Armadillo Droppings, like many of the items in Murphy's collection, are perfectly fine foods given a market-friendly twist by clever packaging.
The pasta, for instance, that's fashioned in the shape of a part of the male anatomy and which, the box boasts, "increases in size when cooked."
There's also pasta from Nashville fashioned in the shape of cowboy boots and hats, and pasta in the shape of artichokes that's made out of artichokes.
There's salmon and turkey jerky, Easter Bunny Bait candy, ears of popping corn that are still on the cob, candied rose petals, Humbugs peppermint candy, a gummilike candy rat and the Mashuga Nuts, a witty bit of labeling for a container of pecans.
There's a weird bluish liquid candyish drink meant, apparently, to be eaten like toothpaste from a tube, and candies shaped like nipples. There are the Smokin' Granny butter cookies featuring the photo of a smoking granny on the lid, and Angel Graham graham crackers.
There's vegemite spread from Australia, tuna and mayonnaise paste from England and canned buffalo from who knows where. There's black-eyed pea patŽ and Cowboy Caviar, a vegetable patŽ, and a jar of seasoned seaweed flavored, probably not nearly enough, with soy sauce.
Hot sauces represent a goodly portion of Murphy's collection, including Scorned Woman hot sauce and Hot Buns at the Beach, a habanero pepper sauce whose label features rear-view illustrations of muscular men. There's also a Jamaican sauce sold with a small straw hat fastened to the neck of its bottle.
There's a sauce made of Scotch bonnet peppers -- billed as the world's hottest -- whose bottle cautions the user to keep it away from pets, children, open flames and bad advice. "This is not a toy," the label underscores. "This is serious."
Regional hot sauces are staples of airport gift shops and souvenir shops throughout the South and Southwest, Murphy notes, probably "because they're sort of nonperishable."
There's a jar of Cosmic Cabbage, a sauerkraut-filled jar that's beginning to leak and which, Murphy concedes, "really worries me."
There are even beverages to go with these representatives of the food pyramid gone horribly wrong: Hair of the Dog ale, Alien Ale and Chili Beer that contains, yes, a full chili pepper submerged inside.
Murphy says she never has actually eaten any of her funny foods. Her restraint is admirable, considering she loves to cook and entertain.
"We like to have people over," she says. "We always tell everyone when they come to the house, all they have to bring is a good appetite and a good joke. We love to laugh."
And the funny collection is, for Murphy and her guests alike, reason to laugh.
"It's a giggle trap," she says. "It's like a chuckle. There aren't any belly laughs coming out of it, but people start looking and chuckle, then laugh a little bit more. It's sort of addictive. You keep looking and looking, and each piece leads to the next piece."
"No one can come in without looking at it," she says. "Everybody is sort of drawn to it. People who have been to the house 10 or 1,500 times want to know what's new."
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