Honeyed Words: Science Fiction Party Food

Science Fiction Party Food – Part 2 · 27 June 2007

Picture of Cocktails

This is the second installment of my entry for Stephanie’s Sci-Fi Blog Party. After snacking on the Oozing Flying Saucers and Tentacle Creatures made in the first installment, you’ll need something nice and refreshing to wash them down (or something nice and mind numbing to help you forget that you just ate something with “tentacle” in the title).

I took the alien concepts I outlined in my first post and incorporated them into a mocktail and a cocktail. After my experiences in making both, I’m going to add “surprising” to my list of definitive characteristics of alien food.

I decided that I wanted tapioca pearls for one of my cocktail drinks. I thought they would add a nice squishy and slimy texture to the mocktail. Now, I’ve never made tapioca pudding, much less attempted to boil the sort of gummy pearly gobs you’d find in “bubble tea,” so I looked around for some recommendations on how to prepare the pearls.

It seemed pretty straightforward. Combine tapioca and water, boil, let sit, drain. What the good people over at Bubble Tea Supply forgot to mention is that you need to stir the tapioca constantly, and boil on the gentlest of settings.

I was never more surprised than when my previously well behaved tapioca changed from a polite boil to a roiling volcanic explosion of clumpy pearls in less than 10 seconds. Even more outstanding was that the boiling didn’t stop when I turned off the burner, nor when I removed the pan from the burner entirely and and put it in the sink. It wasn’t until I watched it spit and hiss at me for about 20 seconds, and finally doused it with cold water, did the tapioca finally calm down.

Alien food indeed! It seemed to violate the very laws of food thermodynamics.

My second surprise in experimental food was with (yet another bowl of) Jell-O®. Did you know that Jell-O® will form a beautiful crystalline crust when frozen? Me neither. I attempted to save this beauty and float it on top of the Swamp Monster Cocktail, but it ended up cracking during my attempt. I did discover that frozen Jell-O® floats, but it looked so ugly, all mashed and mangled from my unwieldy cutting, that I ended up just using the normal refrigerated Jell-O® as sort of a marshy bottom for the cocktail.

The alien results are pictured above. The Earthly goods are pictured below.

The aliens must not have taken my good natured tribute to their possibly culinary activities in stride. After years of virus free operation, I picked up a particularly hard to remove bug on my computer. I believe it may have been planted in the tapioca and spread to my computer via shrapnel from the earlier volcanic explosion in my kitchen.

Also, after a run of supremely enjoyable books, I started one that may not pass the 50 page test. Again, I blame aliens, somehow they infiltrated the random used book store that I visited in Hillcrest and convinced me that out of all the possible gems on the shelves, I needed this one. (Yes, I’ve already ordered my tinfoil-lined lead helmet to prevent future such instructions being transmitted directly to my brain).

Honeyed Words returns to more “serious” endeavors with the next installment. In the meantime, those pining for a bit of the normal routine can check out my latest posted review on, A Clash of Kings.

Picture of Cocktail Ingredients