![]() That it’s through the medium of a microwaveable meat parcel doesn’t even matter. But maybe they’ve watched every single episode of The Great Food Truck Race and it would mean the world to them to taste any of the dishes they’ve only experienced through a screen. They don’t get to experience celebrity chef-owned restaurants, or monthly food festivals, or an army of Kogi trucks. doesn’t get to participate in it in the same way. Someone living in Montana who consumes mainstream food culture on the same scale as someone in L.A. And I’m sure that’s the case for tons of other people out there. Some of us only had Hot Pockets.Īnd if I try to remove myself from this ridiculously indulgent job-one that allows me to eat the best food across one of America’s best food cities and spew my opinions from a keyboard-and put myself back into 12-year-old me’s head, the food-truck Hot Pockets would have been like Christmas in a crisping sleeve. Some kids didn’t grow up with grandmas who baked pies. But sitting on the couch, alone, watching Bobby Flay turn and burn rib-eyes on TV with a Hot Pocket in my hand is the happiest, strongest, most vividly ubiquitous food memory I have. When I say the frozen Hot Pocket smell reminded me of the happiest days of my childhood, I don’t mean that in the “smiling kid frolicking in a sun-drenched meadow” kind of way. Sliding the frosty flavor log into the crisping sleeve was interactive and made me feel a part of the cooking process, they were hand-holdable so I could easily flip back and forth from ESPN to the Food Network, and the infinite variety of flavors made me feel like I had power and control over a small part of my life. It was either Tina’s burritos, Budget Gourmet pastas, Lean Cuisines, Hungry Mans (Hungry Men?), or-you guessed it-Hot Pockets.Īs delicious as Stouffer’s boneless rib meal was, nothing compared to a perfectly nuked Hot Pocket. Like millions of other kids born in the 90s, I was raised by a single parent who worked full-time-plus and had a long commute, which meant dinner was whatever microwaveable box of food was on sale at the grocery store. ![]() But it did, and since there’s no climbing out of the rabbit hole now, we might as well dig deeper. It’s pretty fucked when your emotional catharsis comes by way of a freezer-burnt calorie pillow. Right? And if you feel gross reading that, think about how I feel. I smelled the Hot Pocket and it instantly transported me back to the happiest days of my childhood. Something so cringeworthily cliche that, if it weren’t one-hundred-percent true, I would want to punch myself in the face for even thinking about putting it on paper. When I unsheathed the first slab of dough, something embarrassing happened. The plan was to take them back to the office, pop them in the microwave, make my coworkers eat them, then, I don’t know, stand around the proverbial water cooler and gloat about how high our personal food standards are or something. Madder than I’ve ever been about freezer-aisle pastries, I went to the store and grabbed every food truck-inspired Hot Pocket I could find. This was a softball begging to be rage-hit out of the park, and if you can’t totally rail against a faceless monopoly putting no thought and effort into foodie trend exploitation, what can you rail against? I wanted to go straight-up scorched earth. They come in such clumsy, chef-inspired flavors as Spicy Asian-Style Beef (tastes like Asia!) and Triple Cheesy Bacon Melt. ![]() ![]() Hot Pockets has a new line of frozen meat sleeves that were inspired by popular food trucks. ![]()
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