Food trends that make their rounds on TikTok can never be normal—it has to be on either ends of the extreme. Either it’s unique or it’s down-right gross. From mukbang challenges to throwing ketchup on candy bars, I’ve seen some particularly strange trends over the years. For instance, a family in Virginia has gone viral for their emergency preparedness. It’s done as a family, so it’s also rather cute. In a recent video, they take it to an extreme with a canning and preservation trend the internet (and I) was not prepared for.
Posted by @anothersmithfamily on Instagram, the family’s mother shows off a can of what looks like heavily processed sausage. She states it’s “sausage from five years ago” and continues, “Let’s open it up and make my husband some breakfast.” When she goes to open the lid, you can see it was canned on April 4, 2020. She takes a sniff and says, “Smells like I just made it.” I know Vienna sausages are a thing, but I wasn’t expecting a piece of sausage that looks recently cooked. Canning sausage can be done, but after a year, the quality won’t be the best.
Next, Mrs. Smith explains it’s already cooked, so it just needs to be warmed up. It’s a little hard to believe as it plops out into a pan. But the meal gets worse when she says she’s also going to whip him up some “powdered eggs.” She whips them up by mixing water into them and then sprinkles in some freeze-dried cheese. When it’s completely cooked, she claims it’s “looking good!” in a sing-song voice, but the eggs have me gagging. The color or texture just isn’t right.
When she delivers her husband’s plate to the table, he smiles but looks a bit hesitant. I can imagine that after so many emergency preparedness meals and MREs, it feels good to go back to regular cooking. He does, however, state the breakfast is “really good” and continues to eat it, so who knows? He says that the sausage “melts in your mouth” but the “eggs are a little rough.” My money is on the texture being off.
Naturally, the internet had a heyday with the Smiths. One commenter asked, “What did he do??”, referring to the odd-looking breakfast. Another said, “I feel like I need to tell a trusted adult.” Another commenter wondered, “Is this to show us how we can still eat after the apocalypse.”
Of course, I hardly doubt the Smiths spend every meal eating like this. Just a scroll through their Instagram shows some otherworldly food choices such as freeze-dried cheeseburgers, hot dog water tea, and chicken and noodle MREs. They’re clearly making the videos in good fun because emergency food is against the norm and shows us another side of weird cooking that the internet isn’t all too familiar with. None of it looks or sounds particularly appetizing, but I bet it’d hit the spot during an apocalypse.
