White Castle Stuffing?

OK, once in a great while I post a negative article about food. That would be the one that I wrote advising against a tortilla recipe I tried. It was an experiment contrasting tortilla and biscuit ingredients and processes, using an electric waffle-cone maker. Chewwwy!

The White Castle burger stuffing recipe caught my eye—more for the inspirational value for an article than inclination to make a batch. (Happy Thanksgiving day and weekend, everyone!)

Naw, I'd more make fun of the stuffing than make it or eat it. Before I launch into why the recipe tickles my fancy, a more positive thought about the product is that the name reminds me of "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle", a very funny and entertaining movie. It was released in 2004 (!!), starring John Cho (Star Trek Sulu) and Kal Penn (House). Neil Patrick Harris, post-Doogie Howser and pre-How I Met Your Mother, portrays himself. It's been awhile since I saw the movie, but his gestures and verbalizing in one scene seems to be pre-Barney Stinson-ish in delivery.

I've never eaten a White Castle burger. In the distant past, I would have considered it, but I didn't live near any WC fooderies. By the time I saw any WC burgers in the frozen food sections, I lost interest in burgers, and any other kind of meat that's been processed to the point of nonrecognition. This type of meat includes sausage, pepperoni, salami, and hot dogs/baloney. I'm starting to approach the same feeling about round slices of deli meat. Not a vegetarian, Still very much a carnivore, and somewhat picky omnivore.

OK, let's get to the WC stuffing recipe! First of all—TEN burgers—no pickles. I gotta believe the people who came up with the recipe tried including the pickles and decided the result was a bust. I have a gut feeling the sodium is out of this world even without the pickles. In addition, the recipe calls for additional sodium in the form of chicken broth. The paper recipe calls for 1/4 cup of broth. (What, not enough flavor?) Oddly enough, the online recipe also calls for 1/4 cup, but it also includes text in the procedure itself to "add an additional 3/4 cup of chicken broth". Yow!

Alrighty then, the main reason the recipe attracted my attention for amusement. The ingredients made me think of prison food I'd read about awhile back—Nutraloaf, except unmolded. "Food As Punishment: Giving U.S. Inmates 'The Loaf' Persists" describes putting ingredients together, baking it, and feeding it to inmates who present disciplinary problems.

So the WC stuffing is not exactly a Nutraloaf—less sodium for one thing. It's supposed to be a pretty flavorless (tasteless?) loaf. I can visualize the WC stuffing baked in a brick form. I am mercifully omitting links to Nutraloaf recipes.