Bad Food Review: Dollar Store Frozen Breakfast Hell-Shit

For the most part, I'm not so snooty or wealthy that I can look down my nose at food from the Dollar Store. Sure, they carry brands I'm pretty sure originate from a parallel universe, frozen entrees that may have been switched at birth ($1 lasagna tastes like an enchilada, but $1 enchiladas taste like lasagna), and I would definitely caution against $1 mayonnaise, some parts of me more vociferously than others. But for the most part, processed food is processed food, so buying a Hot Pocket for a buck or paying three times that at <some store that's upscale but presumably still sells Hot Pockets> is mainly a matter of what you like to waste money on. Me, I prefer beer.

That being said, I should probably have been more cautious when approaching this monstrosity: Red Baron Bacon & Cheese Mini Scrambles. Which, at least in its description, is a mouthful.

What does a WWI fighter pilot have to do with pizza or breakfast? Or, you know, anything at all?

While I've never had anything called a "scramble" (also known as a "omelet that got fucked up but is otherwise delicious") that came with a delivery vehicle made of pastry instead of like, a plate, I wasn't properly suspicious, for a few key reasons:

1. The Brand - Red Baron is a shitty pizza manufacturer of legendary renown, and has never caused me anything but mild intestinal duress.
2. Breakfast Things - When I'm in the mood to make breakfast, I will go all out and make something awesome, but I'm not in the mood, I'm really not in the fucking mood. I think most people feel this way. Hence, things like Pop-Tarts.
3. Morbid Curiosity  - Maybe I was feeling self-destructive, or hadn't seen a horrific car accident in a while, but the same impulse led me to buy this. Like I couldn't not buy it. 
4. VALUE!  - It's only ONE dollar but has THREE things? That's a good deal, I guess, based on the totally arbitrary exchange rate of not knowing what those three things even fucking are. By Grabthar's Hammer, what a savings!

One thing that might have swayed a less-savvy bargain shopper was this little piece of clever package design:

Keep frozen, but cook thoroughly? How do I do both? I WILL COOK IT WITH FREEZER BURN.

That's right. Surely this ambrosial breakfast scramble what-the-fuck is a holy trinity of flavor, balanced nutrition, and value if its packaging recommends I begin each new precious day of my increasingly finite life shoving it into my mouth. However, had I even noticed this happy, lying little clipart flag, it probably would've scared me off entirely, as it sounds less like a genuine testament of quality and more like a state-mandated subtitle on the label of Victory Gin.*

Nevertheless, I bought it, so I was going to eat it. Onto the cooking!

From past experience, I know most products like this can usually be prepared in either one of the appliances generally available to the majority of Dollar Store patrons. They can be microwaved to a half-molten, soggy mess, or burned to a crisp in a (toaster) oven. I prefer the crisp, so I dutifully turned the package over to find relevant times and temperatures.

Also available in Spanish-speaking microwaves

No such luck. There are only microwave instructions. There is, of course, a third way to heat up these kinds of things, which is to place them directly on the hot engine block of your 70s muscle car, but if  you're that kind of guy, you clearly have your shit together, and don't need instructions about fucking anything.

Undeterred, I plunged ahead. Surely the included "Crisping Strip" will prevent any sogginess, right? I remember being baffled by "Crisping Sleeves" many years ago, and though they didn't and still don't work for shit, perhaps the problem was too much mysterious reflective material. Then it was a simple matter of placing my three (!) weird little hockey pucks on the strip, and putting that whole mess on a microwave-safe plate, which I assume always means a paper plate, a paper towel, or a torn-off sheet of the Pennysaver. I went with the plate.

That looks like cheese, but how the fuck do you freeze eggs?

After microwaving for 2-3 minutes, which is charmingly vague, I was supposed to make sure the product was cooked thoroughly: presumably I would know if that were the case. However:

Wait, wasn't there supposed to be bacon?

Is that done? I don't even know. It was hot as fuck, so... I guess?

Some conclusions, in bullet-point form, because I'm lazy:

• It didn't really taste that bad. It tasted like salty fat, which makes sense given a cursory examination of the nutritional information. 
• The Nutritional Information, by the way, was hidden inside the package. Well played, Red Baron. Well played. 
• Whatever the crisping thingy is made of, it's probably just non-biodegradable garbage, because if there was one thing these sad, retarded quiches were not, it was crispy. Here are some words that are far more applicable: Chewy, tough, spongy, regrettable, suicide, etc. 

This is not, by any means, the worst frozen food item I've ever had, but unless a dystopian dictatorship actually requires it, I will not be starting each and every day with Red Baron Cheese and Something Garbage Tarts.


* Read a fucking book.