#410 Edible dishes

Neil Pasricha

Let’s get tasty.

Save yourself some work, save yourself some time, and let’s gobble up the dishes our food’s packed up in:

• Ice cream cones. Bubble gum ice cream from Baskin Robbins was a staple of my childhood and I’d always get it in a cup to save the chalky pink frozen gum for the end. One day I switched up my game and went wild with a sugar cone instead… and after that there was no looking back. That cone is like three meals in one: ice-cream only appetizer, cream-n-crunch entrée, and a final mini-goblet of bubbly melted dessert. Check please!

• Chili bread bowls. Once in a while a local diner will try plain soup in bread bowls but the wet mess that results from a hot ladle of chicken noodle poured into a stale bun is beyond awful. No, let’s hold hands here today and stick with chili and chowder.

• Frankensteins. Sometimes you go mad scientist and whip up an edible monster. Lightning crashes out the window of your dark kitchen as you cackle and unveil scrambled eggs and bacon wrapped in a pancake or a cold leftover hamburger squirted with ketchup and wrapped in a giant lettuce leaf. Not bad, not bad.

• Edible beer bottles. Okay, maybe these haven’t been invented yet but I think it’s only a matter of time. Sip, sip, crunch, crunch, stay on the couch. Think about it, Doritos.

• That creamy spinach dip in the big brown bread. This is a staple of any snooty party and you’ll score massive yuppie points for bringing it with some stinky cheese or dark salamis. And don’t worry about the nutritional content here because those thin ribbons of spinach stirred into that mayo soup totally take away the guilt, too.

• Almosts. These are foods you don’t always eat from a dish but also don’t really require any dishes. They’re hot-dogs and hamburgers and wraps and burritos. They’re not quite the same as edible dishes … but almost.

• Taco salad in that crazy giant taco bowl. Whoever invented this magically delicious dish deserves some props for making a fat exploded taco sound healthy. Come on, this is just a salad, people. Get some greasy enchiladas and a bowl of deep-fried ice cream to finish off your meal.

When you’re eating off an edible dish the food suddenly becomes  more fun and there are drippy challenges to keep you entertained. Plus, after you’re done you can forget soaping up, scrubbing down, and setting your dishwasher to off-peak hours. Just remember: when you’re eating messy food off edible dishes … you’re digesting love.

AWESOME!

I’ll be chatting at the Word on the Street Festival in Toronto this Sunday. Hope to see some of you there.

Photos from: here, here, here, here, and here

53 thoughts to “#410 Edible dishes”

  1. One good type of soup in a bread bowl is cream of mushroom. They served in at the cheesecake factory, and it was awesome. It the soup was thick enough that it didn’t make the bread too soggy, and the bread bowl was great as well.

      1. I’m going to add a really thick clam chowder..

        Try it at the wharf in San Francisco.. it will help keep you warm during their frickin’ freezing “summer days”..

        Yummy!

  2. I just got home from visiting a friend. She served me chocolate ice cream in a waffle bowl for a treat. It was great, the only thing she had to wash was the spoons. Imaging my surprise when I got back and read your post on edible dishes. Awesome!

    1. That reminds me of the chocolate taco. I’ve never actually had one, but it sounds freaking unhealthy and AWESOME.

        1. I caught you red handed, I mean with sticky hands and a happy smile, and I sentence you to extra weight !

    1. I knew someone was going to have said it before I could. Ethiopian food is oh so tasty, and had the side bonus of the edible dish. Win!

  4. The bread bowl is the best edible dish invented since the ice cream cone! And I LOVE the ice cream cone! Give me a sugar cone any day.

    This is what I do to ice cream in sugar cones: When the ice cream is low enough, I bite off the bottom and then suck the remaining ice cream out. My friend taught me that one! AWESOME. :)

  6. The good ones also come in the finger foods form. Even though they can easily just be popped in the mouth, they’re still worth noticing.

    My mom makes some really good stuffed squash blossoms…so delicious. I miss those…soon I will be back home though!

    1. you’re missing out!
      they’re so good at parties..
      you cut the top off & scoop out the insides of the bowl…

      fill bowl with desired dip

      then tear up the pieces of bread you’ve just scooped out & place them around the bread bowl & ta da!.. you’ve got yourself little nibbilies to grab a piece of torn up bread & dip into the dip!!

      :)

      my aunty make thee best spinch dip.. its warm & everything :)

      mmm YUM!

  9. My first thought when I read the title: “Taco salad!!” So glad to see its inclusion. :)

    There’s a bar/lounge type place in the town where I went to college that has this super-amazing Guinness Beer cheese fondu stuff. They serve it in a bread bowl. Too. Awesome.

    The Frankensteins and Almosts made me laugh!

    Word on the Street sounds/looks fun. So jealous of all the people in Toronto who get to go.

    OH! OH! I was just thinking about the edible beer bottle, and I remembered one of my roommates had this ice cube mold thing that made ice shot glasses. Kind of similar? It is a good idea in theory, but drinking from a freezing, slippery, melting little cup is actually way less fun that it sounds. I like where you’re going with the Dorito idea.

  11. Other than the taco salad in the shell, bread bowls are genius!!
    Now I don’t know about the beer bottle thing though. The beer would end up tasting like the Doritos….. ok…. nevermind…. that’s not such a bad idea.

  12. I’m at a fancy inn in Gettysburg, and last night they served me a salad in a giant, fluffy crouton. For a moment, I had this surreal feeling that I was Alice shrinking down in Wonderland.

  13. You have totally left out pies, not the North American sweet type ones, but the type you get here in NZ and Australia.
    Single serve mince and cheese type pies. Its a pastry bowl with a pastry lid to keep the contents inside warm (often at thermo-nuclear temperatures).

    Remember, you must always blow on the pie … Safer Communities Together

    1. I remember when I was young, they had this SUPER sugary ice cream with bubble gum in it. Hhaha, it was awesome though because I would always eat the ice cream, and then pick out all the bubble gum, and make a giant piece of gum/ice cream. Too bad I got in trouble for it. But it still tasted AWESOME!

      1. Last time my grand daughter visited, we took her to a shop with 35 flavors! Now “my” Sienna looks like Shirley Temple did; sweet smile and personality that could melt all the ice cream in the place. As she sauntered back and forth, back and forth, in front of the glass; trouble deciding, she got to the server’s heart who decided to give her a little bit of~
        Cotton candy, Birthday cake and Bubble Gum…totally awesome combo:)

    1. You’re probably not eating them right. You have to lick the ice cream until it is a flat surface, then bite off some ice cream with the cone.

  16. you have NO idea the excitement that whooshed through my brain when I saw edible beer bottles…. only to crash back to reality

  17. This is an awesome entry, as usual, but is it just me or has it been, like, FOREVER since I’ve been able to make a *tick*?

    I mean, there was some potential here, what with the beer, and the chili, and everything but it just didn’t come together.

    You know?

    1. Agreed – Neil has definitely been keeping his mind out of the commode recently.. Don’t worry – he’ll be headed back to that well in no time, I’m sure of it..

      And then we’ll get back to our usual *tick*, *tick*, *tick*..

    1. Mmmmm…. cheese bowl…..

      I missed a nutella reference? What’s going on here? How many others have you made that I missed during my hasty reading of the entry and failure to peruse the comments? :(

  21. My sister once scooped out the seeds of a rockmelon and filled it with vanilla icecream.

    Um… I think it’s cantaloupe to some.

  22. Don’t forget the one we all know and have always used — the cracker. Good ole’ crackers and cheese (not to mention all the other yummy things one can top a cracker with).

  25. OMG! FINALLY caught up after about… *may june july august september* over 5 months. Yeah sure, im a slow reader and ive got homework too and an almost-non-existent social life. But the point is, I made it!
    And edible dishes are totally awesome too.

  26. When I was a kid we went to some fancy local resturant that served chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup. It completely blew my mind. Talked about it as a kind of holy grail of desserts for years afterward!

  27. The Candy Man makes everything he bakes
    Satisfying and delicious
    Talk about your child hood wishes
    You can even eat the dishes…

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