Please forgive me for not knowing – I am old(ish) – but what's all this on the web about the chicken video?
Don't worry, it's got nothing to do with age, and everything with knowing what you should and should not do when it comes to cooking chicken, tortillas and pizza.
Basically, a horrible video recipe has emerged from a cooking site called Twisted Food. It starts with chicken and spices, then adds horror and complexity, and keeps going and going and going until what you end up with is a Deep-fried BBQ Chicken-stuffed Pizzadilla. Other ingredients include pepperoni and cheese, breadcrumbs and ranch sauce to dip it in.
So this video is sort of like a cooking programme but with chicken?
Yes. A big reason why this has taken off is it seems to sum up everything wrong with the latest trend in social media-friendly recipe extravaganzas.
The video draws on a format pioneered by Buzzfeed Tasty – and now incessantly copied by others. It’s short, accessible, wordless and frequently overlaps with the “lifehack” phenomenon.
And since we all know how well Frankensteined stoner foods do on social media – see the Cronut (croissant-meets-donut); the freakshakes; the pizza that has literal cheeseburgers in its crust – a lot of Tasty recipes have also begun to push the envelope, combining various kinds of foods into new forms.
There are shades here of even older video-cooking pioneers too, like Youtube’s Epic Meal Time. They have, since 2010, made things like a “Meatzza” (a pizza with a crust made of sausage) and the “TurBaconEpicCentipede” – which was 10 roast piglets stuffed with turkey, duck and chicken, stitched together. It’s all about going that extra step.
Crucially, this latest one isn’t actually from Tasty – but, given they have in the past made similar travesties like a double cheeseburger bread bowl, or a grilled cheese sloppy joe cup, you can permit the confusion.
Surely this has to have come from Donald Trump's America?
Another surprise! No. It's in fact from your home, England. But now that is Boris Johnson's England – so that may explain it.
I'm technically more Scottish than English.
Sorry.
Back to the Deep-fried BBQ Chicken-stuffed Pizzadilla. If I was walking briskly across open countryside – how long would it take for me to walk that off?
According to my hasty calculations it contains 7,275 calories. That is using a freely-available meal calculator, and not including the calories that come from deep frying. You should also add a thousand or so calories for the oil the breadcrumbs absorb. It is well within the remit of the law.
Using an estimated 350 calories burned an hour while walking, that will take maybe around 24 hours.
Has anyone been known to actually eat this stuff?
One brave person has taken the plunge, in a startling and gripping Twitter thread. Beyond that, we do not yet have any confirmed ingestors.
Which could have something to do with the recipe itself. Shay Spence, the food editor of People magazine, took more than six hours to craft the beast. As you can see, he also discovered that many of the steps are perhaps physically impossible.
It’s all happening pic.twitter.com/zZga2NNOyX
— Shay Spence (@chezspence) August 25, 2019
this is such a damn mess I hate you all pic.twitter.com/43yBi6PudM
— Shay Spence (@chezspence) August 26, 2019
It’s taking longer than anticipated bc you have to freeze these bastards after every step so they don’t fall apart. Thank u for staying with me on my journey
— Shay Spence (@chezspence) August 26, 2019
At the time of publication, Spence had only just completed it mere minutes ago. He immediately started retching. Later tweets described it as “truly one of the most vile things I’ve ever eaten”.
This is it. The moment you’ve been waiting for all night. pic.twitter.com/Lo8Lc89zYz
— Shay Spence (@chezspence) August 26, 2019
I expected to like it in a gross-good kind of way. But the mixture of the sweet bbq sauce, the pizza sauce and the dill sour cream....:,,,,,;;; truly one of the most vile things I’ve ever eaten.
I’m not taking any further questions.
— Shay Spence (@chezspence) August 26, 2019
Guardian Australia has contacted Spence for comment. – Guardian
