For some reason this week I ended up with a bunch of pictures of the strange things that humans make. Here’s one example, the “kumato”. It is a brown tomato whose name sounds like one of those sex acts you have to look up on urbandictionary.com. It’s the Cleveland Steamer of the produce department.
I was at a Salvation Army Thrift store (long story), which is really the thriftiest of thrift stores. That shit is really picked over before it hits the large, brightly lit space filled with the sounds of Christian radio (the Focus on the Family hour was playing while I was there). If you’ve ever wondered what’s left over when all the vinyl of any interest to anyone is taken out of the record rack, it’s stuff like this.
Here’s another chart-topper about a place most of us would rather forget, or perhaps not know about in the first place. Do you think you needed a special Slovakian record player to play a Slovak LP?
Of all the crappy crap in that place, this was perhaps the crappiest, and I had a lot to choose from. A 19th hole mug with a hole. Clever.
If you’ve read this far, your reward for the time you’ll never get back is an open thread.
Schlemizel
Is this stupid thing related to Tomacco the tomato / tobacco hybrid that made Homer a millionaire?
MattF
Herman Cain has just decided to take a side trip to Uzbekizbekistan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/arts/music/lola-astanova-julie-andrews-and-donald-trump-at-carnegie.html?_r=1&ref=music
laugh while you can
You know, those Kumato tomatoes are actually pretty good. They taste like tomatoes, even out of season. Much better than the mealy, pinkish hothouse tomatoes or even the ‘vine on’ tomatoes. They sacrificed color for flavor, and the QC seems very high. They’re the only non-seasonal tomato I will buy.
WereBear (itouch)
I love stuff like this!
That mug reeks of Carol Wright catalog. “The whole room will howl with laughter when your favorite golfer unwraps this!”
rlrr
Were Mitt Romney and Callista Gingrich assembled in the same factory?
Chrisd
I like the kumato. Not as full-flavored and juicy as an off-the-vine summer tomato, but really better than anything else I can get in January. I used three of ’em this week in a turkey mole. Delicious.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@WereBear (itouch):
I wonder how many guys got their dick stuck in that cup. This is America and you KNOW it’s already happened.
If it was recently it’s probably on YouTube.
@Chrisd:
So you’re saying Domo Arigato Mr. Kumato?
:D
kerFuFFler
I’ve tried kumatoes—-the taste was not special enough to make up for the very unappealing color. For fantastic tomato flavor it’s hard to beat the Brandywine heirloom variety. Tasting one of those was eye opening.
In the Winter I rely on those little grape tomatoes to get by…
dr. bloor
And this post is still less offensive breakfast reading than the Grey Lady or the WaPo
dmsilev
@rlrr: I don’t think so. Callista comes from the Stepford Wifeworks, and Romney is a product of the Tyrell Corporation.
Svensker
@WereBear (itouch):
Eggzackly right.
Also, too, who stole the html commands?
rlrr
@dmsilev:
It’s good to know there’s some competition in the almost lifelike android industry…
mistermix
@Chrisd: The name is what really got me. You’re right that it’s hard to find a good tomato this time of year, but Wegman’s (our local chain) usually has the “on the vine” hothouse tomatoes that are pretty good (for store bought tomatoes).
Roger Moore
@rlrr:
No, I think they’re from a mad scientist’s laboratory, possibly one built into a volcano and armed with other devices intended to destroy the world. I think the mad scientist has watched too many Star Trek reruns. He was so worried about his creation being destroyed when presented with logical inconsistencies that he accidentally made one that is incapable of having any consistent beliefs at all.
Cassidy
Purple tomatoes. Nothing else is close.
Jenny
Those records seem familiar? Do you live in Cleveland?
someGuyInAustin
@Schlemizel: I was curious how far the thread would go before the word ‘Tomacco’ showed up. 1 point for you!
Rosalita
Nothing like cultural oddities in the morning. Thanks for the smile to start the day.
I used to have a mug with a frog in the bottom. Really freaked people out when they got their coffee three-quarters done.
Amir Khalid
1. For some reason, this post moved me surf to regretsy.com, where I’m having a good laugh now at some of the less-well conceived artworks. Thanks, mistermix!
2. The Lunar New Year is almost upon us. (Malaysia will celebrate the holiday on Sunday and Monday, which means the work week here doesn’t begin until Wednesday.) May the Year of the Dragon bring happiness and prosperity to one and all.
Jerzy Russian
I thought “Cleveland Steamer” simply meant “turd”. I wondered what the origin of that term was, and unfortunately I looked it up. I got more than I bargained for. Thanks MM!
RossInDetroit
I just noticed the Kumato is from Ontario. For some reason they raise large numbers of tomatoes there. When you drive through you see lots of processing facilities, the largest of which I recall had HEINZ in big letters.
Maude
@Amir Khalid:
So, no work until Wednesday? You’re just a slacker.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Never heard of the Cleveland Steamer, and made the horrible error of googling it– and by Its Noodly Appendages, that’s just wrong.
Amir Khalid
@Maude:
The work week is for working people. Iz medically retired.
Anyhoo, this is the time of year when employers grumble about Malaysia having way too many public holidays. We just had Christmas and New Year, and then there’ll be Merdeka (independence day) on August 31, Deepavali, Eid al-Fitri (two days) and Eid al-Adha, Sultan’s/Governor’s Birthday in each of 13 states, Federal Territory Day in Kuala Lumpur …
But you try taking away even one of them holidays, and somebody is going to scream bloody murder.
RossInDetroit
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
It’s mythical, like the Dirty Sanchez*. Exists only on novelty T-shirts in college towns.
*Don’t Google. Trust me.
Someguy
In Cleveland they call it a Cincinatti Steamer.
Lojasmo
Looks more like a blumpkin*
*another one to not google.
AWJ
I’ve eaten Ontario-grown Kumatoes. To say they taste a lot better than they look is an understatement. They’re extremely firm-textured and intensely flavoured.
Unrelated: by sheer chance, I think I’ve found our Veritas’s blog:
http://seekingalpha.com/user/926530/instablog
Walker
Slovakia is quite beautiful. I went hiking in the mountains there with my wife and father-in-law last summer. It is much less commercialized than Poland or the Czech Republic. Indeed, the Polish/Slovakian border at Zakopane is quite striking. The Slovakian side is pretty and bucolic, while the Polish side might as well be Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge (and that is not a good comparison).
Maude
@Amir Khalid:
I am going to look up these holidays.
I am not a worker either although I need to get a small job for money.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Lojasmo:
actually the cleveland steamer, all the karls, are competing with the chili dog, for sex-related term least likely to have occurred.
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
I used to work for the University of California and they had a certain number of holidays each year so that employees got (IIRC) at least one holiday a month. So there were a couple of times a year when we would be off for the oh-so-traditional “Administrative Holiday” since there was no state or federal holiday that matched up.
Brian S
Since I’m working in an upscale market at the moment, I run across all sorts of foodie-what-the-hell objects. Like grape seed spritzer for popcorn.
feebog
Odie Hugh Manatee:
Did you make it through the storm OK? Will hit us tonight in SoCal.
burnspbesq
There are few things humans make that are stranger than legislative redistricting plans.
The Supreme Court has (I think wisely) decided to stay out of the Texas train wreck. They gave some rather inscrutable guidance and punted the process of drawing up interim maps (the maps drawn by the state can’t be used because they haven’t been pre-cleared under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act) to the US District Court in Austin.
I think Guv Goodhair is ultimately going to have to postpone the primary.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-713.pdf
Winston Smith
Kumatos are good. It’s an unusual color for a tomato, but not an unnatural one.
A few years ago, Monsanto developed a breed of corn that was extra-nutritious, and was easy to grow in abundance. In terms of commercial farming, it was probably the greatest corn variety ever produced.
Farmers didn’t buy it because it was purple and “didn’t look like corn.” What about corn syrup, ethanol, cattle feed and corn-based plastics? They still cared that it was purple.
People will buy tomatoes modified with fish DNA as long as they’re red.
ameziah
I like the “Remember Slovakia” on top of a photo of the Grand Tetons. Maybe someone got drunk, woke up in Jackson, WY and someone said “Welcome to Slovakia!”
gaz
Hey screw you mistermix!
I’ve mixed some sick Deep house with that Slovakaires LP
heh.
Wag
The Kumato looks like a breed of heirloom tomato that I have grown the past few summers, the Black Krum, which is varigated black/deep red tomato that’s really tasty. I’ll look for the Kumato
trollhattan
RIP Etta James. I has a sad, but am lucky enough to have seen her three times in concert. One of a kind.
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/123125338/remembering-etta-james-stunning-singer
chopper
dude, dark tomatos are tasty as hell. try growing a cherokee purple or a black krim, you’ll never go back to a plain red one (with some exceptions).
MonkeyBoy
While the Kumato company is in Ontario, the package I recently saw in a grocery store had the small print “grown in Mexico”.
It may be that Kumatos are grown in Canada during the summer.
draftmama
Black from Tula, Purple Russian, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple Black Mauri, all taste way better than any red tomatoes except of course Brandywine. Store bought tomatoes are a waste of money.
Ruckus
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Aren’t humans wonderful?
Darwin may have been incorrect, we haven’t evolved much, if at all.
Joel
The “Grapple”. Not an apple that’s bred or engineered to taste like a grape, but rather an apple with grape artificial flavoring injected into it.