The Coffee Place's Joke Stack
Title: Kook Book Humor #27 - Al Martin
Toaster:
Countertop appliance for browning bread. Toasters vary somewhat in design, but all modern units have a dial for selecting any setting from "char" to "incinerate"; a special crumb dump in which bits of bread are held until they are gradually transformed into coal; a special dimmer that reduces lighting throughout the house to a soft, romantic glow while toast is cooking; a self-locking slide mechanism that keeps slices from being raised until they are fully carbonized, a 17-foot cord; and an unconditional 10-minute or 10-slice warranty.
Tofu:
Soybean curd favored by health food enthusiasts. It is dense and colorless and has very little taste, proving the truth of the adage that you are what you eat.
Tomato:
Although this very popular foodstuff is, botanically speaking, fruit, the Supreme Court in 1893 declared it to be a vegetable. Since that historic decision, the highest court in the land has come to regret its intervention in strictly culinary matters as it quickly was called upon to settle a number of bothersome lawsuits, including petitions to declare saltwater taffy unconstitutional as an interference in free speech (1926); find that garlic restricted freedom of assembly (1934); intern sukiyaki and tempura (1942); rule on the inclusion of loyalty oaths in imported fortune cookies (1952); consider whether serving beans to an accused murderer held without bail during this trial violated his right to remain silent (1959); decide whether oysters suspected of contamination could be opened without a search warrant (1965); and judge whether minorities were excluded from wine- and cheese-tasting panels (1973)
Tongue:
A variety meat, not much served because it clearly crosses the line between a cut of beef and a piece of dead cow.
Tray:
A portable mess.
Turkey:
Large, domesticated game bird native to North America. Turkey is intimately linked in American minds with Thanksgiving, a holiday that celebrates the feast held in 1621 at Plymouth Colony between the Pilgrims and Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoags. Massasoit, who favored peace with the European settlers, brought turkey, goose, venison, and various fruits and berries. His canny brother, Succotash, who hated and feared the colonists and hoped to encourage them to go back home by convincing them that New World food was unspeakable, brought the corn-and-lima bean dish that bears his name to this day, as well as chipped buffalo on corn bread, squash slaw, a beer brewed from thistles, codfish mush, beet stew, boiled turnips, chokeberry pie, deed liver and leeks, and eel wine. Flabbergasted when the hungry Puritans devoured his most loathsome concoctions, he went mad and spent the rest of his days going from settlement to settlement in odd get-ups, howling, chanting, and mumbling. He is thus regarded as the spiritual father of New England cooking and of summer-stock theater.
Turnip:
Nasty root vegetable. Turnip-eating contests are occasionally held, and the current world record for the largest number of turnips eaten at a single sitting is two, although persons inclined to disbelieve this incredible figure insist they must have been unusually small ones.
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Changes were last made on 11-20-2001
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