Ever get bored of eating the same thing every day? Are you morbidly curious about your schoolmates’ questionable eating habits? Well, grab your snacks and buckle up for a bit of mild food poisoning: check out these nine bold and wacky food combos from your classmates.
Fritos with Nutella: 10/10
Chocolatey and crunchy, this daring duo delights as a decadent snack made with everyday ingredients. The saltiness of the Fritos perfectly balances out the otherwise overwhelming sweetness of Nutella, creating an addicting chocolate munch. The Fritos make convenient scoops for the Nutella while adding an alluring crispy crunch. This snack invokes the famous Royce chocolate-covered potato chips—the perfect balance of sweet and salty, smooth and crunchy. Just note that the combination reduces the signature hazelnut flavor of the Nutella, leaning more into its chocolatey side.
Sour Patch Kids with peanut butter: 3/10
While this wouldn’t make a great snack, it’s an excellent alternative to orthodontic rubber bands for keeping jaws clenched shut. The stickiness of the Sour Patch gummies is exponentially boosted by the peanut butter, creating a drying and unpleasantly sticky texture. The flavor is not offensive, but leans heavily towards the peanut butter, making it difficult to taste the Sour Patch.
We used watermelon-flavored Sour Patch Kids.
Chocolate chip cookies with ketchup: 1/10
This pairing is truly horrific. The tomato clashes with the buttery and milky taste of the dough, sending a confusing and unappealing wash of flavor across your tongue. Biting into the chocolate chips creates a gag-inducing combination. The mixture of ketchup and chocolate overpowers your palette, leaving you chewing mystery chunks that are extremely salty and savory on the outside, but suddenly turn sweet at the last moment. This proves that ketchup is not, in fact, tasty with everything.
Chicken nuggets with soft serve: 9/10
An unconventional alternative to a milkshake and fries, this surprising combination of McDonalds soft serve and chicken nuggets does not disappoint. The juxtaposition between the sweet coldness of the soft serve and the warm, savory chicken nugget highlights both flavor profiles. The slightly watery aftertaste of the soft serve on its own is reduced as the taste smoothly transitions into the flavor of the chicken nugget. However, as much as this combo melted our hearts, it also melted the soft serve, making it a little tricky to eat. This could easily be remedied with a spoon and some alacrity, and overall does not detract much from the experience.
Pepsi and milk: 2/10
If you’ve ever tried Yakult—the popular probiotic yogurt drink—this is essentially the budget version gone wrong. The acidity of the Coke almost curdles the milk into an unpleasantly chunky texture, creating a watery and slightly sour mixture. Since the carbonated Coke is mixed with noncarbonated milk, the sensation reminds you of a soda gone flat after a few hours, with just a few bubbles that become annoying rather than enjoyable.
We substituted Pepsi with Coke.
Peanut butter and pickles: 4/10
“Bored, hungry, nothing in the fridge, and very late at night,” senior Sacha Deb said, regarding the genesis of this surprising combination. Though his invention is not as awful as it sounds, it’s simply not additive to the individual flavors of pickles and peanut butter. The texture leans towards peanut butter while the flavor is heavily dominated by pickle. Despite being a passable late-night snack, there are better options to find in the fridge.
Vanilla ice cream with olive oil and salt: 5/10
Although inoffensive in flavor, we preferred plain vanilla ice cream to this combo. The olive oil adds an interesting dimension to the flavor, but the salt is a jarring contrast to the sweet and smooth ice cream. While adding salt may be a good solution to an overly sweet ice cream, we found that adding salt subdued the sweetness of the ice cream too much. With no real star of the show in terms of flavor, this combination was lackluster and the ice cream is better enjoyed without the extra additions.
We may have added too much salt. The initial bites were overwhelmingly salty and covered the flavor of ice cream and olive oil.
Pickles and stroopwafels: 7/10
This duo had us skeptical at first, but was surprisingly enjoyable. Though the contrast is initially jarring, the rich sweetness of the caramel and the sharp tang of the pickles come to balance each other out. As you bite through the stroopwafel-pickle sandwich, the texture adds another layer of contrast. While the pickle is crisp and crunchy, the stroopwafel and caramel provide a soft, silky feel. For those who wish for more mellow flavors, this quirky pairing just might be the solution. However, if you like sweet and sour on their own, it’s best to keep these two snacks separate.
Wow, what a ride. While some pushed the limits of what should even be considered edible, others made us wonder if our classmates have secret culinary genius. So the next time you’re staring at your pantry, try out some of these weird food combinations—and don’t forget to keep a glass of water or a trash can nearby.
