Tasty drink and rodenticide - all in one can!
The Central Asian Connecton
It is said that the foods of Central Asia fall into three categories:
- The nomadic diet, such as that of the Kruzbyz peoples (boiled meat, steamed meat, fried meat, fermented milk, bugs, bread sticks)
- The farmer's diet (vegetables, roots, grains mixed with sand, noodles mixed with dust, bread sticks, grubs, dried rodents)
- Foreign dishes (bottled and canned foods from lands such as Jamaica, Burkina Faso, and California, plus chocolate-covered bugs)
The most traditional of these is of course the nomadic diet, based as it is on tradition, and nomads, many of whom are still wandering around outdoors, and are slow to learn.
But perhaps the most interesting is a combination of all three categories. This would be mice fermented in Mountain Dew.
The Backpacking Connecton
Interestingly, this exotic dish also has a use in backpacking.
As any backpacker knows, mice can be a bitch. They get into your food, gnaw through packs, and every now and then you'll wake up from a perfectly good dream about Angelina Jolie, or Tom Cruise (depending of course on your personal tastes) to find a mouse running across your face.
Or worse, lots of mice.
Or worse yet, lots of mice trying to tunnel up your nostrils to get at boogers.
Now people often react to this. Some go straight home and lobby to outlaw backpacking for everyone.
Some are emotionally scarred for life, or until years later, when they start forgetting pretty much everything anyway.
Others you meet during job interviews, and only find out the truth later, after you've accepted the job, moved across the country, put your kids into school, and are then introduced to your new boss.
Science!
But science marches on. Science and diet. Food science and pest control. Whatever you want to call it.
See, the trick is that, when you cross the border into mouse country, take Mountain Dew. Take plenty. It's cheap. Sure, heavy to carry but really good at killing vermin, and makes them edible too. So think of Mountain Dew as an addition to your tool kit, and a possible culinary weapon.
How?
Here's how.
In the evening, just pop open a Dew, pour it into an open container, and slither down into your bag. You'll sleep OK.
Any critters that come along will jump right into The Dew, drown, and by morning they'll not only be way dead, but almost fully digested. You can swallow them whole for breakfast, washed down by your morning coffee, hang the remains in a mesh bag on the back of your pack until they get dry and crunchy, or just toss them into the bushes.
It all works.
Burial is not necessary in case you choose the final option, so don't get fussy.
Why? Do we want to know?
But why? How?
Mountain Dew contains citric acid, a substance naturally found in citrus fruits and Mafia body-disposal vats. Now it also comes in 12-ounce cans.
Neon green drinks like The Dew use citric acid for that characteristic tooth-enamel-stripping "tangy bite". Contrarian drinks like Coca Cola and Pepsi use phosphoric acid, but the result is the same. Because of their acid content, all these concoctions have a pH of around 3, which in science lingo is "very acidic".
Think serious rodent killers.
Safe to swallow? Not to worry. Your stomach and intestines are built to withstand a variety of acidic digestive juices and industrial chemicals. For a hungry backpacker with a healthy digestive tract an occasional Mountain Dew with its corrosive acid load is probably not an issue.
Especially if the stuff you swallow contains a partially-gelled mouse carcass, which acts as a natural buffering agent. The residual, undissolved fur may even help clean your teeth.
Remember, "It'll tickle yore innards" is not just idle advertising drivel, which so many had assumed up to now.
What else could possibly be true?
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