AIM: To establish whether a bad pun can lead you to inventing a delicious new dish. In this case: LYCHEES ON TOAST
APPARATUS: Pestle & mortar; grill
INGREDIENTS: 1 middle-sized tin lychees; 3 slices of bread; 1 slice’s worth of butter for spreading
METHOD: To maximise our chances of making something tasty from a bad pun, three separate forms of lychees on toast are to be attempted.
1. The marmalade method: pulp a number of lychees to a consistency similar to marmalade by crushing in the pestle and mortar, disposing of any excess fluid emerging from the crushed fruit. Squeezing the pulp by hand proves more effective in removing more juice.
Toast one slice of bread, butter it and spread the lychee pulp on it like marmalade, or perhaps jam.
2. The grilled sliced lychee. Toast a piece of bread on one side. Slice some lychees and place them on a single layer on the untoasted side of the slice. Grill the lychee side until the bread around it is toasted.
3. The rarebit. Pulp lychees as per the marmalade method. Toast a piece of bread on one side. Spread the lychee pulp on the untoasted side and grill the lychee side until the bread around it is toasted.
RESULTS: Lychees are mostly juice: when pulping lychees, adding additional lychees to the pulp makes little difference to the total volume of the pulp. In reproducing the experiment, care should be taken not to add too many lychees to the pulping stage, or insufficient fruit will remain for the slicing method.
Whoops!
Taste test were largely positive: the researchers found themselves rather keen on each of the three samples. Least impressive was the slicing method, though that was perhaps due to the lower-than-desirable coverage of the toast with fruity flesh. On the other two samples, opinion was divided.
The marmalade method was helped by buttery yumminess (Use of avocado for this purpose was rejected on the grounds of obvious foulness). The rarebit method had the advantage of slight caramelisation, also leading to an increase in the tasty. None of the three samples lasted long before being wolfed down by greedy scientists. Some researchers suggested that the popularity of the samples was a result of these being the closest thing to real food served thus far in the day, and that people were hungry.
The control group of people who did not like lychees wanted nothing to do with this experiment, but who cares what they think, the lychee-hating freaks?
CONCLUSION: there is not yet enough data to prove that a bad pun will necessarily lead to deliciosity, but the state of delicious can be inspired by poor quality wordplay.