Truthcraze's 2024 (Meal) Reviews of the IFComp games

Competitions IFComp
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Another year, another faint siren song, heard on the distance, that pulls me the the rocky shore of IFComp.

I mean, sometimes the rocky shore turns out to be a nice beach with frozen margaritas, and sometimes it is jagged, sharp coral with a bunch of half-bird, half-women waiting to lap up the blood.

Here’s to hoping for more entries that are margaritas, and fewer that are maneaters!

I’m reviewing the games in the IFComp personalized random order, and we’ll see how many I can get to this year!

FORBIDDEN LORE:
A MRE or freeze-dried camping food meal, lost in the back of the garage for a few decades. The directions for preparation are missing, and the results after googling possible cooking steps and completing them to the best of your ability are questionable. There are crunchy bits that are tooth-breakingly hard. There are dry, powdery bits, even after water is added according to directions. The taste is reminiscent of something familiar, and the color and texture is ALMOST there, but it is impossible to call this a fully baked meal.

17 Likes
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Great to see you back!

I was going to start in on Forbidden Lore this weekend since it had no reviews as late as yesterday(?) but now it has 2. There are still a few left…

3 Likes
3

THE TRISKELION AFFAIR:
A large plate of plain spaghetti, with red sauce dropped onto the top. The sauce has a few strangely chewy bits in it, and the spaghetti is a touch underdone, but not in the “al dente” meaning, but with some strands burnt, and some sticking together in a pasta stick, with a un-cooked core. The meal is filling, and reminds you of childhood, but a bit of a less rushed preparation and some garnishes, parmesan, maybe some sides of garlic bread and meatballs would make it much more of a complete meal.

6 Likes
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Yesssss. I loved the meal reviews last year! Good to see you back for another wild degustation.

4 Likes
5

A FEW HOURS LATER IN THE DAY OF THE EGOCENTRIC:

A slice of harvati on top of a white party cracker, alone on its plate. It tastes good, but is rather simple and gone quickly. And it is vaguely European.

6 Likes
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DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEK SUPER-BRAIN:

Fish fingers and custard.

The fish fingers are crunchy in bits, oddly slick and moist in others. And oily, there’s a sheen of almost machine-oil over all of the fingers. The custard is sweet and simple and one-note. The combination is deliberately odd and twee.

The combined taste is not likely to be a crowd pleaser, but there might be someone who it really hits for.

6 Likes
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METALLIC RED:

Chard salad, slightly bitter, dressed with a handmade dressing, sweet notes in the dressing, cut with some acidic zing. The salad is large, and might work better in a smaller portion to the side of some other dishes, or with a few textural varietants thrown into the mix. It feels like a first course that is somehow accidentally the whole meal, so it had to be stretched.

6 Likes
8

THE DEN:

Apple pie, with a crisp, buttery crust, a nice blend of spices, the filling is appropriately oozy without being liquid, and the blend of apples within the pie, while only two or three varietals, lends a balance to a bite that is quite pleasing. While apple pie might not be everyone’s choice of dessert, and some might argue that the same ingredients should be used for a cobbler or a crumble, really the choice between pie, cobbler and crumble is really a matter of personal opinion. But, if you are to choose a pie, this apple pie was quite expertly baked, and leaves a pleasant feeling in the mouth afterward.

11 Likes
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A DEATH IN HYPERSPACE:

A well-baked loaf of sliced white bread, that someone challenged you to eat in half an hour. Then asked you to do it again eleven times.

9 Likes
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:joy:

If it helps, you can eat the loaf more slowly if you like. Sometimes the ingredients change, too!

2 Likes
11

REDJACKETS:

A chef’s tasting menu, with all of the dishes revolving around blood. Bovine, of course. Black pudding, blood sausage, all very mineral and metallic. Sometimes the chef will ask you which course you want next, but you still get all the courses anyway, just in a slightly different order.

The end of the meal can come very abruptly, with a brisk depositing of the restaurant patron onto the sidewalk seemingly in the middle of dinner.

6 Likes
12

YOU:

Stuffed mushroom appetizer, on a buttled tray at a wedding. The mushroom is a bit cold and chewy, but the filling is flavorful, if a bit one-note.

6 Likes
13

WHERE NOTHING IS EVER NAMED:
Mystery meat.

(Sorry.)

5 Likes
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Blockquote WHERE NOTHING IS EVER NAMED:
Mystery meat.

I’ll get to it when I get to it :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes
15

IMPRIMATURA:

A amuse bouche, well plated, with seawater/lemon foam and sphere-ized olive oil and micro-greens, and only a small bite of what could be cucumber underneath it all.

6 Likes
16

THE LOST ARTIST: PROLOGUE:

Someone tells you they’re going to make you a meal. Two hours later, smoke comes pouring out of the kitchen, and they poke their head around the door. “You wanted to order some pizza, right?” they ask.

8 Likes
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BIG FISH:

An inexpertly, but enthusiastically, prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made by a ten year old. Jelly slops from the sides, and the peanut butter is just slightly rancid. And a huge slice of ham was put into the middle, apparently as an first-time-cooking experiment.

8 Likes
18

THE DRAGON OF SILVERTON MINE:

Cauliflower buffalo “wings”, served with a mock apple pie for dessert, served ala mode (with frozen yogurt). Each bite is spoonfed to you, slowly, by someone who will only speed up if you ask them to each time a bite is incoming. The meal would be much better if you could choose how quickly to eat it.

The “wings” taste like mom used to make, though the sauce lacks a bit of the zip you want from the hot peppers. The seasoning is basic, but present, and it goes down easily, with a pleasant aftertaste.

The mock apple pie with frozen yogurt is adequate to good, with just a few burnt bits or pockets of flour that didn’t quite get mixed, perhaps due to the recipe card’s apparent translation.

The whole meal is quite pleasant, but it does make you wonder why the chef decided to use ersatz ingredients, when the meal seems tailor-made for the real thing. Is it due to availablility of ingredients, or ease of preparation, lack of experience with other kitchen processes? Some sort of anti-animal protein bias?

5 Likes
19

THE MAZE GALLERY:

Your friends have invited you over for a potluck. The kitchen, dining room, and side table in the family room are all laden down with crockpots (and other non-name brand slow-cookers), insta-pots, plates of cookies and pastries, bowls of dips, platters of crudite, crackers, deli meats, cheeses, olives, cornichons, slices of bread, whole loafs of bread with spinach dip in the hollowed out middle, dips (again but in a different place), soups, stews, chowders, some sort of jus that might be for dipping sandwiches or might be a very thin soup, or a broth, an entire roast chicken, jell-o molds, of the sweet and savory varieties, fried chicken, wings, grilled chicken thighs, three bean salad, baked beans, chili, chili con carne, five bean salad, seven layer dip (apart from the other dips), queso, guacamole, refried beans, seven bean salad, eight layer dip (right next to the seven layer dip), salad, Caesar salad, snickers salad, and ambrosia.

And there are other dishes you didn’t get to explore before the party was over, and probably other rooms where there were more dishes (I think the basement might be finished, with a pool table and a wet bar?)

The dishes are all well prepared, well spiced, at the correct temperature. The potluck dinner is perfect if you want a bunch of small tastes of a variety of different things - but there is a bit of a lack of inherent direction and story to the meal.

9 Likes
20

SIDEKICK:

Beany-weenies, with the hotdogs cut into small pieces, and lengthwise, so that there is no choking hazard. The serving size can be described as “heaping”, and is pleasantly sweet and reminiscent of childhood. The texture is a bit of a challenge, with chewy bits, burnt bits, and some some bits that would be nice and soft, if they were encountered at the right time of the meal, but when they were bitten seemed to be a bit unready still.

The beanie-weenies seem to be cut up into smaller, almost below-bite sized pieces in order to be able to be eaten with chopsticks, or drank out of a coffee mug, or slurped with a straw, but would have been much more satisfying just cooked regularly, and eaten with an old-fashioned spoon

6 Likes