DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
• Some of Britain’s most iconic foods – including HP sauce, rolled oats and baked beans – have received a makeover this summer – as icecream. The Ice Cream Project temporary store at The Village in London’s Pont Street, which closes later this week, has been serving up the weird and wonderfully flavoured cold treats since early August. Hannah Wearne, who works at the store, told Reuters the Project as offering a new twist on “British store cupboard classics”. “We sold out of six weeks’ worth of ice cream in four days, so we’ve been really, really popular…We’ve got our own regulars which is really lovely,” she said.
• The USA Mullet Championships are underway with winners already announced in the kids and teen divisions following an online poll. Emmitt “Mullet Boy” Bailey, of Menomomie, Wisconsin, took out the kids prize with 9,826 votes while Cayden “Kersh” Kershaw, of Wausau, in Wisconsin, took out the teen division with 3,215 votes. As well as the glory of having the best mullets in America, the winners in each category win cash prizes of up to $US2,500. More than 700 entries were received for the kids and teen division competitions (a portion of the entry fees goes to Maggie’s Wigs 4 Kids Wellness Center of Michigan, a non-profit that provides free wigs and support services to children and young adults experiencing hair loss due to cancer, alopecia, trichotillomania, burns and other disorders). “USA Mullet Championships congratulates Emmitt and Cayden on their superior mullets,” said Kevin Begola, the USA Mullet Championships founder and president, in statement. “Their mullets are officially the best in the nation, and they stand as a beacon for all those seeking to attain the mullet lifestyle.” Registration for the Men’s Open Championship closes at the end of August. The USA Mullet Championships began with an adult competition, known as the ‘Michigan Mudflap Contest’, in 2020, conceived as a marketing stunt for a Michigan men’s shop, and has since expanded to become a national event with adult, teen and kid divisions.
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A grilled Cuban sandwich. PICTURE: bonchan/iStockphoto.
• Celebrated this week, National Cuban Sandwich Day in the US apparently started out as a hoax. Christopher Spata, a staff reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, says he made up the idea for the day – which celebrates the sandwich invented in Tampa and made of ham, roasted pork, pickles and mustard on Cuban bread – after finding out that many of the food days celebrated around the world were invented and deciding, in 2016, to try his hand at doing so. First stop was a press release followed by the purchase of a domain name and some social media posts. After the day spread across the net, his editor told him he had to come clean. “I wrote back to every single person who responded with any interest in Cuban Sandwich Day,” he wrote in a 2016 article. “I told them my name, that I was a reporter, and explained how I’d invented the whole thing. I expected at least some of them to be angry. None of them were.” And thus a day was born.
