deneb

My roommate Chris and I have challenged each other to become vegans for one month. To make it interesting, we have decided to play a five night game of Mystery Can. This is a game where you buy a friend some cans of food, remove the labels (so they are mysterious), then watch as your friend eats at least half of whatever happens to be inside the can of their choosing with their dinner. You can be as cruel as you want, but it is important to keep in mind that they are also buying you mystery cans that you have to eat… I always thought this sounded like a hilarious idea, and what better time to play it than when we are being vegans. It turns out that this is perfect because there is some really nasty stuff out there (quail eggs, strange seafood, etc…) that we can’t eat. It would actually be pretty hard to find something incredibly disgusting that is also vegan and in a can. Then again, I didn’t go to any weird ethnic food stores or anything so I could be wrong. Here are the official rules from theplug.net, where I believe the game originated.

1. Only one Mystery Can per day may be consumed for a period of TEN DAYS. (we are doing five)
2. A Mystery Can may be eaten during any meal.
3. The eater must prepare a main course prior to opening the Mystery Can.
4. The eater must consume at least 50% of the Mystery Can’s contents.
5. The purchaser of a Mystery Can must notify the eater of any specific cooking instructions (i.e. adding water if condensed).
6. Shaking a Mystery Can prior to opening is not only allowed; it is encouraged.
7. Foods unknown to the eater will be revealed after he or she consumes the Mystery Can’s contents.

Indian food may sound like a poor choice for something to eat during mystery can week, but I had some leftover and it needed to be eaten so I figured why not. We decided to split it so we would both eat the same thing for the first night’s main course. Who knows, it might be turn out to be delicious (highly unlikely)! Here are the results from night one:

I decided to go with the big gold can first because it was freaking me out. This thing was huge. Ok it was only twice the size of a regular can, but I didn’t want to get stuck eating the equivalent of a regular sized can on the last night if it turned out to be bile. Might as well get it out of the way first.

Opening…

Awesome. A 32oz can of whole tomatoes. It could definitely be worse. I do like tomatoes…but what the hell am I going to do with all these.

Might as well just pour them in…

Hmmm…

Wait a second. After warming these up in the microwave, adding a little salt and pepper, this actually tastes really really good. Round one is a success! This actually greatly improved my sub-par stupidly spicy Indian food!

Chris’s can…what could it be?

Loki could not take the suspense!

A nice big can of mushrooms. Mmmm…

The mushrooms did not mix as well with the Indian food…

Well he ate most of the required half can although he did put some of it in the fridge for later. I believe this might be infringing on the rules of mystery can, but I’ll let it slide this time.

Well the first night of mystery can was a complete success! Maybe not so much for Chris…but my meal turned out to be extremely delicious! Long live mystery can! Tune in tomorrow for vegan mystery can round two…