What's The Weirdest Thing In Your Pantry?

And by pantry, I obviously mean "IKEA blåögd bookshelf that's half super-crowded pantry and half summer clothes storage." I really could have used the last few days to force-organize my apartment into more of a flow, where clothes aren't necessarily stored in the kitchen, but...Louie on Netflix! All caught up.

The one place I did attempt to organize, once it was clear there was really, truly nothing else to do, was my store of canned food. I've only been in this apartment for a few months but I already have dusty cans and jars of the most random foodstuffs, the origins of most I haven't a clue. Like those broken straw mushrooms. Do I really need to ask how these creepy-looking, waterlogged, metallic-tasting mushrooms, on top of all that, broke? Or are they named after broken straws, which is also a crappy name for a soggy canned mushroom?

Moving on. By the way, thank you for joining me this morning in the Studio of Many Sizes, a side effect of the spacial dysmorphia often developed by urban apartment dwellers trapped inside for whatever reason. I decided to poll my friends on the weirdest, oldest and/or most random things in their food storage areas. I can first report that literally nobody my age has a pantry yet. But here are some of the stranger things you might find in that designated region.

• Canned asparagus spears
• Green Ukrainian bouillon cubes which did not used to be green
• "Like, four pounds of whole cloves" (copied that verbatim, following up on it later)
• Hominy (belongs to a dude whose girlfriend's name is Harmony, awh)
• Cream of Toast soup (excellent Simpsons reference)
• "Can olive oil go bad?"
• Super-old forbidden rice (with the disclaimer "because it's forbidden")

And the "really?" award goes to...