What Does Unicorn Flavor Actually Taste Like?

Tenth Helpings is a humor column from our culture critic, Ella Quittner.

I am a Baby of the ‘Corn. I was born in 1991 in Very long Island—not on, hardly ever on—and so I expended substantially of my youth perusing the Lisa Frank portion of our regional Rite Support. After each and every couple months, I was permitted to invest in a pack of stickers, with which I would decorate anything from the plastic-sheathed diary I toted around but not often wrote in, to the wall of my bedroom closet.

The rainbow leopard was a choice sticker, funky and chic, and a minor little bit frightening. The scorching air balloon also had chops it bought to its level alternatively quickly, and experienced the added advantage of fitting properly in in between the curvy coronary heart and the taking pictures star, thanks to its major-significant style. And I wouldn’t have kicked the oversized butterfly out of a a few-pack.

But there was no Lisa Frank sticker more highly effective, additional all-powerful, more thick with the potential of what lifetime was and what, finally, it could be, than the unicorn. The unicorn was the holiest physique, the most transcendent kind I experienced at any time witnessed. Conceptually, to me, it represented immortality, and visually, it was all iridescence and bliss. Slap 1 of those tiny fuckers on a binder, and suddenly, it did not suck to do math research.

At some issue in the very last 3 many years, I lost contact with that magic. Or something. I should have! It’s the only way I can clarify my intestine response just a couple weekends in the past, when I uncovered a item termed “mini funfetti unicorn pancakes” at my community Gristedes, and I wished, in that minute, to be shot directly into the sun.

The Terrific Unicorn-ing of Significant Grocery almost certainly peaked close to 2018, when just about every conglomerate from Kellogg to Normal Mills had a rainbow-hued supplying on shelves. Which is not to say that there is been a lot of an ebb. Currently, the pursuing unicorn-flavored products and solutions are readily available inside of a many-mile radius from my condominium: a Betty Crocker Unicorn Cupcake Kit, Snack Pack’s Unicorn Magic Pudding, Little Debbie’s Unicorn Snack Cakes, Funfetti Unicorn Vanilla Frosting, Bang’s Strength Rainbow Unicorn Drink, Key Food Two Bite Unicorn Cupcakes, and the aforementioned mini pancakes, dispatched specifically from Satan.

And as I stared down at people little, small, pancakes, I realized that I couldn’t do nearly anything about it. But I could attempt to comprehend it. Empathize with it. Grow to be just one with the pattern. Possibly, just it’s possible, rediscover the magic.

That night, in the tub, as I idly traced the outline of a psychedelic warm air balloon versus the moist wall, I regarded as my route forward. It was obvious. I would taste each and every single unicorn-flavored item I could get my arms on. I would consume all those processed treats right until I bled pink and blue, until finally I burped confetti, right until I was the ‘Corn and the ‘Corn was me. And then, most likely, I could under no circumstances believe about it yet again.

Right here are my discipline notes:

The flavor “unicorn” is sweet—often as well sweet, the kind of chemical saccharine that eventually turns to tongue fuzz. At times, “unicorn” is simply a pet dog-whistle for cotton sweet. Other moments, it is unabashedly “berry-flavored,” which is not to be puzzled with the true flavor of a berry, and which signifies a distinct tang not identified in mother nature, but which is closely related to a Dum Dum lollipop or Lip Smackers gloss. It can also flavor like any of the next, on their own or in jarring and disturbing amalgamations: sugar cereal, cherry fluoride, imitation vanilla, Fruit Loops, packaged cake combine, Go-Gurt, bubblegum, and absolutely nothing at all.

The flavor “unicorn” is hardly ever meaty, never horse-like. Hardly ever literal, by no means horned. Occasionally a unicorn-flavored products will reference the shape of a unicorn, but much more frequently than not, it will lean on lurid foods dye to make its position.

The flavor “unicorn” can exist in most any structure, due to the fact society has established by its inaction on the matter that the taste “unicorn” want not adhere to any social contracts. It is lawless. It is chaos in a two-chunk cupcake, mayhem in a neon can. We noticed the unicorn-flavored merchandise emerge, and we sat at our tiny desks, typing absent at our minor pcs, hitting mail on our very little Tweets, and we did not band together to protest, we did not offer feed-back in any variety, and now my tongue is the shade of Smurf bile and my head hurts so poorly that I wish to detach it from my entire body.

The taste “unicorn” usually takes no prisoners. It doesn’t give a shit about our expectations. If it were being a person, it would be the human being who generally displays up early to your supper occasion in a loud outfit, but not in a amazing way. It would be a shock jock. Someone you claimed hello to, to get it out of the way, before excusing by yourself to discover the toilet. The flavor “unicorn” would be a really hot individual with a awful persona, a temperament it did not expose to you until finally it was also late.

The flavor “unicorn” is a violation of anything that Lisa Frank stickers stood for. It is not whimsical, it is not essentially a thing of magnificence, and it does not make you want to take a minor LSD. It is neither fanciful nor entertaining. The flavor “unicorn” also has practically nothing to do with an real (legendary) unicorn, which would bring tears to my eyes, due to the fact she would be so beautiful and so absolutely free.

The worst iteration of the taste “unicorn” is Snack Pack’s Unicorn Magic Pudding, which is a shame, due to the fact I do enjoy a superior Snack Pack. The greatest iteration of the taste “unicorn” is Small Debbie’s Unicorn Snack Cakes, which are passable, nevertheless they taste faintly of perfume that’s been still left in a very hot automobile.

Ought to you get a minimal drunk ahead of tasting it, the flavor “unicorn” can be pleasant and enjoyable, if a minimal tough and treacly all over the edges. It can hit the location, so extended as the spot is messy and substantial, an easy focus on.

The flavor “unicorn” is likely meant for young children. But there are other edible treasures improved suited for the little ones. Scorching pet dogs lower into boxed mac and cheese! Freshly baked cookies! Dumplings of any sort!

The flavor “unicorn” is a philosophical problem, far more than it is a flavor. It phone calls into problem the total principle of “delight.” How could a snack so sparkly, so cost-effective, so offered in the Gristedes beneath my apartment be so (mainly) ghastly? Possibly it is a usually means to an end—corporate The united states and late-stage capitalism and the grift that is co-opting millennials’ nostalgia for gross sales of hyper-processed junk meals, all rolled into a glittering ball—either it is that, or there is no God. Or there is a God, but he is a dick. The taste “unicorn” consequently could be the root of all evil, due to the fact it engenders such questions. And a complete litany of answers. Like, either God is a dick, or humans are quite terrible. The flavor “unicorn” makes me imagine, most likely, that people are extremely poor.

The taste “unicorn” will possibly outlive us all.