If you misspent your youth in a part of the country where White Castle dominates the roadside landscape, the smell of the chain’s onion-and-grease-laden sliders may have a Proustian effect on your olfactory nerve — or your bowels. Now White Castle promises to deliver that aroma on demand, minus the actual belly bombers, via the new White Castle scented candle. And here we thought selling frozen burgers in supermarkets was the worst idea White Castle ever had. The company boasts that the candle was developed by “Laura Slatkin, often called the ‘queen’ of home fragrances,” and “steam-grilled-on-a-bed-of-onions scent of America’s first fast-food hamburger.”
Yes, I can say that I misspent my youth in a part of the country (Minnesota, to be precise( where White Castle was not only readily available, but also a cultural (if not gastronomic) icon. Back in the day, I still ate beef, and I regularly dedicated myself to the consumption of things I wouldn’t eat now on a bet. Even so, eating White Castle hamburgers was a challenge I could rarely meet. Let’s just say they’re called “sliders” for a reason…and if you’ve indulged, you know exactly what I’m talking about. ‘Nuff said.
After another Friday night at the midnight screen of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” at the Uptown Theater at Lake & Hennepin in Minneapolis, a trip to White Castle was often de riguer. Hey, it’s not like much of anything safe was open at 3am…and the floor show was oftentimes priceless.
The experience and the ambience was almost as unusual as the quality (or lack thereof) of the late-night repast. More often than not, a White Castle at 3am was the unregulated equivalent of an aberrant psychology lab. Much like a box of chocolates, you never really knew what you were going to get. Oddly enough, those memories carry much more weight for me than the hamburgers- ‘cuz frankly, the hamburgers were onions and crap on a tiny white bun.
Why anyone would want a White Castle-scented candle is something I can’t begin to understand. As if the experience (never mind the scent) was worth commemorating with an olfactory monument. Ick…I can almost feel my bowels rebelling at the mere thought of it….
