Rap Snacks Review: Master P’s Creamy Chicken Gumbo is Uncanny Valley Food
Almost actual size
So I had my annual ramen cup. It was also my annual Rap Snack and it was my first Rap Snack Ramen Cup. Ramen gets a bad rap, for many reasons. Lot of sodium. Cheap. An instant food. It’s reputation as a feeder of the streets precedes it. And that’s why when I saw this Creamy Chicken Gumbo (flavored) cup, sporting the visage of Nawleans chosen son Master P, I knew I had to grab it.
When I initially opened my cup of Rap Snacks Icon Ramen Noodles, Creamy Chicken Gumbo (flavored), I noticed little discernible difference from your average Maruchan Instant Lunch. I filled the cup up (use hot water) to the line that read '“There’s No Limit To Success" and let Master P cook. A while later I returned to my meal, now a brand new cup of noodles, moist to the touch. The handful of peas which had been frozen and shriveled were now plump with boiling sink water, the noodles were almost too hot to handle and the powder at the bottom was partially dissolved, giving the water a soapy, blurred affect. Yum! It was time to eat.
Making the Ramen was a quirky sidequest, but eating the Ramen was a riveting adventure. The Ramen was exactly as advertised. It tasted just like creamy chicken gumbo, to the extend that my mouth would feel around to find chicken, gumbo or cream. The problem was this also made eating the Rap Snack a surreal, Fear and Loathing type experience, where I was tasting something my brain associated with a different texture, causing a disconnect between body and mind. It was like something out of dream. The taste and even smell of creamy chicken gumbo but trapped in the body of a ramen noodle. If you met these noodles on a blind date you might say “Not my type but has a great personality.” The flavor is there, but it would almost be better if it wasn’t because the ramen holds it back and even detracts from it.
The gumbo like taste of the non gumbo ramen noodles made me vaguely uncomfortable and filled me with unease. It felt like I was pretending to eat a warm hot meal, grasping at comfort while I was probably in fact, in a terribly bad spot. I began questioning major life choices and even some smaller ones, that brought me to this point. With a dull sense of apathy, I munched my way to the bottom of the cup like a grazing cow, taking slow mindless bites while staring into space. When I was finished with Master P’s noodles I didn’t drink the water, I poured it down the drain. Because why would I drink the water?
