Attack of the Late-Night Munchies

Some years ago there was a fair amount of press coverage devoted to a curious spike in early-morning laceration cases throughout the US. Suddenly there were all kinds of middle-class bank tellers, lawyers, and schoolteachers rushing to the emergency room with bloody palms and sliced fingers.

The culprit? Frozen bagels. At the height of the "bagel craze" of the early 90s-- itself a by-product of the coffee chain explosion-- people who weren't from New York City were buying bagels and freezing them.

The problems arose when it came time to un-freeze them. How do you toast a rock-solid frozen bagel? In our own enlightened era, of course, we know the secret: it is essential to split bagels before freezing them.

In the early 1990s, however, such wisdom had not yet made itself known. And thus the early morning found the D.I.Y. crowd struggling to cleave apart their still-frozen breakfast fare. Chef's knives-- themselves a popular gift item during this same era-- presented a ready option. But carving into a solid toroid-shaped object is no simple task. Thus the slicer's task is a treacherous one : left hand grips the bagel, right hand holds the knife. You know the rest.

Frozen or not, it was a recipe for laceration.

The injury became so common, in fact, that it spawned inventions like "the Bagel Guillotine" and the closely-related "Bagel Biter" (pictured). The principle of such devices, it seems, was to exact a measure of revenge upon the offending pastry itself. Take that, abuser! One could either execute it in swift yet definitive fashion (i.e. with the guillotine), or anticipate, in technological form, its slow, painful digestion (i.e. with the biter).

None of this is especially new. Here, for instance, is an article from franchising.com about the bagel industry's progress since those dark times. It's called "You've Come a Long Way, Bagel."

But are there any articles out there about late-night frozen pesto injuries? I think not. Yet the hazards of frozen pesto should be made known all the same.

I, for one, am the victim of a pesto injury.

It all started when K. across the street presented me with a little tupperware cup of homemade basil pesto. It was delicious. We were about to depart for Colorado, though, so I placed the tub in the freezer. It would be waiting for me when I got back.

And indeed, upon our return, there it was. On Monday night, just as I was about to go to bed, I found myself feeling somewhat peckish. The fridge was empty-- shockingly so-- since we'd only arrived back that day. There was food in the pantry, certainly. But there was no reason to do anything rash. I just needed a quick bedtime nosh, as the bagel crowd might say.

My thoughts turned to the pesto. It was frozen solid, but this was hardly a deterrent. In that sordid, bedtime way, I was ready-- eager, even-- for a few shards of pesto gelatto.

It was just a small tupperware tub, so I started hacking at with a steak knife. No need for anything heavy, I thought. No: a long, sharp, serrated blade would do the trick.

And it did.

An hour later, as I sat on a gurney in the emergency room waiting for stitches, I realized that the story I was telling about my injury sounded a bit louche. Hardly the stuff of sympathy.

"An unfortunate pesto incident," I'd explained to the triage nurse. "The blade hit mostly webbing, I think," I added, trying to sound tough. "Just between the fingers. I don't think there's any nerve damage."

"On the pain scale," the nurse asked, pointing to the diagram before me, "how much pain would you say you were in?"

This gave me pause. If I said "none," I'd be a laughing stock. One is a happy face, utterly content. Was I content? Certainly not: it was one in the morning, after all, and I never did manage to find the chunk of pesto that had popped out of the container as the knife pushed through the plastic and, in turn, my hand. I was still peckish.

"Two," I offered. That would make me look tough: yes, it was a pesto injury. But I was owning up to my pain. The injury might have been the kind of culinary disaster to befall the likes of Fraser Crane; but I was facing it like Patrick Swayze.

The doctor and I chuckled, indeed, about the classic Swayze vehicle, "Roadhouse," as he stitched up the front and back sides of the puncture.

"Imagine that," I said. "Telling the doctor he didn't need anesthetic."

"Hm," the doctor concurred. "Imagine that."

I chuckled, waiting for the anesthetic to take effect. And then I drove home and made some toast. Why hadn't I thought of that before?