wikimedia

​Jello pudding spokesperson and longtime funny man Bill Cosby used to host a CBS show called Kids Say the Darndest Things. He'd ask children random questions and hope for "cute" answers in return.

Short Order staffer were recently on assignment (eating) and overheard a kid say darndest thing.

Lady: What's your favorite fruit?

Kid: My brother

​
The next time you feel like complaining, remember that your garbage disposal probably eats better than 30 percent of the people in the world. -- Robert Orben

Practice safe eating -- always use condiments. -- Lynda Montgomery

Did you ever notice they never take any fat hostages? You never see a guy coming out of Lebanon going, "I was held hostage for seven months and I lost 175 pounds. I feel good and I look good and I learned self-discipline. That's the important thing." -- Denis Leary.

Is Elizabeth Taylor fat? Her favorite food is seconds. -- Joan Rivers

Last time I went to the movies, I was thrown out for bringing my own food.  My argument was that the concession stand prices are outrageous. Besides, I haven't had a barbecue in a long time. -- Steven Wright

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time." So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance. -- Steven Wright

More >>

​Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence. ~Erma Bombeck

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.~Dave Barry

MTV is to music as KFC is to chicken.
~Lewis Black

Isn't it weird that we drink milk, stuff designed to nourish baby cows? How did that happen? Did some cattleman once say, "Oh, man, I can't wait 'til them calves are done so I can get me a hit of that stuff"?~Jerry Seinfeld

There is a lot more juice in a grapefruit than meets the eye.~Anonymous

​Would somebody please explain to me those signs in restaurants that say, "No animals allowed except for Seeing Eye Dogs?" Who is that sign for? Is it for the dog or the blind person? ~Jerry Seinfeld

We got so much food in America we're allergic to food. Allergic to food! Hungry people ain't allergic to shit. You think anyone in Rwanda's got a fucking lactose intolerance?! ~Chris Rock
More >>

​These are some of the funnies I've compiled for this column over the past year, but either they didn't fit in thematically or I just wasn't that crazy about them. Either way, gotta clear out the cupboard.

How complicated can ice cream flavors be? How much can you put in there? I mean, when the flavor's something like banana ice cream with caramel, fudge chunks, cheddar goldfish, and pennies -- you've got to draw a line there. ~Marc Maron

Shake and shake the ketchup bottle. None'll come, and then a lot'll. ~Richard Armour

Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life. ~Dorothy Parker
More >>

​'Tis the season to mock the poor fruitcake, arguably the most disrespected comestible of all time.

"There is nothing dangerous about fruitcakes as long as people send them along without eating them." ~Calvin Trillin

"Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to damage them." ~Dave Barry

"Thirty-four years ago, I inherited the family fruitcake. Fruitcake is the only food durable enough to become a family heirloom. It had been in my grandmother's possession since 1880, and she passed it to a niece in 1933. Surprisingly, the niece, who had always seemed to detest me, left it to me in her will....I would have renounced my inheritance except for the sentiment of the thing, for the family fruitcake was the symbol of our family's roots. When my grandmother inherited it, it was already 86 years old, having been baked by her great-grandfather in 1794 as a Christmas gift for President George Washington. Washington, with his high-flown view of ethical standards for Government workers, sent it back with thanks, explaining that he thought it unseemly for Presidents to accept gifts weighing more than 80 pounds, even though they were only eight inches in diameter...There is no doubt...about the fruitcake's great age. Sawing into it six Christmasses ago, I came across a fragment of a 1794 newspaper with an account of the lynching of a real-estate speculator in New York City."
~"Fruitcake is Forever," Russell Baker, The New York Times, December 25, 1983,

​The day after a man lost his wife in a scuba diving accident, he was greeted by two grim-faced policemen at his door.

 "We're sorry to call on you at this hour, Mr. Wilkens, but we have
 some information about your wife."

"Well, tell me!" the man said.

The policeman said, "We have some bad news, some good news and some really great news. Which do you want to hear first?"

Fearing the worst, Mr. Wilkens said, "Give me the bad news first."

So the policeman said, "I'm sorry to tell you sir, but this morning
we found your wife's body in San Francisco Bay."

"Oh my god!," said Mr. Wilkens, overcome by emotion. Then,
remembering what the policeman had said, he asked, "What's the good news?"

"Well," said the policeman, "When we pulled her up she had two five-pound lobsters and a dozen good size Dungeness crabs on her."

"If that's the good news then what's the great news?!", Mr. Wilkens
demanded.

The policeman said, "We're going to pull her up again tomorrow morning."

​The following passages have been excerpted from a story in Third Helpings, by Calvin Trillin, which can also be found as part of Trillin's The Tummy Trilogy, (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux: New York, 1994):

I have been campaigning to have the national Thanksgiving dish changed from turkey to spaghetti carbonara.

It does not take much historical research to uncover the fact that nobody knows if the Pilgrims really ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving dinner. The only thing we know for sure about what the Pilgrims ate is that it couldn't have tasted very good. Even today, well brought-up English girls are taught by their mothers to boil all veggies for at least a month and a half, just in case one of the dinner guests turns up without his teeth... (It is certainly unfair to say that the English lack both a cuisine and a sense of humor: their cooking is a joke in itself.)

It would also not require much digging to discover that Christopher Columbus, the man who may have brought linguine with clam sauce to this continent, was from Genoa, and obviously would have sooner acknowledged that the world was shaped like an isosceles triangle than to have eaten the sort of things that the English Puritans ate. Righting an ancient wrong against Columbus, a great man who certainly did not come all this way only to have a city in Ohio named after him, would be a serious historical contribution. Also, I happen to love spaghetti carbonara.
More >>

Thanksgiving cheer distributed for men in service. New York City turned host to the boys in service today and cared for every man in uniform. Ca. 1918. Underwood & Underwood. (War Dept. ) Exact date shot unknown.

​Here are some jokes we collected from across the internets. Happy Thanksgiving.

-Why can't you take a turkey to church?
Because they use such FOWL language

-What did the turkey say before it was roasted?
Boy! I'm stuffed!

-Imagine... if the Pilgrims had shot a bobcat instead of a Turkey, we'd be eating pussy for Thanksgiving.

-The Blonde said. "Oh, mother, I made myself a lovely dinner, but I had so much trouble trying to eat the turkey!"
"Didn't it taste good?" her mother asked.

"I don't know," the blonde said. "It wouldn't sit still!"

-Why did they let the turkey join the band?
Because he had the drumsticks.
More >>

​They had a sign up: the lobsters were flown in. How cruel is that? Think about that -- let's say you're a lobster, you've never been on an airplane before -- what else can you think, but you've won the lobster sweepstakes? ~Richard Jeni

With a wok, in the privacy of your home, you can create your own mediocre Chinese food for 50 cents less than ordering take-out. ~Todd Barry

Something always happens to let you know you're back in New York -- like the way people order in a restaurant: 'Could you take my order before Jesus gets back?' ~Darrell Hammond

Whenever I have food ordered  in, I try to decide what is the worst way to come to the door, and I've decided it's tied to a chair. ~Laura Kightlinger

My favorite cold cereal is Grape Nuts -- except lots of times I forget to put milk on them the night before I want to eat them. ~Frank Prinzi