Hermes Manwich from Futurama

No food is more closely tied to Futurama than Hermes’s favorite Manwich…unless you count Slurm as a food, I guess. Okay, or Bachelor Chow. And I guess there was that one episode where Leela ate Dr. Zoidberg. But whatever – Hermes Manwich love is still a joke that gets frequent callbacks throughout the entire series, beginning in the second season.

One obvious issue with replicating the Futurama Manwich is that within the 31 century of the show, cows have somehow gone extinct. As ground beef is the main ingredient for most Manwich recipes, this presents a problem. While it’s never revealed what Hermes substitutes for beef in his Manwich, it is probably safe to assume that he uses the animal that has taken over cattle’s place in the food chain: the buggalo. As buggalo don’t exist, the next best real-life thing might be buffalo, which tastes almost the same as beef to begin with. I decided on ground turkey because, like Bender, I do what I want. For what it’s worth, the other ingredients are so potent (especially the ketchup) that it probably doesn’t matter what kind of meat is used.

Ingredients

1 pound Ground Turkey
1/2 cup chopped Onion
1/4 cup chopped Bell Pepper
1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 teaspoon prepared Yellow Mustard
3/4 cup Ketchup
2 teaspoons Brown Sugar
Ground Black Pepper to taste

Directions

Brown the ground turkey and drain off grease over medium-low heat. Add onions and pepper. Stir and heat for about five minutes. Stir in ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, garlic powder, salt and ground pepper. Reduce heat, simmer for 10 minutes until done. Serve on a (fun on the) bun.

Morbo Gives It: 8/10 Delivery Boys

Manwich isn’t the classiest meal, but it hits the spot, especially if you are deep sea fishing in international waters above the long lost city of Atlanta.

Tale. Of. Interest!

My Manwich-making experience, before making some from scratch for this blog entry, consisted of taking meat and pouring a can of Manwich over it. The above recipe produced a sandwich that was not only more delicious than the standard fare, but was so easy to make that it doesn’t take much more of a time commitment either. After chopping up the onion and pepper, pretty much all that was required was to cook the meat and dump everything else in with it. It produced great results for a minimal effort.

As tastes vary, I’d recommend experimenting with some of the ingredients to see what works best for you. Most recipes I found called for at least a tablespoon of brown sugar. This made a Manwich that was a little too sweet for me, so the next time I made it, I cut it down by a third with much better results. Also, ketchup is disgusting to work with in large quantities. When I learned that the main ingredient, besides the meat, was a huge amount of ketchup, I almost balked at making the meal. I’m glad I stuck with it, as it was actually pretty great. In fact, though I suggest using 3/4 a cup in the recipe, I probably used a little bit more. Heinz ketchup, the brand I used, has a good deal of salt in it to begin with, so I didn’t need to add any additional salt when cooking.

Oh, and as I was taking a picture of myself eating this Manwich, my cat tries to take it from me.

Manwich-2