A Meaty, Boozy Father's Day
Polynesian Cocktail Party
10 Spicy Snacks
Party Food from the Corner Store
How to Make Nut Milk
Sausage Recipes of the Month
You were a history teacher, but now you've quit your job. You can support yourself off Epic Meal Time?
Yes, but I'm 25 and I live in my mom's basement. All the guys you see on the show, only one of them doesn't live with their parents.
What attracted you to doing an over-the-top cooking show?
I have always wanted to do something in media. It's hard to get in an actors' union so I started making music videos. I was filming artists and local rappers. I told them, "Just pay me $100 and I'll do your video." I had a video game review, I had a kids' show planned. But I just happened to see a picture of a Happy Meal on a pizza, and it was summertime ...
Which you had off, because you were a teacher.
Right. We put all this fast food on a pizza, we filmed it, then it sat on my computer from July to October, while I was still filming people's weddings. Finally we got it up. And in five days it got 90,000 views.
And you decided, "Hey, let's keep doing this."
Yeah. We did it a few more times, then we did Angry French Canadian. It must have been a slow news day in Canada, because a whole bunch of news outlets said, "But hey, these guys made a poutine–French toast sandwich." That one got 600,000 viewers. [So we said,] "Shit, we have to do this every week."
So you started releasing a video every Tuesday. How did you decide what to cover?
Yes, Tuesday, because that's kind of a shitty day, and the World of Warcraft servers have downtime that day. We were looking at the traffic for the French Canadian video—we noticed we had 80 percent Canadian viewers, 20 percent Americans. "Huh. Americans seem interested, why don't we try to get more of them? What's the most American thing you can think of?" Canadian Thanksgiving had just passed, American Thanksgiving was next, why not do something with turkeys?
How long did that take to pull off?
In between planning and deboning and making the stuffing, and smoking the whole thing at the end, that was two solid days, and $600 in meat. I didn't know if I was going to be able to pay for the whole thing on my credit card, so I put on my Facebook page, "Anyone who wants to come over and help us eat this thing, bring $10 to help pay for it." That's why there are all these strangers at the end of the TurBaconEpic video.
Did you ever go to cooking school? Your knife skills aren't bad.
Ha, in the last few videos, we outsourced to a professional chef. That's why that looks good.
Do people recognize you around town?
Yes, they do, and when they come up to my mom, she doesn't know quite what's going on but she says, "Yes, my son is the drunken bearded one on the Internet." Actually, my brother was at Dairy Queen wearing an Epic Meal Time shirt, and he looks a lot like me, so the guy at the counter said to him, "Bacon strips, bacon strips," and asked for his autograph. When my brother got his ice cream, the people in the store were watching him eat it like it was an event. It's good, except sometimes at fast-food restaurants we feel pressured to eat more food. Like, sometimes everyone wants to eat a salad.
They're as much food comedians as anything; the logical extreme of the ethical argument would be that entertainment itself is unethical because the money could be better spent solving crises.
Word: the fast-food sushi episode is hilarious.
For the humorless out there who are wondering "is what they're eating organic?" or "how could they, with all the starving families" "or they support obesity" or whatever, you are missing the point. The point is they are making a show which has hundreds of thousands of viewers for entertainment. If you don't understand what makes a lasagna made out of fast food burgers' etc or a turducken with...+READ
For the humorless out there who are wondering "is what they're eating organic?" or "how could they, with all the starving families" "or they support obesity" or whatever, you are missing the point. The point is they are making a show which has hundreds of thousands of viewers for entertainment. If you don't understand what makes a lasagna made out of fast food burgers' etc or a turducken with about 10 lbs of bacon, then don't watch. Why does everything have to be a morality statement, anyway?-COLLAPSE
Not sure which restaurant TexSquared was referring to, but there aren't too many I'm aware of that have that sort of sticker shock - Masa, perhaps? And if that's the place we're talking about, I don't think the bluefin toro they're shipping in from Japan would meet luniz's description of "sustainably sourced"... Sometimes wretched excess is just wretched excess, and the fact that one takes Amex...+READ
Not sure which restaurant TexSquared was referring to, but there aren't too many I'm aware of that have that sort of sticker shock - Masa, perhaps? And if that's the place we're talking about, I don't think the bluefin toro they're shipping in from Japan would meet luniz's description of "sustainably sourced"... Sometimes wretched excess is just wretched excess, and the fact that one takes Amex and the other has drive-thru windows doesn't necessarily lend the former some sort of moral superiority.-COLLAPSE
I don't know enough about Epic mealtime to criticize them, but there's certainly every difference in the world between spending $600 on factory farmed, environmentally unfriendly and inhumanely raised and slaughtered meat, and and $600 on sustainably sourced, artisan crafted, expertly prepared food priced to represent the true cost of food at a top restaurant. Of course the idea that if you have...+READ
I don't know enough about Epic mealtime to criticize them, but there's certainly every difference in the world between spending $600 on factory farmed, environmentally unfriendly and inhumanely raised and slaughtered meat, and and $600 on sustainably sourced, artisan crafted, expertly prepared food priced to represent the true cost of food at a top restaurant. Of course the idea that if you have $600 to spend, you should spend it on somebody else, is irrelevant and illogical.-COLLAPSE
Awesome interview, Joyce. I need to get a "& bacon strips & bacon strips & bacon strips" t-shirt, pronto.
To go with (and agree with) Number, who wrote:
"It's s frickin embarassment that North Americans treat food as a form of disposable entertainment. $600 can feed a family of sane people for a good long time."
Is this any worse than someone blowing $600+ on an expensive restaurant meal? Recalling a certain Anthony Bourdain TV piece....
@Shattered: Urban centres tend to have lower obesity rates that rural areas, with Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver all below national average that's just Canada). I'm in Toronto, so we're pretty even when it comes to fatness thanks. I'm just sick of all the abuse of food, and meat in particular.
@monopod: I didn't say American, I said North American. Eating with a total lack of respect for food...+READ
@Shattered: Urban centres tend to have lower obesity rates that rural areas, with Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver all below national average that's just Canada). I'm in Toronto, so we're pretty even when it comes to fatness thanks. I'm just sick of all the abuse of food, and meat in particular.
@monopod: I didn't say American, I said North American. Eating with a total lack of respect for food and it's real purpose, which is to nourish and energize our bodies is just sad. I didn't mean Epic Meal Time was the culprit for obesity, just another example of dangerous mindset that's becoming very North American, when it comes to food. More is better? Not so.-COLLAPSE
@ Number: I've met Harley and the guy's built like a linebacker. 6'5" or 6'6" and 280-300 lbs. He can handle the food, trust me. Also, if you'd bothered reading the article or clicking the link to the Thanksgiving video, you'd see they invited a good 20 people over to eat that feast (you'd also notice Harley towers over everyone).
Last but not least, Montrealers are considerably slimmer and...+READ
@ Number: I've met Harley and the guy's built like a linebacker. 6'5" or 6'6" and 280-300 lbs. He can handle the food, trust me. Also, if you'd bothered reading the article or clicking the link to the Thanksgiving video, you'd see they invited a good 20 people over to eat that feast (you'd also notice Harley towers over everyone).
Last but not least, Montrealers are considerably slimmer and fitter than most of the people on the continent (an extensive city-run bike rental network, for eg, being a factor; our mountain in the middle of the city, which I hiked today, being another). Obesity is a rarity here.-COLLAPSE
@Number: You know that eating contests aren't an "American" thing, right? The Japanese in particular are way more into the concept than Americans - they have a bunch of very popular competitive eating shows on TV, and the winners of many eating contests in America are, in fact, Japanese (as in, they live in Japan, not Japanese-American). Americans are obese because we drive instead of walking and...+READ
@Number: You know that eating contests aren't an "American" thing, right? The Japanese in particular are way more into the concept than Americans - they have a bunch of very popular competitive eating shows on TV, and the winners of many eating contests in America are, in fact, Japanese (as in, they live in Japan, not Japanese-American). Americans are obese because we drive instead of walking and eat too much processed/fake food, not because of Epic Meal Time.-COLLAPSE
Enough already with abusing food and seeing how much we can stuff in our mouths! It's s frickin embarassment that North Americans treat food as a form of disposable entertainment. $600 can feed a family of sane people for a good long time. This is why we're obese. Yuck.
fast food lasagne was the first one i saw and that was pretty epic.
haha I love these guys! 84 egg sandwich - nice!