Snackerator spits out midway-inspired foods worth a chuckle, if not a taste

This is the time of year when the Calgary Stampede typically releases its list of mind-boggling, mouth-wateringand sometimes indigestion-inducing midway treats.

But COVID-19 has robbed us of the opportunity to actually partake in thoseculinary delicacies this year at the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, and so there won't be a big reveal to tantalize(orhorrify) would-be patrons.

There is, however, a hilarious substitute that's been devised by two Calgarians in the spirit of all things midway.

But one could argue that even Stampede vendorswouldn't dream of trying to make people pay to eat "house-made upside-down elk dipped in chocolate," or "dairy-free light dumplings sprayed from a can," or "golden banana bread offal in a rodeo clown shoe."

Each of those fantastical items is a product of theSnackerator, an online generator created by Julia Williams and Mason Hastie to spitout sometimes ridiculous and other times perfect-for-the-midway foods, like agolden spicy cheese foot-long.

"We stole a lot of words from the midway foods, just to keep it accurate," said Williams, who grew up in Calgary.

Williamshas attended the Stampede many times, through many different stages of life, and saidshe's developed a real affection for what the annual eventmeans to the city and to Calgarians.

But she recognizes thata snack like "triple-cooked ground bone broth with a smear of SPF 60" is a touch off the mark.

"Some of them you could never come up with. We could only do a pale imitation of what's actually the reality of midway food," she said.

The Snackerator was actually a just-for-giggles project that she and her co-workerHastie birthed back in 2014.

"We would go for walks at lunchtime, and we'd just find ways to make ourselves laugh. And this was one of them."

After the Calgary Stampede announced the cancellation of the 2020 event, the pairdecided to revive their pet project.

The Snackerator's recipe

Williams'husband, Dan, is the software developer who wrote the original JavaScript that cooks up what the Snackerator dishes out.

Behind the scenes, there arefour columns of potential descriptors. The code pulls one item from each column at random and sticks the four elements together to come up with each food.

The first column contains different styles of cooking, the second is comprised of adjectives, the third is a noun-like foodand the fourth is a way it could be servedfor example, "fired out of a T-shirt cannon."

If you play long enough, you might even come across the local legend Turk, the belovedRamsay turkey.

Now, Williams isn't suggesting anyone actually try to eat Turk.

"He's amazing," she said.

But she does hope that finding his nameamong the potential Snackerator results is worth at least a chuckle, especially in these times.