Last week, radio personalities PJ Harding and Jase Hawkins introduced the world to a culinary abomination called ‘Sushiwi’, a disturbing conflation of a pie with a sushi roll. The pair of outrageous radio jocks (who recently also dabbled in sleep deprivation by hosting a 51-hour long radio broadcast) developed this Kiwi rendition of the Japanese classic as part of an integrated campaign for sushi chain St Pierre’s.
See the video of the official launch here.
While Sushiwi is unlikely to revolutionise the sushi market and become a staple on the shelves of other chains, the hype created by the pair did drive consumers to the participating chains. And even though most customers weren’t bold enough to sample the rice and pastry treat, the campaign achieved the aim of getting people into stores.
But the pair didn’t immediately choose to incorporate pie into sushi straight off the bat. They first experimented with pizza, but this idea didn’t make it beyond the confines of the studio walls.
Our attempt at making ‘Sushizza’ last night was… interesting.
Posted by ZM’s Jase & PJ on Thursday, 9 July 2015
Interestingly, Jase and PJ aren’t the first people to have experimented with the humble pie. Not long ago, Pizza Hut added to its growing encyclopedia of horrors by unleashing the pie crust pizza in the Australian market.
During March, Z Energy also got stuck into the pie action by unveiling an assortment of weird pie flavours, including Italian Meatball Pie (with beef meatballs, tomato, onion, garlic, basil and oregano, topped with a creamy cheese sauce made with mozzarella) and The Breakfast Pie (with cheesy sausages, smoky bacon, baked beans in a rich tomato sauce and topped off with an egg)—at least those don’t sound downright horrifying.
Gourmet pie company I love Pies, however, jettisoned common decency altogether and developed a high-protein, probiotic smoothie, consisting of Angus beef mince, mozzarella cheese and a sprinkling of kale. And on that note, we close with the laconic words of Captain Kurtz from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: “The horror, the horror.”
This article originally appeared on Idealog sister site, Stoppress.
