Phagomania: Dude, Where’s My Food?

Meet a wild maverick, breaking all the rules and spreading the joy of crazy food and potential health complications. Could Dude Foods be our greatest Phagomania guest ever?

Feature by Lewis MacDonald | 20 Nov 2013

If you mash together popular US TV guzzle-'em-up Man v. Food with the bizarre and unsettling antics of Heston Blumenthal, the smashed patty that remains is Nick Chapman of DudeFoods.com. An alchemy of meat, cheese, desserts and frying, what Nick hasn't turned into a taco, burger or sandwich isn't worth thinking about.

Nick's work consists solely of the type of ideas we Brits may talk of but would never dare try. Here’s a brief menu of Nick's recent creations: crumbled Oreo-coated deep fried cookies with cream ice cream; a hash brown bun breakfast sandwich (his answer to September's ramen noodle burger); sweet and sour chicken in a wonton cone; chicken and waffle wings (chicken wings 'breaded' with actual waffles); beer- and bacon-battered deep-fried Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Yep, you read right.

Then there are the 'sandwiches', if they can be called that. There's the Inside Out Grilled Cheese Sandwich – cheese, bread and cheese – or the 100% Cheese Grilled Cheese Sandwich (cheese, cheese and cheese). Or maybe you fancy the Bacon Weave Taco, or its Choco brother filled with vanilla ice cream.


“I like to tell people that I basically trained my whole life for this” – Nick Chapman


I know what you're thinking: how bloody American? But Nick has been approaching these heavyweight knockouts with craft, humour, and even a bit of finesse. Working hard at it like an outsider artist, Nick had no previous chef experience, which may be his secret. “The fact that I've never even worked in a restaurant helps me as well because I really have no preconceived notions about what should or shouldn't go together in the kitchen,” states Nick, “so I'm just experimenting all the time to come up with this stuff.”

Experimenting in public has certainly paid off for Nick. His crowning achievement has been his insatiable McEverything. This simple stunt involved ordering and piling high (bamboo stick aided) the full 42 burger menu of McDonalds.

I know what you're thinking: how wasteful? Profligate even? “If I was just making these ridiculous creations and then throwing them away then yeah, go right ahead and criticise me,” Nick retorts. “But I'm really not wasting any of it. The truth is, I eat every single thing I make and never throw any of it away.”

I know what you're thinking: how nutritionally unsustainable? “At some point it might catch up with me, but it definitely hasn't so far,” Nick reflects. “It's like running a race, you don't just one day say, ‘hey, I'm going to compete in this marathon,’ you have to work up to it. I've pretty much been eating this way forever so I like to tell people that I basically trained my whole life for this.”

This marathon isn’t ending anytime soon, so keep up to speed with DudeFoods' crazy concoctions on his site. Let’s hope we see Nick at the finish line, and that we can match his hectic pace.

http://www.dudefoods.com