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Food

Trump Supporters Enraged by 18th-Century Custard Recipe

Apparently making America great again does not mean enjoying a colonial recipe for a dessert called the 'orange fool.'
Photo via Getty Images/Sean Gallup and YouTube.

This year, the Fourth of July was a sensitive time for Trump voters. But with new evidence in the investigation regarding Trump's ties to Russia and stalled legislative agenda hanging over the presidency, what better way to blow off a little steam than to knock back a couple of beers, fire off bottle rockets, and salute the ol' stars and bars? Surely the liberal media couldn't take that away.

Yet, somewhere in the darkness beyond the rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air, NPR was unleashing a barrage of seditious tweets that gave the Trump commentariat fits—but actually just turned out to be the Declaration of Independence.

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And Trump supporters on YouTube also found something to get pissed about: an 18th-century dessert. Townsends, a popular cooking channel with almost 300,000 subscribers and hundreds of videos, specializes in 18th-century cooking and lifestyle content. It's where you might go to learn how to make parched corn or salt-glazed pottery—and it unintentionally ignited a firestorm when it released a video on July 3 about a traditional dessert known as the "orange fool."

If you read those two words and immediately thought of our current commander-in-chief, you're not alone. The typically quaint comments section of the Townsends video was quickly inundated with mentions of "cucks" and MAGA. The reaction to the video was so acrimonious—viewers on both sides of the aisle argued, and Trump supporters threatened to unsubscribe—that Townsends decided to issue a response video two days later, titled "The Intrusion Of Modern Politics On Our YouTube Channel," to address the perceived political motivations of "orange fool."

But was "orange fool" really a subtle insult towards the President on the day of our nation's birth? It's just a basic custard recipe infused with orange juice, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

Jon Townsend, the man behind Townsends (and host of the videos) is clearly exasperated, saying "We've entered this era where everything has to do with politics…[It's] frustrating to me that everything we do, even in a simple episode cooking episode, has to be dragged into that arena."

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"Two words and people are thinking that's the message one way or the other," Townsend told MUNCHIES over the phone. He says they have taken down the contentious comments to try and promote a more positive dialogue.

The "orange fool" episode showing up on the eve of Independence Day, explains Townsend, was a coincidence of scheduling. Nonetheless, there was some concern about the potential for the video being misinterpreted, he admits.

If you spend some time on the channel, you can get lost in a world of cooking beyond anything you may have ever seen before—recipes for paw paw pudding and pigeon pie. It is certainly a world beyond the scope of modern politics.

As for the orange fool, as one astute commenter said, "Sometimes a custard is just a custard."