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The infamous Hardee's biscuit at the former Fredericksburg Hardware store. |
By EDIE GROSS
The sausage-and-cheese biscuit lay in state in a window of the former Fredericksburg Hardware building for at least three months before someone hung a banner in the window announcing the Jaycees Haunted House.
"Well," observed a co-worker, inspecting the aged biscuit through the glass, "it is kind of scary."
Scary indeed.
The fast-food breakfast sandwich had become a curiosity since showing up in the William Street window sometime in late May.
It was unwrapped but still nestled in the waxed paper, as if someone had been poised to eat it, then simply got distracted--or thought better of it.
As the weeks ticked by, passersby, both nauseated and intrigued, marveled at its unchanging condition.
The biscuit possessed a waxy, Leninesque complexion, the cheese having taken on a beige, translucent pallor, the sausage appearing a tad hockey-puckish.
But much like the former Soviet leader, preserved behind glass long after death, the biscuit appeared remarkably lifelike, not all that different from the day it was abandoned on the windowsill.
How, folks wondered, could something seemingly organic be exposed all summer long to bugs, sunlight and 100-plus-degree temperatures and not decompose?
Furthermore, how could the stomach--human in its imperfection--break down something that Mother Nature could not?
Ancient Egyptian secretThe key to the biscuit's survival, according to food scientist Barry Swanson, is its moisture content--or in this case, the lack thereof.
Bugs need water to survive. Mold needs water to grow. And quite frankly, neither would be interested in a foodstuff with all the moisture of a sheet of sandpaper.
Put simply, the sausage biscuit was just too dry to attract insects or microbes.
"It was probably pretty dry to start with, but it got drier over a period of time," said Swanson, a food-science communicator with the Institute of Food Technologists. "As soon as it gets moisture, it's going to attract a lot more attention. As long as it stays really, really dry, it just sits there like a piece of wood."
The biscuit is also likely to be the beneficiary of preservatives.
The best preservatives bind water in one place, said Swanson. That way, the water can't evaporate, so the food stays moist for the customer. But the water isn't readily available, so it doesn't attract unwanted visitors.
"The most important preservatives are trying to control the movement of water," he said. "You'll see all kinds of long, multisyllable words on the label that people think are terrible. But most of them are simple chemicals that bind water."
Sugars, salts, starches and proteins are all used to preserve food because of their moisture-binding properties, Swanson said.
Moisture also, to some extent, controls the aroma factor, said University of Mary Washington biologist Joella Killian.
The drier the food, the fewer molecules of scent in the air. That was probably a blessing for anyone downwind of the sausage-and-cheese biscuit 'round about July or August.
But without the sweet smell of rancid meat and moldy cheese wafting in the air, insects might not have even noticed the biscuit, Killian said.
When Mary Washington's science department moved from Combs Hall to the new Jepson Science Center in 1999, the faculty discovered a mummified frog on the second floor of Combs, Killian said.
"Who knows how long he'd been there?" she said.
Perhaps, like Combs, the confines of the old Fredericksburg Hardware store are more tomblike than anyone realized.
"The ancient Egyptians figured it out long ago. When you think about mummies, preserved people, it's just drying that kept them from being broken down by other organisms," Killian said. "I think [the biscuit] is probably mummified."
You can, but should you?Cathy Peterjohn, clinical nutrition manager at Mary Washington Hospital, is familiar with the sausage biscuit in question.
She's seen it while walking her dog downtown.
Usually we call her with only the most pressing nutritional inquiries.
This was a notable exception.
Peterjohn, a good sport about the whole thing, assured us that the body can usually digest just about anything in the plant, animal and mineral categories, excluding fiber.
(The presence of any fiber within this biscuit could not be confirmed, though it boasted 530 calories, 1,240 milligrams of sodium and 38 grams of fat.)
So a fresh sausage-and-cheese biscuit, though not the healthiest item on the menu, is edible.
Along with the chewing and churning action within the body, enzymes in the mouth, esophagus and stomach would be able to break down even the greasiest grub, Peterjohn said.
Assuming there were any nutrients in the sausage patty compound, they'd be absorbed into the bloodstream through the small intestine.
Plenty of the preservatives used in food--Vitamin E, antioxidants, citric acid--are digested and metabolized, said Rebecca Berman, a registered dietitian who counsels students at Northwestern University on nutrition.
But just because the body can break it down doesn't mean it's beneficial, said Berman. She referred to Morgan Spurlock's documentary "Super Size Me."
"We all saw that movie and what happened to that guy who ate fast food three times a day [for a month]," she said. "It could've killed him. It's not healthy at all."
Both Swanson and Peterjohn suggested that the biscuit in the window might be a tad tougher on the system than most. But eating it would be more a test of will than bodily function, Peterjohn said.
"A Hardee's biscuit that's calcified? I don't know. If you were able to masticate it, the body might digest it," she said. "But I don't know how well you'd feel."
EpilogueOn Aug. 31, shortly after the Jaycees Haunted House sign went up, the biscuit was unceremoniously swept onto the floor and into a growing pile of debris.
Jason Adkins, vice president of membership for the Jaycees, said he wasn't sure if organizers intended to use the biscuit in their house of horrors, which will be open primarily on weekends between Oct. 13 and Oct. 31.
"There are quite a few other creepy, scary things in there, though," he said of the building's contents.
A ripening Big Mac, perhaps?
To reach EDIE GROSS:
Email: egross@freelancestar.com
