Generation Kill by Evan Wright

For those unfamiliar with The Greasy Bookshelf, I simply share interesting food passages from books I'm reading. About 70 percent of the books I read aren't cookbooks, so some of the passages are excerpted from books that might surprise you. Today's passage is from Evan Wright's book Generation Kill, which is now a HBO miniseries. This non-fiction book follows twenty-three Marines as they invade Iraq. The following is my food passage from that book:

As mortars continue to explode around us, I watch Garza pick through an MRE. He takes out a packet of Charms candies and hurls it into the gunfire. Marines view Charms as almost infernal talismans. A few day earlier, in the Humvee, Garza saw me pull Charms out of my MRE pack. His eye lighted up and he offered me a highly prized bag of Combos cheese pretzels for my candies. He didn't explain why. I thought he just really liked Charms until he threw the pack he'd just traded me out of the window. "We don't allow Charms anywhere in our Humvee," Person said in a rare show of absolute seriousness. "That's right, "Colbert said, cinching it. "They're fucking bad luck."

For the record, I was unsure of what Charms were, but after some quick research, I learned that they're simply Blow Pops, those lollipops with bubble gum in the middle. Also, for the record I've never tried Combos, and I think, they would be more infernal than Charms.

If I fought in a war, I would heed to all superstitions involving food. In a situation like that I want good mojo. Don't mess with the mojo.

However, in my daily life, there aren't really any foods that hex me. If I indulge in too much junk food, I do lose a little bit of my swagger, and there are foods that put a little more bounce in my step. For example, later this week I'll purchase my first watermelon of the season, and I'll be euphoric for 2-3 days.

Pass the gravy,
muddywaters

PS. . . I apologize for the profanity in the excerpt.