Sept 23, 2025 – Andy is in OurLittleCorner today
Becoming a Vegetarian is a Huge Missed Steak (and other terrible puns about food)
When Ann told me that she was going to blog about Mark Twain I thought it would be appropriate to devote today’s OurLittleCorner to my favorite form of humor — the pun. Out of curiosity, I searched the web to find out what, if anything, America’s greatest humorist had to say about punning. I’m sorry I found out.
To put it mildly, the pun did not appear to have been one of Mr. Twain’s favorite forms of humor. Back in 1870 in a magazine called The Galaxy, Twain famously wrote :
“Puns cannot be allowed a place in this department. Inoffensive ignorance, benignant stupidity, and unostentatious imbecility will always be welcomed and cheerfully accorded a corner, and even the feeblest humor will be admitted, when we can do no better, but no circumstances, however dismal, will ever be considered a sufficient excuse for the admission of that last and saddest evidence of intellectual poverty, the Pun.”
Ouch! Even though that was penned over a century and a half ago I can still feel the sting.
However, there may be reason to not despair about what he said. With further searching (and AI’s help) I uncovered a source suggesting that Twain’s proclamations about the pun may more likely have been humorous “exaggerations” or “overstatements” than reflections of his actual personal disdain. I’m going to run with the non-disdain interpretation — and proceed with my tribute to the pun.
The puns I’ve selected are from A Collection of Terrible Puns created by Will Styler, Associate Teaching Professor of Linguistics at UC San Diego. In my years of searching for good puns this collection is by far the most extensive list of high quality (aka “terrible”) puns that I’ve come across.
Note that I’m including only puns that deal with food (this is a food blog, after all), which make up only a fraction of those in Styler’s collection. And to provide some semblance of rigor I’ve organized my selections into rough categories.
Veggies
- Becoming a vegetarian is a huge missed steak.
- If your guy doesn’t appreciate fresh fruit puns, let that mango
- This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore.
Ethnic Foods
- Why do defense lawyers go out for Mexican food when they’re feeling down? To get some case-ideas!
- Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
- How does Moses make coffee? Hebrews it.
Meat-Related
- A Steak Pun is a Rare Medium Well Done
- Why don’t mathematicians use knives to eat prime rib? They know it can’t be divided!
- Did you hear about the cannibal social? Yeah, they really like to meat new people.
Pizza
- Why did the hipster burn his mouth on pizza? Because he ate it before it was cool.
- I just burned a Hawaiian pizza I was making. Should have cooked it at aloha temperature!
- What do Russian kings order on their pizzas? Czardines.
Dessert-related
- My wife and I sometimes disagree about whether to add eggs to cream. Custardy disputes are always rough.
- Did you hear about the actuary who wouldn’t make whipped cream? She was whisk-averse.
Baking-Related
- I got a job at a bakery, because I knead dough.
- Did you hear about the Celiac Disease sufferer who went to a wheat processing plant? She was a real Gluten for punishment.
Liquid/Beverage-related
- Straws are for suckers
- So the University of Illinois at Urbana Med School has created a new program to help doctors deal with patients who fake injuries to get drugs. Turns out that doctors from Urbana are really familiar with Sham Pain.
- Did you hear about the antiques collector who found an old Coca-Cola lamp? She was soda lighted.
- I’ve started investing in stocks: beef, chicken, and vegetable. Someday, I hope I’ll be a bouillonaire.
Miscellaneous (but Good)
- Rumors of a food shortage at this year’s spoonerism conference turned out to be a complete lack of pies.
- What do you call a lawyer who can cook? A sue chef.
- What do you do when you find Niacin and Thiamin at your front door? You vitamin, of course!
Most graphically disgusting
- Did you hear about the guy who ate six cans of alphabet soup? He had the biggest vowel movement ever.
A “walks-into-a-bar” pun.
A polar bear walks into a bar and says to the bartender “I’ll have a rum …………………. and coke.”
The bartender asks, “What’s with the big pause?”
The bear shrugs. “I was born with them.”
So, after suffering through my selection of puns, you can decide whether or not you agree with Mark Twain’s pronouncement that the pun is the “saddest evidence of intellectual poverty.” Even if you do agree, I would bet that at the very least some of these puns brought a reluctant chuckle or a smile. And isn’t that the point?
Coincidentally, I just learned that Sam Clemens was a featured speaker in Petaluma many years ago- but not very well received.
Thanks for pointing out Clemens’s Petaluma appearance. I looked it up (here) and it appears that he was much more positively received in San Francisco on that same speaker tour in 1866. Like many comedians, he had a wobbly start. Also of interest, “Letters from the Earth,” posthumously published in 1962, shows a more sarcastic and darker side to his humor.