I Tried Five of the Subway's Gross Viral 'Recipes' and Survived (Barely)

My first mistake in making the viral subway recipes—the food filler content beamed onto the system's advertising screens—was cooking while hungry. My second mistake was forcing my friends to consume these nauseatingly inedible meals with me.

If you've ridden the subway in the past two years, you've probably spotted these "recipes" yourself: videos of anonymous hands combining foods in incomprehensible and horrific ways, offering instructions that often leave out the proportions of each ingredient, how long to cook a dish, or what temperature to bake it at.

That's because these meals, sourced from the cooking brand So Yummy, were not meant for human stomachs. As Hell Gate's Willa Glickman pointed out in 2023, these videos function as a visual snare that drags a straphanger's eyes to the nearly 15,000 digital advertising screens across the subway and streets. Those screens, operated by MTA advertising partner Outfront Media, can then hawk 5G phones, aerosolized deodorant, and overpriced handbags to a captive and captivated audience.

I have spent years staring at these videos—of Baked Brunch Boats, Chocolate Monkey Bread, and "Brieghetti Pie" to name a few—debating whether there was some human vision inside these heavily commodified, rapid-fire meals. These dishes don't look tasty per se, but I thought that they would at least be edible, right?

Not exactly.