Gross Out Your Dinner Guests With ‘The Garbage Pail Kids Cookbook’

There are those who strive to downplay the grosser aspects of being a human, and others who simply love to embrace them. If you happen to be one of the latter—and are also old enough to remember the ’80s—there’s a fairly good chance you have an affinity for the Garbage Pail Kids.

The revolting cast of characters, created as an antithesis to the cherubic Cabbage Patch Kids, don’t have quite the hold on kids today as they once did. But they’re not gone; Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine released a series of three Garbage Pail books—Welcome to Smellville, Thrills and Chills, and Camp Daze—between 2020 and 2021. 

And, in September 2022, Abrams published The Garbage Pail Kids Cookbook, filled with around three dozen recipes that sound just as unappetizing as you’d expect. They’re all “created” by the Garbage Pail Kids themselves, and themed to match. Cheesy Charlie, for example, contributed “Pizza Snotcorn”—popcorn topped with cheese and a green-dyed mixture of tomato paste, butter, and other key pizza ingredients. For Saucey Sarah’s “Sloppy Spaghetti Sliders,” you swap out the meat for sauce-covered spaghetti.

But if there were a blue ribbon for most disgusting offering, Potty Scotty would win it without contest. His “Poop Cookies” are equal parts chocolatey and evocative, and that’s all we’re going to say about that.

The book was co-authored by New York–based chef and caterer Elisabeth Weinberg and her husband, music producer Matt Stine (son of R.L., who wrote the cookbook’s introduction). Considering Weinberg’s culinary expertise, you can count on the recipes to taste delicious—though the illustrations by Joe Simko would have you believe otherwise.

The Garbage Pail Kids Cookbook is available from Amazon for $18.