“I rebuke this in the name of Jesus.” That’s what social media digital creator Kalen Allen says to himself while watching someone empty a can of whole-kernel corn into a bowl of cornbread mix. 

“How in the world do you gentrify cornbread?” he asks, delivering one of the video’s most memorable lines, wearing an expression of complete disbelief. “You see, that’s why I don’t eat at the white folks house.”

Allen is a comedian and college student who invites viewers to send him cooking videos to react to. He records his reactions in split-screen videos, delivering rapid-fire commentary that swings between surprise, disbelief and outrage before posting the finished clips to social media under the banner Kalen Reacts.

Famously lambasting internet cooks for their attempts to reinvent traditional recipes and family favourites from grandma’s heyday in the kitchen, the theatrical comic delights in dismantling familiar comfort foods that, in his opinion, never needed reinventing.

Allen wonders what would possess someone to mix some very unusual  ingredients together to distort age-old recipes.  

The Case of the Tasty Cornbread

Cornbread is where Allen truly loses his composure. Everything begins normally enough with familiar cornbread ingredients when he’s presented with four different ways to make cornbread. As increasingly questionable ingredients like bacon, maple syrup, cheese, onions and the canned corn find their way into the bowl, he goes from mildly concerned to spiritually offended and rebukes the recipes. 

“Cornbread don’t mean you put corn in it,” was another of his memorable reactions to the much resented take on the traditional sweet or savoury versions of the dish — someone’s attempt to innovate the beloved southern African American staple with the Street Corn Cornbread with carmelized onions recipe.

Boujee Mac & Cheese

Introducing new culinary phrases like roux, in this case, a mix of simmering flour and butter, and asking pertinent questions like: “When did white people start liking cornbread all of a sudden?” 

Allen adds interesting running commentary too like, “I shoulda known this was gonna be some bullshit.”

He is not afraid to point out unsanitary cooking practices, the look of a chef’s living space and whether or not the recipe is “a thing.”

In one video, Allen explains that the Potato Salad is more like a fruit salad, and not in a nice way. “Oh, this is nasty. No m’am, No m’am. You could not pay me to eat that shiet right there.”

Mac and cheese gets similar treatment. Allen is perfectly happy until the recipe veers into gourmet territory.

He declares the mac and cheese recipe “boujee” and decides to make it himself because he’s bougie too. The recipe looks good until the cook decides to add Brussels sprouts and squash. 

“Hoe, this is a disgrace … What happened to the Black lady. Come back and fix it.”

Spaghetti-O No!

As a hand removes the half-runny, half-solidified soup gelatin mix from the Jell-O mould, Allen says, “What is this … ? Two cans of Spaghetti-O, with the gelatin. Girl you better not make no Spaghetti-O Jell-O.”

The girl decorates the dish with leaves and proceeds to add raw Vienna sausages. “Child this ain’t nothing but the devil,” pronounced Allen.

Creator EmmyMadeInJapan ate up her Spaghetti-O-No! and nodded like it was good.

The Black Chicken

“She must be makin’ pumpkin pie.” Emmy continues to place Chinese herbs and shiitake mushrooms into a carved-out pumpkin, and brings out a whole chicken with the head still attached. 

With unpredictable comic timing, he says, “Girl, you gotta be kiddin’ me. It’s the damn chicken from Moana.” In an extremely funny segment about the cook’s treatment of chicken. Watching the cook handle the bird as though nothing were unusual, Allen becomes increasingly convinced the chicken is fully aware of what’s happening, before joking that it must have come from “the black market.”  

His reaction to Sweet Potato Pie is just as authentic. Allen questions the ingredients and was worried about the crust. Seemingly concerned that the cook put cheese in the pie, he calls on White Jesus.

He reviews Patti Labelle’s Sweet Potato Pie, not for laughs this time, but for real. He calls for more and then breaks out into song before delivering a verdict that the “Patti Pie” lives up to the hype and was “on point.”

Allen sometimes attempts to recreate some of the more interesting recipes including a Peach Cobbler in a new segment called Cooking at the Allen Estate, where the members of the estate cook with their furs on. Challenge — cooking without getting food on your fur. In this household, they use the best china, straight from China.

He had to go across town, with his mom at the wheel, spending $10 worth of gas to get the bougie ingredients to make gentrified cornbread to answer the question: Is it good? The answer is … you’ll have to go watch it for yourself to find out.

We’re looking forward to upcoming videos like How to Make Lemonade, Beyoncé style.

Whether he’s defending cornbread from unnecessary reinvention or declaring a gelatin mould to be the work of the devil, Allen has a remarkable ability to turn someone else’s cooking video into his own comedy show.

This article was written in December 2017 shortly after Kalen Allen’s reaction videos began circulating online. It has been lightly edited for clarity while preserving the original perspective of discovering an emerging creator.

by Cherryl Bird – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
X @ladycbird | Instagram @cherrylbird