Crottled Greeps

Fancyclopedia 2 ca. 1959

A foodstuff, probably. The term was first used by Dean Grennell in Filler (1953). Filler #378 read:

But if you don't like crottled greeps, what did you order them for?

Later this was used by the London O as the message on one of their quote-cards at the Supermancon. The derivation is (1) from the little curved lines used in cartooning to indicate that a character is faunching backwards, which are called "crottles"; (2) from the English spelling of the French pronunciation of "Grippe" (:influenza). Lee Hoffman wrote a story for Grue 27 portraying Crottled Greeps as a seductive but lethal viand and imagination took over from there. Like Blog, many formulae have been presented; Richard E. Geis, noted writer, holds out for chocolate cake in hot tomato soup, while Dr. Andrew T. Young of Harvard College Observatory has developed a combination of Wheat Thins, cheese-and-bacon spread, and strawberry jam. Your Gaius Plinius finds an omelette made with caviar to be a greenish horrid-looking stuff well suited to being represented as crottled greeps. Vin¢ Clarke presents no formula but insists that the True Crottled Greep will include Chow Yung Fan [Chinese for French-fried potatoes]. Arthur Thomson has produced a picture purporting to be a crottled greep sandwich on Venusian pumpernickel but it is generally felt that the world is not yet ready for this. It is expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention of 1896 to transmit the true recipe for crottled greeps verbally, in writing, or through telepathy.

The 1965 London World Convention had Crottled Greeps on the menu; they turned out to be over-cooked brussels sprouts.

To this day no one knows what crottled greeps actually are, but 'crunchy', 'overcooked' and 'green' are usually part of the formula.

There is a filksong called "Crottled Greeps," by Ted Johnstone and Lee Gold (to the tune of "Goober Peas"; published in THE A&E FILKSINGER.) There are also various changes that have been rung on the term, such as "If you don't want throttled creeps, take your hands off [local option fan name]'s neck!"

Contributors: Joe Siclari