Gastro Obscura’s Weird Food Vending Machine Pops Up Briefly at Pix-O-Matic

The 24-hour automats are ready to satisfy your culinary wonder needs through Thanksgiving weekend.

Pix-O-Matic and the Gastro Obscura the vending machine, under the same roof. (Cheryl Wakerhauser)
By Suzette Smith

If you were mourning the impossibly long line and strict shut-off time of the single day pop-up appearance of the Gastro Obscura vending machine at this year’s Portland Book Festival, weird food fate has conspired to give you another chance at pickled watermelon rinds.

Tucked snugly between the two Pix-O-Matic automats, in the foyer of Pix Pâtisserie, the Gastro Obscura machine is ready to satisfy your culinary wonder needs through Thanksgiving weekend. It’s open 24 hours, which could come in handy for a last-minute side dish smorgasbord or post-dinner dessert concerns.

As a refresher of the contents:

  • The Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide book: That’s the whole purpose for the vending machine’s existence. It’s a sort of Atlas Obscura for food, co-written by Portland writer Cecily Wong and Altas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras.
  • Miracle Berry: the West African Miracle Berry that confuses your mouth’s tastebuds and makes sour things taste sweet.
  • Akabanga: a Rwandan condiment that’s so spicy, it’s served with an eyedropper.
  • Bradford Watermelon Rind Pickles: South Carolina’s delicious pickled melon treat.
  • Canned Bread: steamed New England bread that comes in a can.
  • Even more intriguing, adventurous items.

Also of interest: Starting on Thanksgiving, Pix Pâtisserie will offer a limited-time pop-up of macarons in the Pix-O-Matic. For a short, remote festival called La Fête du Macaron—held Thursday through Sunday, Nov. 25-28—all 24 flavors of the pastry and cake shop’s macarons will be sold in Pix’s automats, vended in groups of six different flavors per box.

EAT: Pix Patisserie, 2225 E Burnside St., pixpatisserie.com, the Pix-O-Matic and Gastro Obscura vending machines are available 24 hours a day in the outside foyer of Pix.

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