You probably already know this, but there are a lot of new selections on the grocery shelves. I write about food frequently, for it’s one of the great pleasures of life! Generally, I’m what’s referred to as a “plain cook.” Marjorie Standish’s cookbooks are my new and old testaments. Regular Maine fare. Corn chowder. Clamcakes. Beef stew. Biscuits and tapioca pudding. The kind of food we used to have at school back in the 40s and 50s, before the need for putting handsful of chips in impossible to open plastic bags, and serving them on Styrofoam plates. But I digress.
I always go through the Sunday paper and clip out coupons, figuring out just how much I can get at the store by spending very little. Double coupons come into play here, along with the weekly specials.
Well, as I was clipping a coupon for $1 off on something the other day, I noticed another coupon for applesauce. Not that I’d ever buy any, when it’s one of the simplest things to make and light years ahead of any you can purchase. But what really caught my eye was that this was a NEW PRODUCT! Cherry flavored applesauce. I read the ad twice, and am still wondering what marketing genius on Madison Avenue came up with that idea. Why would anyone want – or need – to enhance the wonderful flavor of apples? Why didn’t they just make cherry sauce.
I’d bet anything that the creative mind behind this gem of an offering was responsible for blue Kool Aid. The trap set by Kool Aid is that the package doesn’t actually tell you it will be blue when water is added. What it says is “Neon colored.” Is all Neon blue? If you’re of an age when Kool Aid only came in the four basic colors – orange, red, purple and green – then to have a jug of blue in your hands is quite a surprise and somehow a little suspect.
It was bad enough when coffee underwent the transition to hazlenut, raspberry, chocolate and every flavor of the flavor wheel, but to doctor up my favorite soft drink? That’s going too far.
Many years ago when I was helping my mother in the kitchen (that’s how I learned to cook), she told me I could frost a cake. I was only 8 or 9 years old but had already decided to be creative. Unfortunately, I saw the teeny little bottles of food coloring and thought blue would go well with chocolate cake. Needless to say that didn’t go over very well, and my mom said it was the color of some kind of stuff my grandfather put in water for the hens when they were ailing. Nowadays I seldom color frosting, but I do have food coloring, just in case the need to be creative overwhelms me.
Having worked at an advertising agency once upon a time, and yes, it was on Madison Avenue, I have watched the special photo shoots where the food is sprayed to make it look glossy, and colors are enhanced – but to imagine those suits (male and female today) sitting around deciding about how to enhance the flavor of applesauce – well, I can only imagine it’s the result of really long lunch hours and several really cold drinks. Probably not blue.
Keep clipping coupons, and I’ll see you next week.
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