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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Food that I will never eat:

Anything that comes in a bucket for starters. Yuk. Buckets of food bother me on so many levels. Firstly, nothing says "glutton" like a bucket of food, especially if you have seen the size of me (small) compared to a bucket (big). Gluttony is one of the worst sins. In my book it is right up there with sloth although greed and envy don't usually bother me so much.

Still, with all the issues we've been having about misleading packaging (home made being the biggest offender, whose home? the cleaning lady's?) If I wanted home made food I would eat it at home, not go out to a restaurant. This also goes the other way, supermarket food items that proclaim to be “restaurant quality.” Firstly, I have been to a few rather dubious restaurants that bring into question the supposed standards of restaurant quality.

I guess with a bucket you at least know what you're getting.

Not so with food described as a melt. Melt is not a noun. A melt is a wagon of spin to make toasted sandwiches seem fancy. I have been watching with amazement the new commercials of a fast food venue on TV at the moment, advertising their new range of (this should be a dead giveaway) “Melts.” Aside from the rather unusual combination of ingredients they seem to be sporting, even in the photograph can’t make them look appetising, and they are never going to look any better than in that photo.

Another frightening food stuff is the "medallion." A medallion is a piece of metal, usually presented as an award. A medallion is not a round chicken nugget with garlic "butter" (I'll use that term loosely) found at 4 am in a take-away all-nighter.

I also have serious issues with the following terms: log, basket, parcel, triangle and strip. It makes me wonder that these food items could use a bit of marketing pizzazz. Surely a "chicken strip" would sell better when described as: "a lightly seasoned and crumbed chicken tenderloin with rustic parmesan and Italian herbs", although this wouldn't make it taste any better.

And while we are only the subject, restaurants seem to use a lot of sneaky terms to get us to think we have ordered a meal a step up from a bucket of chicken. "Cooked to perfection" is a common menu misdemeanour. I highly doubt that anything promising to be "cooked to perfection" is anywhere near that, and if so, will someone please tell me where the "perfection" setting is on my stove, I believe I am missing something. I have never seen a cook book that provides the instruction “cooked to perfection” – even Jamie Oliver can use adjectives.

Useless claims of "organic" as a marketing ploy also spring to mind. Sure, eat all the organic sugar you want, it is still sugar. Excess sugar will still makes your kids hyperactive and obese, organic or not. To some people, the term organic is a deterrent. Take my brother Andrew for instance who refuses to eat anything that isn't crumbed and pre-frozen.

So lets call a spade a spade; a bucket of grease laden chicken is still a bucket of grease laden chicken, and I'll not have any, no thanks.

4 comments:

Lisa said...

Have you expanded on this and found someone to publish? Because this is good. Really good.

(I'd say finger lickin' good but you'd probably throw something at me.)

lemon curd said...

Tinned spaghetti. Hate it...tinned baked beans too...! I know, controversial, but there's something about it!!

Christina said...

I love Heinz Baked Beans in Ham Sauce, and Heinz spaghetti but would never eat any other. It's what you grow up with I think.
Speaking of growing up, I remember going out for my first grown up Counter tea and ordering "Chicken in a Basket". Half a chook with a mountain of chips. I still talk about that to this day!
Something in a basket I do like!

Nola said...

You ladies are onto me... SPC are bringing our canned backed beans in gravy. As soon as I see them on shelf they will be blogged about. I'm not too keen on canned baked beans either, so I doubt it will be a glowing review!