Today is Thanksgiving and this week I discovered the special “Thanksgiving” tab on Ocado shopping. I’ve never been so horrified in my entire life. I was expecting turkey and fresh green beans and pumpkin puree for pies…and they did have those things. But otherwise this special section doesn’t reflect very well on us Americans.
Instead of potatoes, hams and yams, Ocado has Marshmallow Fluff (I don’t even know…), Stove Top brand instant stuffing, Jollytime microwave popcorn, Pop-Tarts, Froot Loops – all the traditional E numbers enjoyed by the Pilgrims and Native Americans.
Still, whenever I get high and mighty about anti-American snobbery, I’m reminded of my strolls through American supermarkets which yield a cornucopia of intriguing “food” stuffs: aisles and aisles of convenience-ised, “fun”-ed up, hydrogenated products that seem just this side of edible. Yet I have a bit of a soft spot for all this weird food. I grew up on it, or grew up desperate for my parents to buy it instead of whole wheat bread and okra. It represents the triumph of industry over common sense.
You can’t get these kind of items over here (I imagine they violate Health & Safety rules) so I won’t be partaking of them. But today, I give thanks for these very American foods:
- Sno-Balls – Hot pink round balls – made of cake perhaps? – and rolled in coconut. As my friend Nancy from Park Slope Parents remarked, sadly they don’t taste as good as they look.
- Twinkies – A classic that’s so ingrained in the American psyche that a writer wrote a book about the ingredients, even going 1,600 feet underground to see where one ingredient is mined (you read that right), which in turn inspired a photographer’s Twinkie ingredient project.
- Betty Crocker spray icing – It really does what it says on the tin.
- Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancake and Sausage on a Stick – This is not a satiric breakfast meal…but it could be! A sausage nestled in the warm embrace of a pancake sprinkled with blueberries, then the whole thing is jammed onto a stick, so you can easily eat it in the car on the way to your arteriogram.
- Eggo Real Fruit Strawberry Granola Pizza – The last time I wandered round the HEB grocery store in Austin, I was agog at the sheer number and variety of frozen waffles alone. Now I discover that Eggo, the king of frozen waffles, has expanded into sweet pizzas? It’s almost too much to take in. A pizza base, topped with strawberries and, er, granola.
- Cheez Whiz, Velveeta, American cheese – Like the French, Americans love cheese…if by “cheese” you mean a kind of oil product dyed orange. Let’s be honest, though, I have served dishes made with this type of cheese at innumerable dinner parties and they have even the most snooty eaters rubbing their bellies and rolling their eyes in pleasure. The trick is not to reveal the ingredients (which, with these cheese, nobody knows anyway).
- Easy Cheese – Again with the aerosol food. Easy Cheese, the convenient cheese-product-in-a-spray-can, is the ne plus ultra of American cheese inventions.It’s shorthand for American junk food the way deep-fried Mars bars are shorthand for bad Scottish food. In case you’re not too disturbed by the image of squirting “Cheddar” onto your cracker, there’s also a Cheddar ‘n Bacon flavour.
you sure are convincing me to move there. I think. Or not.
Some truly frightening culinary options here. I would add Cool Whip and Miracle Whip to the list.
@Mama – That IS an oversight. Although don’t you mean Kool Whip? It’s a staple ingredient of many a Thanksgiving pie!
@Melissa – it might be safer to stay here, in the land of black pudding and prawn cocktail crisps.
Obviously, the truly awful green bean casserole. How many canned foods can one dish contain? Kat (3BedroomBungalow), an American in England, has kindly e-mailed me a photo and recipe of her dish which I will be featuring in this Sunday’s Pond Parleys’ post. Yuch?
Also – having just returned from a Thanksgiving dinner – corn something souffle. Why can’t things be served as they are? This was a corn flan? And it was sweet?
Enough with the sugar you people.
Oh Jen…you’ve made me wistful and nostalgic for our homeland.
I shall point out the glaring omisions:
1) Cheetos- seriously ORANGEY goodness. Oh I do love Cheetos. I may write an ode to them.
2) Jif Peanut Butter- could a peanut GET any more processed (said Chandler stylee)
3) Apple Jacks- kick Fruit Loops butt any day and not quite so many e-numbers.
4) All other Hostess snacks- Ding Dongs, Ho Ho’s, Cup Cakes, Suzy Q’s, Donettes and Fruit Pies. I seem to recall they all leave a greasy film on the roof of your mouth but oh, are they good.
We should start a site! 😀
Karin
@Karin – I hear you about the Ding Dongs but I have to tell ya’, I’m a devotee of Little Debbie oatmeal creme pies. I could eat them every day of the week.
Ding-dongs. It’s just the name. You KNOW that anything called a ding-dong can scarcely be edible.
Fruit loops. Anything coloured that vividly should be made of plastic, not foodstuffs. (I see them in your list, and yes, I think they are spelt Froot.)
Lucky charms. Marshmallows for breakfast – niiiice.
Cookie crisp. Chocolate biscuits for breakfast – niiiice.
Ranch dressing. Most people in my neck of the woods can’t live without it.
Cheez-its. These get a mention in many an Expat-American-in-Britain blog.
Hamburger helper. If your hamburger needs help like this, then it’s probably already beyond redemption.
Grapples. Pronounced Gray-ples. Fresh apples that have been injected with artificial grape flavouring (which tastes nothing like grapes, in any case). These are just so, so wrong.
Enjoyed your list, Jen. As you say, a triumph of industry over common sense.
I love what you guys tend to be up too. This sort of clever work and exposure! Keep up the amazing works guys I’ve included you guys to blogroll.