The Sandspur

Issue date: 3/26/07 Section: Opinions

A culture can be defined, in part, by what it consumes. America lists decidedly toward quantity over quality and, increasingly, navigates in the dark waters of the absurd. In this regard, supermarkets are appropriately named. They're bigger than they need be, and devoted largely to marketing rather than food.

Every visit invites new levels of astonishment, revealing an endless mutation of packaging masquerading as sustenance.
Why go to the movies to be entertained?

For there, in the snack-food aisle, I stood in a mild state of shock, mouth agape, perplexed, slightly amused as if, unwittingly, I had signed up for a minor walkon part in some surreal piece of theater, Pirandello perhaps, as I gazed upon the Herr's Philly Cheese Steak Kettle Cooked Potato Chips.

Mind you, these were not to be confused with the Herr's Kettle Cooked Baby Back Ribs chips. Nor should they be mistaken for the Herr's Kettle Cooked Buffalo Wing chips.

Personally, I am not opposed to wings. I am not opposed to chips, either. Quite the contrary, I love a great chip. I just don't want meat flavor dusted on a chip.

This is either bad science or exceptionally trippy science fiction.

Going to the supermarket is an act of discovery, akin to being Lewis and Clark, but in a really bad way and with too much highfructose corn syrup.

Good food doesn't require chem experiments. It isn't necessary to play with it. Asparagus
or raspberries, fish or, for that matter, potato chips are splendid when served simply and fresh.

Herr's produces 16 varieties of potato chips, which may be 15 varieties too many. Cap'n Crunch comes in seven varieties, including Choco Donuts, while still boasting of nutrients, an idea so absurd it was foreshadowed in a John Belushi "Saturday Night Live" routine. Oreo, in pursuit of
global domination, offers 40 variations,
including seasonal Easter yellow "creme" _ like it was patisserie or something.

When companies incessantly tinker with food, when they dust artificially flavored junk onto already questionable products, this
draws attention to the fact that it might not be food to begin with. Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," argues
it isn't food at all. These items are variations on the stale joke: "Waiter, there's a cheesesteak in my chips?" It's like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" but, instead, our alien life is food.

"Many of these companies are cannibalizing existing brands in order to stimulate the category," says Bob Golden of Technomic,

Continued...

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