Thursday, February 4, 2010

Non-Vegetables

Everyone has Greenbean Casserole at Thanksgiving.
The time-honored pre-requisite dish that the creators would have you believe that the Native Americans served it to the Pilgrims as the first introduction to this meal.
Complete with the canned green beans from Green Giant, canned soup from Campbell's, and French's Fried Onions.
 
The last ingredient was found in a recent recipe that my husband and I tried recently, but finding it in the supermarket was as elusive as the canned soup would have been in the First Thanksgiving.  "Why"? you might ask.  Here's the reason.
 
I used to work in retail.  I am reasonably efficient at finding bizarre ingredients by thinking what they would be used for or associated with.
Fried Onions should be used as a coating, or as a breading, as it would have been for this application.  First pitch:  Bread Crumbs.  Ah, Strike one.  Second pitch:  Snack foods (It's a fried item).  Strike two.  Third pitch:  Soups.  Mighty Casey has struck out, but thankfully, we're not playing baseball.
 
Finally, as a last ditch effort, I try the canned vegetable aisle.  The one with peas, green beans, and corn.  Sure enough, on the top shelf, appeared my homerun: Fried Onions. 
 
Are you kidding me?  Since when did an item that in NO SHAPE (or  taste) resemble its original form (or even have the item as a first ingredient..Palm Oil) make it into the canned vegetable aisle?  I mean, REALLY!?  It's NOT A CANNED VEGETABLE.  It IS a CONDIMENT.  Why don't we start putting Potato Chips in the canned vegetable aisle!  At least most chips have potatoes as the main ingredients.
 
 
 
 

1 comment:

Tara said...

There are so many things put in odd places in stores these days.. and odd labels in some too..

In a Hannaford in Vermont there is a sign that actually says "Adult Cookies" - seriously, what does that make you think of? What exactly is an "Adult Cookie" - one might think it's something children should never be exposed to... So, of course, my mother and I had to look... "Adult Cookies" basically, anything with a fancy name that was not a normal chocolate chip or Oreo....Hummm, yeah... my kids eat those!

Who comes up with this stuff?