While catching up on the recycling this evening I paused to thumb through the coupon circulars from today’s New York Times. And what to my wondering eye should appear but this processed food offering.
Do you know what it is? I’ll give you three guesses, and I’m hoping you aren’t even close. Give up? Well, it’s not a Twinkie; it’s a bagel. Come to think of it, that may have been blasphemy. It’s a Kraft “Bagel-ful,” which the ad describes as a “Toasty Warm Bagel & Creamy Philadelphia Cream Cheese, All In One!” and which can be found in the “frozen breakfast aisle.”
Go ahead, get a barf bag. I’ll wait.
No, I have no more idea than you do why anybody in their right mind would want to eat something like this. What really mystifies me, though, is why you would bother to market and advertise it in a city where you are seldom more than about a block away from really good bagels, prepared the way bagels should be, with a boiling-water bath and a hot oven, and served with lox. (Kraft Bagel-fuls do not seem to be available with lox, for which we can all be grateful; the flavors offered are Original, Cinnamon, Strawberry, Whole Grain and Chive.)
This particular product goes along with a theory I’m starting to develop. It seems to me as if the processed-food companies rose to prominence in an age when people had more faith in institutions and better living through chemistry, and when it was easier to convince consumers that nobody really had any time for skilled cooking of good food any more. Of course the past couple of decades have seen a resurgence of interest in good cooking, high-quality food and authentic cuisine. A big part of this movement has been the rejection of processed foods. So the processed foods companies have had two choices for response: improve the quality of their offerings to better meet the needs and standards of the new foodies, or aim their marketing at the lowest common denominator.
Which have they chosen? Suffice to say that today I saw a TV ad for orange juice that seemed to be based on the assumption that orange juice is a better choice for kids than fresh oranges because children are too stupid and clumsy to peel oranges. Admittedly, I don’t have kids, but I’d like to think that if I did I’d be up to the task of teaching them how to peel an orange. And how to wash their hands afterward, which is a pretty useful skill as well.
