5/28/14

Batchelors Foods - Ambitious wife.

Food news now, fresh from 1952. This just in: peas are "savoury", even when they come in a can!


Please read the copy for this ad, and don't forget to enjoy the phrase "a man's womenfolk".

Even more scandalous is this assemblage of words that don't make sense when placed next to each other: "tender, delicious peas". You can be a fan of peas (but I won't join you), but not of canned peas. All my life, I had never been able to choke the things down. Little, olive-colored bags of mush that popped in your mouth when you bit them, like stinky pimples, they were. Then, one day I tried frozen peas. The color was more green and less brown. They didn't smell like feet. Also, they tasted kind of like a plant, instead of a refinery. "Holy smokes! These are much less repulsive!" I gasped. When you stick a vegetable in a can, it turns into a mummy version of itself. Brown, shriveled, and preserved in a permanent state of being eight percent rotten.

It's possible that, so soon after the deprivations of World War 2, the English were glad to have food at all. But think about it this way. What did we fight a war for, if not to be free of the cruelty of canned peas?

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1 comments:

Fernbank Exhibit QR Codes said...

For all you Sixties Housewife reenactors out there in Phil-land: take an undrained can of "pink salmon," a cup of crushed saltines (or equivalent) and some minced onion. Mash with a fork into a quasi-homogenous mashpulp. Bake in a small loaf pan at 350 for 30 minutes or so. While the potted pulp bakes, make a white sauce with 2 TB butter, 2 TB white flour, and 1.5 cups skim milk. When the sauce is done, drain one can CANNED PEAS and add to sauce, leave heat on until peas are warmed through, then taste for proper salinity & pepperocity. Serve to your tablemates as "salmon loaf with creamed peas." Best paired with straight Fleischmann's gin warmed to 95 degrees F.

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