New Organic Lines / The Secret Life of ... Betty Crocker? / Cake Mix Goes Gourmet
New Organic Lines
Healthy may not be what most kids want in a snack, but
Healthy
Handfuls delivers plenty of other things they do. Taste, for
one. This new line of certified organic snacks delivers taste, flavors,
mouth feel, you name it, that are not only appealing, but right in line
with the expectations set by non-organic counterparts – without the usual
enhancers of trans fats, hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup.
The line consists of two savory and two sweet snacks. The savory are thin,
crisp little knots called Python Pretzels and Lucky Duckies (shaped like
what else?), which are every bit as satisfying as Pepperidge Farm
Goldfish, without the salty assault. The sweet items are Oatmeal Raisin
Crocodile Cookies and Koala Krackers (think: animal crackers), both of
which take their pleasant sweetness from evaporated cane juice.
As for other kid appeal, the pieces are sized for non-adult hands, the
graphics are goofy in a friendly way (the hand-scrawled font turns a
lower-case “e” into a toothy mouth poised for chomping), and the pretzels
and koala crackers come in plastic tubs that are easy to open and reseal.
These are kids’ foods that adults will want for themselves as well.
Another new line worth nibbling is the organic produce from
Newman’s
Own Organics. The line-up consists of carrots (baby and full
grown), potatoes, and a variety of single and mixed greens, including baby
spinach, arugula, romaine hearts, and an herb salad enlivened by fresh,
aromatic dill and parsley. All come in bags (five ounces to a pound for
the greens, one and five pound for the carrots, and five pounds for the
potatoes), while some greens are available in clamshell boxes. The
clamshells are actually worth attention in their own right, because they
are made from corn. Yes, corn. It yields a plastic that biodegrades
phenomenally quicker than petroleum-based (a few weeks as opposed to
thousands of years), which means that clamshells can go from shelf to
kitchen to compost heap. (NatureWorksPLA has more information about corn
plastics in its
FAQ.)
My samples were clean, crisp, and beautiful (even the potatoes!), and, as
is generally true with organic produce, every single item packed more
potent flavor than its conventionally grown cousin. If you’ve never tasted
organic carrots or romaine lettuce, both are revelations; the carrots are
much sweeter, while the lettuce actually has...flavor. Although the labels
suggest using greens within two or three days after opening, the ones I
sampled remained in acceptable condition for a week in my refrigerator.
The Secret Life of ... Betty
Crocker?
One of our most enduring culinary icons was an unintended consequence of
an advertising promotion for a bag of flour. In 1921 the Minneapolis-based
Washburn Crosby Company ran a full-page ad-cum-contest on the back cover
of the Saturday Evening Post. The contest offered a Gold Medal Flour
pincushion as the reward for cutting up a picture puzzle and reassembling
the pieces into a quaint street scene. Along with the expected entries –
some 30,000 – came hundreds of pleas for baking advice. Having been so
dramatically informed of a previously unsuspected consumer need, the
company’s advertising staff jumped to fulfill it.
And so began Betty Crocker, a figure who grew to be so looming in the
American psyche that the lobby of her namesake test kitchens initially
kept tissues on hand, so frequently did pilgrims burst into tears at the
revelation that she did not exist in the flesh. That one quick decision to
birth a helpful, trustworthy kitchen advisor led to developments that
still affect kitchens today – including the standardization of baking pan
sizes and photograph-laden step-by-step instructions in cookbooks. In the
process, she provided jobs for a lot of women (the company’s traveling
demonstrators, as well as the college graduates who staffed its Home
Services Department) and shored up countless more. She dispensed household
tips, marital advice and moral support in a radio show and, later, shorts;
when World War II came, she waged a full-tilt morale boosting campaign
championing the patriotic contribution of the homemaker. And as she
morphed into a brand for baking preparations, she weaned her followers off
her advice and preached the reliability of boxed mixes.
Her evolving existence and impact on both American society and the food
industry fill the lively pages of
Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America’s
First Lady of Food by Susan Marks. The book, released by Simon
& Schuster this year, is a brisk, light-handed and fascinating social
history. The gallery of Betty through the ages is especially fun, as are
the reproductions.
Cake Mix Goes Gourmet
One marketing brainstorm of the Betty Crocker brand was formulating
packaged mixes to require the addition of eggs, so that the home baker had
more of a sense of ownership of the results. The
King’s
Cupboard follows her lead with its new Triple Chocolate Layer
Cake Mix. Or rather, it follows her as far as requiring add-ins and then
leaves the ready-made realm where supermarket cake mixes reside, for new,
indulgent territory, population: one.
Dark, rich, dense and moist, this is not a cake for most children. The
sweetness is much more restrained than the name would make you think, even
in the frosting, which comes in a 10-ounce jar and fluffs up with a
half-minute of beating. (Surprisingly, sugar is the first listed
ingredient, no doubt to tame all that chocolate power.) Save it for adults
and special occasions. At about $18 total for the mix and frosting, the
cake prices out in the range of a good grocery store bakery cake. And you
can say you made it yourself.
Copyright 2005
Kathy Biehl. All Rights Reserved.