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I’ve previously confessed that I have a bit of a thing about small print. The radio equivalent ‘advert post script’ is particularly enjoyable, as the actor doing the reading has to rattle through the ’small print’ in double quick time, and anybody who’s even paying half a bit of attention will probably pick up it’s not quite an attractive offer as the main body of the advert makes out.

But take any newspaper or magazine advert that reads “Bloody good offer” in large bold type and if there’s not an asterix saying something akin to “Real offer is a bit crap, we just don’t like to say it in a large font size” at the bottom something is probably wrong. You should probably think about complaining. Stick with it though, the real nasty stuff is usually buried deep inside the large paragraph I’m sure they bolster with irrelevancies. “Offer is not suitable for aliens, pianists or people who like jam” etc. They really do hope people don’t read these things. So, of course, I like to*.

Anyway, I digress… Earlier I tucked in to my first Cherry Bakewell in quite a time. Some readers may recall from back in 2004 that I, along with my esteemed co-author Paul, wrote the definitive comparative study of Cherry Bakewells. For reasons I’ll not dwell on, I’ve not had a Cherry Bakewell in a long while. But I saw them in the supermarket last night and decided it was time to revisit this trusty friend. I went for Mr Kipling, as I correctly recalled the Asda ones were “a bit shit” (That’s a technical term).

Opening the box, my secret passion for small print and cherry bakewell tarts collided in a way I’d never thought it would. There was that infamous small print on the front of every piece of food packaging:

Serving Suggestion

Is it just me or are they always statements of the utterly blindingly bloody obvious? Here is some food, and this is how you eat it. One of the oh-so-perfect tarts on the front of Mr Kiplings packaging helpfully has a bite taken out of it, just in case their was any doubt in the matter (to counter the thought that these were a suppository, perhaps?). Sorry about the image, but what else are you supposed to do? Not serve it like that, I hope. Maybe that should be “Eating suggestion”?

The Mr Kipling Cherry Bakewells helpfully have a reinforcing Cherry on the front too, just in case you’re a complete numpty. But complete numpty’s may not know what a Cherry is I suppose… Food packaging as education? It’s been the case with cereals for a long time.

The pictures they use are an art form of course, as has been the case with cover models for a long time. Always perfectly formed, and for many products made to look fresh by being sprayed with water, if not plasticised.

As I think about this (somebody has to; it’s the law), I realise that the supermarkets own ‘Value’ ranges rarely actually feature pictures of the food inside. I’m beginning to wonder if we should be drawing a conclusion from this.

I’ve a tin of Christmas pringles here by me as I type. We got given more party food than we could deal with at New Year, and I’ve remembered why I dislike the homogenised bland and uniform pringle. Or maybe they’re just stale, even though I only opened them yesterday. I’m certainly very disappointed to report that levitating and glowing pringles, as they seem to be on the front of the tin, is not considered a ’serving suggestion’. Maybe they should err on the side of caution and advise such literally? Oh, and more news: “Christmas time is Pringles time!”. Mmmmm.

Ironically, I am actually in a good mood at the moment

* - Well done! Now, keep at it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Food, Media, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.