Or, When did Kraft Food & Family buy Betty Crocker?
Dear Ms. Crocker and Friends,
When you send me an email promising “easy Irish dinners” and “easy Irish recipes you don’t need luck for”, I don’t expect this to be included:
Okay, so I’m not going into the whole “it’s not Shepherd’s pie if it’s not made with lamb, if it’s made with beef it’s cottage pie!” thing because I think we can both agree that it’s a bit precious to be so persnickety about such things. I mean, I put McNuggets into sushi so I’m certainly not one to be a slave to conventional recipes. In fact I think that it’s a super idea to mash up ingredients from different cultures and create awesome, amazing things like Nacho Cheese Doritos and French Onion Ruffles.
However, and this is the difference between honest, heart of the dadgum nation Americans like me, with good old fashioned values, and media-elites like you, Betty Crocker, when I stuck that McNugget into the rice and wrapped it in Nori, I never tried to fool anyone that it was anything other than what it was. I never said it was Japanese.
Never. Said. It was Japanese.
Yet you, two days before St. Patrick’s day and on Irish Mother’s Day to boot, claim that your Shepherd’s Pie which is made with:
- Barbecue sauce
- Mexicorn (MEXICORN!?!?)
- One of those little cans of green chiles that aren’t even hot that my dad used to put on my nachos until I finally told him what time it was and that he needed to get some real jalapenos up in here.
- Instant “cheddar” and “bacon” mashed “potatoes”
- and one freaking CUP of CORN CHIPS
Is an easy Irish recipe! I mean maybe it is good, you know in that way that concoctions made of various convenience foods combined into a casserole, topped with cheese and baked are “good” but not really “good”, but how the hell are you going to say it’s Irish, Betty Crocker?
Honestly, and I’m not trying to start something here, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is just your recipe for Mexican lasagna minus noodles plus potatoes.
I do not know how you can sleep at night trying to pass off this lie of a Shepherd’s Pie off to the American public, very few of which claim any Irish heritage or knowledge of Irish culture and thus wouldn’t know any better, as a “dinner for St. Patrick’s day”.
Exhibit 3
Thank you for the coupons though, they will come in handy in case I need to buy some Lucky Charms to make cupcakes.
