I’m not opposed to conveniences in supermarkets, I occasionally buy the pre-cut bags of lettuce even though it costs double and a head of lettuce can be washed and cut up in about three minutes, but I saw something today that I couldn’t believe.
Peeled onions. Yes. Yellow and red onions relieved of their papery outer skin. Only $1.59 a pound! Right next to them were the regular “ugly” onions at two pounds for a dollar. Who buys this stuff? And who comes up with these ideas? “Joe, lets rub off the papery bits and sell these for three times the price of the regular ones!”
I’ve bought the pre-sliced onions on occasion, to eliminate the cry factor, as well as when I really want nice slices (I am an onion butcher, I swear)… But only peeled? That’s just bizarre.
I have a possible alternate explanation. At my grocery store, most of the sorta bizarro produce arranging was the result of wanting to get rid of the older stuff quickly. Here’s my scenario: produce manager sees that the onions are starting to turn. Takes off the paper, peels off the blemished outermost layer or two of onion . . . no one’s the wiser! Not quite honest, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what’s going on here.
Okay, here’s something in a similar vein that amazed me: single potatoes, pre-wrapped in plastic to be put in the microwave! I mean, who in the world doesn’t have the time to wrap a freakin’ potato in a piece of plastic?
I would never, ever have guessed that you could wrap a potato in some plastic and microwave it. I mean, of course I know you can do that, but I didn’t realize it would turn out to be anything other than a half-cooked potato. I generally think of potatoes as something to cook when I have a lot of time.
So, the potato-wrapped-in-plastic isn’t much more convenient than a self-wrapped potato, but it gets the idea out there that potatoes can be conveniently cooked. And for those sorry individuals who can’t cook, it lets them buy something that’s supposed to work with no thought, rather than having to worry about if they wrapped their potato in the right kind of plastic, etc.
I personally wonder about the bags of pre-grated cheese. Is it that hard to grate cheese?
Hey, I buy the prewrapped potatos! If I buy a whole bag, they just rot before I can eat them all. And the prewrapped ones are perfect for tossing into my bag for lunch.
The one that got me though were the Peanut Butter slices. Yes, you read that right.
I buy pre-grated cheese from time to time, when I am making a casserole or a cheese sauce that calls for 3-4 cups of cheese. It’s just that much easier, and saves the brick cheese for sandwiches.
I saw a battery-operated dish washer at MalWart the other day.
No, not the kind you put your dishes into. The kind that has a scrubby thing on one end and a switch which makes the scrubby thing vibrate, thus washing your dishes for you.
Because, y’know, it’s just SO HARD to wash dishes by hand.
You mean unpeeled onions are the norm??? Where I’m from, they sell both, but the peeled white, are MUCH more popular than the unpeeled white (though I’ve never seen, peeled yellow), but the price difference was only 20 or 30 cents a pound, not the 2 pounds for a buck for unpeeled and 1.59 for the peeled.
I think the reason that the peeled were so much more popular among consumers in AK is because of the crummy produce we get a lot of the times. With the peeled, they can’t sneak “yucky” onions in on us as easily.
Sometimes it’s just a lot easier to buy the grated cheese than grate it yourself. Such as if you are making several casseroles or buying for camping/hiking (easier to carry pre-grated cheese than the brick and the grater). As a former camp cook I can say it came in handy. I don’t want to spend all my prep time grating cheese!
People could also be like me and have a bad habit of getting their fingers mixed in. Luckily I have no scars from such mishaps.
No, but it’s also not hard to grate one’s knuckles along with the cheese. That’s not really appetizing.
Besides, we tend to buy it in huge bags, freeze it, and use it for pizza, lasagna, etc. It’s much more practical to have a bunch of shredded cheese than spend an hour grating the amount we need for a pizza.
I got a jar of pre-peeled garlic cloves for 50 cents a while ago at the food thrift store. I never would have bought it full price (I think it was originally $3 or so) but I must say it has been convenient to just pick out a clove and dice it into the dish without dealing with the papery skins.
While passing through the States last time I was amazed to discover:
Tubs of microwave mashed (well pureed) potatoes.
Jimmy Dean brand microwave bacon. (Why? You can microwave regular bacon.)
Hey now, don’t dis the microwave bacon. It’s got the skillet taste, but you don’t have the hassle. Sure, it isn’t as good as skillet bacon, but it’s okay for sandwiches and such. For breakfast bacon, fry in skillet.
I don’t get the people who use pancake mix. Don’t you realize what’s in it? Check the label sometime, then smack yourself in the forehead.
The peanut butter in the jelly always grosses me out in a big way when I’m not able to avoid looking at it in the store. Two jars just too hard there?
Hehe - too right, that one cracks me up every time I think of it - “Just add an egg and half a pint of milk” :smack:
I used to work for a guy who thought convenience foods were the pinnacle of human achievement - at the time, there was a news story about ready-peeled oranges - apparently they were processed by coating them with some sort of chemical that partially dissolves the rind, making it possible for the machines to process them. He thought this was fantastic - oranges are, after all, impossibly difficult to peel if you are a busy executive.
Okay, I’m here to defend a couple of things: Pre-grated cheese; yup, I buy it all the time. It’s not that hard to grate it, but my grater’s a pain in the neck to wash; also, what Guin said about grating knuckles, too.
Peanut butter slices; I always thought the point of these is that they allow fairly young kids to make their own sandwiches with less mess for mom to clean up; I mean, I’ve seen the kitchen after my 4-year-old took it upon herself to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: not pretty.
