Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing

Have you ever been sitting around the table getting ready to enjoy an ear of silver queen corn and someone passes you a bottle of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter"? Talk about ruining the mood! I know it seems petty, but this kind of thing drives me nuts. I have no desire for a lame butter substitute.

I guess all of this nonsense started as a result of all the diet crazes. Why have a delicious bowl of real butter pecan when you have the non-fat alternative with half the calories? "You'll never be able to tell the difference" is what they tell me. Trust me, I can indeed tell the difference. I once had a rather portly young lady tell me, "I can eat this whole tub of low-fat Rocky Road and not feel the least bit guilty about it." Is this something that someone really needs to brag about? Maybe it's just me, but unless you're auditioning for an episode of Man vs. Food, I think you should save some of that synthetic Rocky Road for another time.

I was in the beer store the other day looking for a good hearty lager. As I scanned the shelves, I couldn't help but notice all of the flavored beers. There was cherry wheat, blueberry ale, a citrus scotch ale and countless other fruity concoctions. When did beer turn into a fruit drink? And probably worse than the flavored beers are the regular beers that require a slice of fruit. I ordered a Blue Moon draft recently and the bartender dropped two large slices of orange in it. I kept my drink half hidden for fear that one of the guys would think that I was knocking back a daiquiri. And speaking of fruit slices, why is it necessary to shove half a lime into a bottle of Corona? I'll tell you why. It's because it tastes like crap without it! I spoke with a Mexican guy about this several years ago. He told me that Corona is the Pabst Blue Ribbon of Mexico. Enough said.......

One time, I ordered some seafood nachos. According to the menu, aside from the typical high-fat glob of cheesy goodness, it was supposed include shrimp, scallops and crabmeat. Living in Maryland, the blue crab capital of the world, when someone says crabmeat, that's exactly what I expect. But lo and behold, on these particular nachos, they substituted real crab with that red and white imitation crap. Hell, it's not even crab, it's fish! I wound up up picking at the scattered shrimp and scallops while I tried not to look at the fake crab. The good news is that the imitation crab didn't go completely to waste. I wound up tossing it into the nearby water so the real crabs could enjoy it. The funny thing was that the roaming seagulls didn't even want it!

I also had a similar thing happen earlier this year at a well known restaurant in Ocean City, MD. But it wasn't nachos that they defiled this time. In this case, they actually had the audacity to desecrate a bowl of cream of crab soup with lumps of the imitation crabmeat! To me, this was the granddaddy of culinary faux pas! You just don't do this, especially in Maryland! 

And don't you love when you buy a product and the label says "made with real cheese" or "made with real chocolate". I'm sorry, but if you're calling something Cheese-Nips, I expect at least one of the main ingredients to be real cheese! And another thing, cheese under no circumstances, should ever be fat free! And that goes for chocolate too!

In my humble opinion, butter will always be better than margarine. Crab will always be better than fish. And a Sam Adams Boston Lager will always be better than a tasteless beer with a lime floating in it!

So, here's to keeping it real and leaving the imitations behind!

kw