Yankee Junk Food

At Wally's Delicatessen in Cardiff, delicacies from all over Europe are sold, and an impressive selection of meats, sweets, and cheeses from Britain are proudly presented as well.

This steel rack presents a selection of American foods, but not from the same stratum of culture as the choices made on the home continent. The rest of the store caters to shrewd foodies with coin in pocket. This section cries out to that little bit of trailer trash in every passing Yank.

We grew up consuming huge amounts of particular sugar preparations, served in particular shapes and artificial colors. As we age we like to reminisce about our own crap as we also become familiar with exotic junk foods from the world over.

We all know these foods or rather, we're all familiar with most of them with the omissions determined by one's age or family preferences. Very few Americans have not eaten Aunt Jemima pancakes, and the same goes for Jiff peanut butter and M&M's -- and notice the wrong use of the apostrophe for the plural. Many notice but few care. Those apostrophes are like the main ingredient in almost every item you see: High Fructose Corn Sweetener. There is no need for the stuff to exist on Earth but it promotes obesity and corporate profits, and that's American.

This is the part of the store that brought up memories for me. I sometimes ate Froot Loops cereal as a kid, and I still eat an occasional 3 Musketeers bar. If you offered me a Pop Tart fresh from the toaster I would not refuse, and if you don't like A1 Steak Sauce, you're a long way from the nearest truck stop.

Call me a snob if you like, but Marshmallow Fluff is not fit for human consumption --not even American humans. Unfortunately, many millions of Yanks don't agree.