About that Lottery Ticket…
So the grand prize winner of the Pillsbury Bake Off was announced yesterday. Drumroll please… the Chai Brownie Cupcakes! No, just kidding. The real winner was in the Dessert Category but it was the Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups. Therefore, don’t ask me to choose your winning lottery numbers as Mike suggested on this site last week.
I didn’t see the competition and how the recipes I selected were executed. I also didn’t taste them. Therefore I can only speculate about the winning ingredients in this recipe. First, it uses four of the eligible brand name products: Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough, Fisher’s Walnuts, Hershey’s baking chips, and Smucker’s jam. That’s a pretty good representation for a 7 ingredient recipe. The recipe is also suitable for making ahead (a very popular attribute), and good for entertaining. Plus they appear to be both kid and adult friendly. They look cute too, almost like something you could purchase in the freezer section of your supermarket.
Which brings me to my critical perspective. This recipe does a wonderful job of supporting the current “non-cooking” trend in this country. Sadly, many home cooks now consider assembling pre-packaged ingredients as good as actually cooking. Yes, you have to bake the cookies and microwave the chocolate chips, but that’s hardly scratch cooking. Pillsbury is not going to fight that trend and bring back scratch baking, they’ll just go with the flow.
I wonder what Jamie Oliver would have to say about this $1 million recipe?
Comments
4 Responses to “About that Lottery Ticket…”
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Sounds to me like it’s all about the money. Buy the suggested products (four out of seven! How about that!) and you’re a winner.
Well, that really is the point of these contests, but I think people tend to forget that and start looking for great recipes to come out of it. You should see some of the vicious comments on Pillsbury’s site about the winning recipe. Granted, it’s not the next best thing since sliced bread, but people need to be more realistic. Now that you know the formula for winning, I suggest you attempt a recipe for the next contest – you never know!
I actually see cooking as a combining of different ingredients and transforming them with heat and or techniques into something sustaining and tasty. I look at preprocessed foods as more complex ingredients which do not limit my capabilities but expands them.
Having read your food blog consistently, I think you are about taste, health and cooking skill. I think your concerns about the Pillsbury Bake Off are about the eroding of cooking skills and the questionable nutrition of overly processed foods.
As civilization progresses old skills are constantly replaced by new skills. I never learned how to drive a horse and buggy and I bet there will be many younger kids that never learn to drive a stick shift. Is that tragic?
Nutrition is another issue.
Well, you’re correct in the summation of my basic philosophy.
As for never learning to drive a horse and buggy or stick shift, probably we’re better off. But then again, maybe all progress isn’t a good thing. Just to stick with the driving analogy for a second. I think some might argue that the computerization of cars isn’t necessarily a good thing. When cars were more simple, it was easier to diagnose problems and tinker under the hood yourself to make the repair. Now, every time the light goes off on the dashboard you need a specialist with the right diagnostic equipment to solve your problem for you. More expensive and time consuming if you need to make an appointment and leave your car for repairs, and possibly more expensive.
Back to cooking I believe the loss of cooking skills is also debilitating. We put our trust in someone else to toss whatever they want into our food and the ignorance can be damaging to our health. Some convenience products are fine if the food remains in its whole state, like frozen fruits and veggies. However, when it comes to my body and nutrition, I’d prefer to retain as much control as possible over the final recipe. Unlike some things where relinquishing involvement in the process is no big deal (like the manufacture of my clothing), I believe that the process of cooking is too important to hand over to large corporations whose sole objective is to sell as much product as possible, without concern for my overall nutritional health and well being.