open letter to domino's and frito-lay

dear huge corporations,

i notice that you are marketing products as "artisan" recipes.

i realize that legally there is no defined meaning of "artisan" and its related words in terms of food packaging, but there is actually a definition of the word "artisan" that is generally accepted and a meaning of "artisan" as it applies to foods and while i guess you're free to declare oxygen not just visible but mauve in color, it doesn't make these things so and shame on you for trying.

according to dictionary.com, here's the definition of "artisan":

1. a person skilled in an applied art; a craftsperson.

2. a person or company that makes a high-quality, distinctive product in small quantities, usually by hand and using traditional methods: food artisans.

 

 

artisanal foods are made in small batches by skilled craftspeople. these are pizzas, cheeses, breads, beers, and what-have-you made in small batches by real people with care and attention. even if you take a recipe used by an actual artisan maker, the second you scale it up and mass produce it in a factory, it isn't artisanal anymore.

 

"artisanal" is not a term that means "we put a buncha stuff on this and expect you to pay more for a longer ingredient list".  it isn't even a term that means "we'd like to call to your mind what you'd be getting if you were eating real food instead of this crap".

 

if you're going to call your products artisanal, i'm going to redefine words, too.

 

here's my definition of "visible": it goes in and out of the lungs.

as you see, oxygen can most certainly be made to fit my definition. i am also defining "mauve" as "the color of anything that can be put into a balloon". 

 

now that you and i have paused to redefine words to suit our  whims, let's invite everyone to do the same and soon nobody will have any idea what anyone else is talking about and maybe we'll all just be reduced to eating foods that taste good and can be easily identified without marketing.

 

one can hope.