On Friday night as I stocked Mister John’s yogurt at Free Foods For Fat F…s, I looked to my right, to the lady I have loved since I was twelve years old, the Land-o-Lakes Butter Babe, un-aged and immortal, still smiling at me while she kneels to her Whiteman and spreads out the cornucopia of plenty before spread…
…or so did my mind wander in my youth. Now though, as a crackpot, intellectual barbarian, I worry about her extinction. As I sit in my plantation house in Sodom, just down the road in Gomorrah the owner of the Washington Red Skins is facing extinction if he does not change the name of his team. The federal government is putting him in its sights. Can my Lady Love be far beyond?
Before I conclude my prediction and arrange for the defense of her sexist cult, permit me a digression to a simpler time, which has passed, as all three of the symbols of this particular high-carb race war have been disfigured or erased.
In the mid-1980s I worked the cereal section in a city market in the mornings, the last section to get freighted on Saturday morning as the shoppers came through the door. Since 1981 I had always been intrigued by the two following facts:
1. White shoppers always bought Aunt Jemima pancake mix, with the scarf-headed old auntie seemingly peering through time from the Antebellum South gracing the box with her unsightly and not yet picked or braided locks hidden, as many black women still do in the morning—I know, I’ve woken up with a few—prepared to fire up the griddle for her family.
2. Black shoppers always bought Hungry Jack pancake mix. It was a larger box, came in only three varieties to Aunt Jemima’s five, and featured a big white man in overalls and a flannel shirt with hands on hips.
This intrigued me. I wondered if perhaps customers, black and white, simply fell prey to the idea of a person from an antagonistic ethnic group serving them breakfast?
One Sunday morning at about 9 a.m. the answer came down my aisle. The following has formed into my brain as one of those treasured human experiences from my youth, that replays in my mind’s eye every time I eat pancakes or stock that section in the store, indeed, even when I stock the Aunt Jemima frozen waffles and pancakes.
A black man and wife came into the aisle. The woman had one of those plastic clickers that my mother used to use to tally her purchases as she shopped. I suppose these folks would be in their late 60s about now. The man bent to grab the Hungry Jack pancake mix and the woman said, “Oh no you don’t!”
The man looked up, hand still on box. “What?”
Woman: “What some big dumb Jethro-loookin’ white muthafuca know about cookin’ cakes!?!”
Hands were now on hips and her head was bobbing. Dude knew he was in trouble. I pretended to straighten the Jello as I peeked over my shoulder.
The lady then reached for the Aunt Jemima pancake mix. “This is the shit right here, fool!”
The man stood up with indignation and pointed at the box. “What you want that nappy headed bitch lookin’ down on yo ass from da cuberd evry monin’ fo?”
Woman: “You got a problem with ma hair, nigga!?!”
Man: “No Baby. It ain’t that, it jus’ dat dem white country folks invented dis shit. Our ancestas was all about dat corn bread. If we eatin’ cakes we should be eatein’ da real thing.”
The woman looked at me, flashed a sweet smile, said “Excuse me, Sir” and then glared at her man, “Nigga what some white fool know about cookin’ dat some slave bitch ain’t already got down pat?”
The man now turned to me and I wanted to run and hide, but stood like a deer caught in the headlights. “Ma Man, if I could tap into your vast knowledge of eats, ain’t it true dat dem otha whiteboys be cookin’ dat shit up out in dem hills; dat dem country boys be livin’ by da skillet?”
The woman flashed me a look that had a smiling mouth topped by a set of eyes that said ‘Don’t ruin my argument.’
I put up my hands for peace and began my face-saving speech:
“The funny thing is, except for you two, all of the blacks buy Hungry Jack and all of the whites by Aunt Jemima.”
She flashed him a wicked grin of victory as his eyes bugged out at me as if at a gender-traitor, and I continued, “Curiously enough, I am one of those country white boys, or was until a few years ago. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania. Up there, there is a family restaurant that is famous for a pancake that takes up the entire skillet, and is an inch thick.”
The man sneered down at her and crooned, “You hear that, Baby, Western Pennsylvania, fuckin’ sled dogs en shit en dey got monsta pancakes?”
She seemed crestfallen, about ready to burst into tears or violence as he reached with an ever widening grin for the Hungry Jack pancake mix, so I had to say something to even it out. “You know, up there all we ever ate on our pancakes was Mrs. Butterworth’s pancake syrup.”
Seemingly in the clear, the man grabbed the Hungry Jack mix and then stepped over to the syrup bottle of the portly lady with an apron with a conciliatory smile and said, “Here you go, Baby, en you know this old girl is a sista!”
She smiled at me as he pranced, and I could not help myself, and went into my suggestive sales handbook, “And don’t forget the Land-of-Lakes butter, Sir.”
He then, forgetting that his wife was before him, barely having conceded the argument, burst out, “Oh yeah, that fine bitch always in my butta dish.”
And then it came, the slap she had been itching to dish out all morning.
Off they went, both smiling at me like I was a family counselor who had saved their marriage.
Now, three decades later, all of these icons have lost their groove except for the sex symbol on the butter box: Hungry Jack’s rural white image has been completely deleted; Aunt Jemima is now a middleclass sister dependent on hundreds of dollars of hair relaxer per month, and Mrs. Butterworth has lost her curves that marked her as a middle-aged black woman, now looking like a shapeless android instead.
Only My Girl on the butter box remains true, dressed in buckskin finery, on her knees.
What might save her from the feminists?
Here is my one hope, and it is born of an inaccuracy in her portrayal, the two feathers in her hair. This was a male warrior tradition, indicating that the warrior had scalped or counted coup on that number of warriors. So, when the PC Nazis come for the Native American Butter Babe, perhaps the fact that her corporate sponsor has credited her with the slaying of two men, might save her for posterity.
One can only hope.
On Bitches
The Ghetto Grocer Kindle Edition
Hungry Jack is what I ate growing up (black) in VA. It just tasted better than Aunt Jemima. There was no Mrs. Butterworth syrup on our table. It was Log Cabin syrup. Plus it just makes sense that a Hungry Jack would live in a Log Cabin. The Mrs. Butterworth syrup commercials were creepy and you couldn't really make out her face, for obvious reasons. My household soon moved on to Bisquick, then other fancy pancake and waffle mixes. The same happen with syrup. We looked for real maple syrup at specialty stores. As for Land-of-Lakes, I never paid attention to her. We started to use this brand after my mother got off her margarine kick. Maybe if she looked like the St. Pauli Girl I might have paid more attention.
St. Pauli Girl? Really, you went there? Did Spike Lee give you the okay?
Seriously Akira, since the Hungry Jack picture became the victim of advertising iconicide the racial purchasing profile has gradually faded to nothing. The Log Cabin syrup reasoning was very rational. Obviously you were not educated in Baltimore.
It pleases me to no end that the breakfasts of your youth fit the profile. In Baltimore, back in the 1980s the preferred pancake topping was King syrup, which used to come in a quart glass bottle or a 48 once red paint can—no fooling, a paint can! It was a very thick corn syrup that you could spread with a knife. I think it was made in Kentucky. There was a version with molasses in it called po-t-rick. I am not making this up.
Thanks for checking in. Estrogen infusions are always welcome at jameslafand.com!
Funny, I was just recently lamenting that I have been unable to find the bucwheat pancakes of my Long Island whitebread 1960's youth - I swear it was Hungry Jack brand, but now I'm gonna have to check with my mom and sister to confirm.
You can still get Aunt Jemima buckwheat pancake mix in many supermarkets.
Hungry Jack was manufactured by Pillsbury. Check out their website. In many cases, manufacturers are doing limited runs of niche items from the 70s that they will sell mail order. I do not recall stocking Hungry Jack in that variety, but that may have just been due to slotting limitations by area wholesalers.
Nothing better than Mrs. Butterworth and the Land of Lakes girl.
Hungry Jack! Buckwheat pancakes, the big 10" ones are so heavy, you need a coal shovel to turn them, I am that old, coal bucket and all, another damn clinker!
I had forgotten but when money was tight it was Karo syrup, I think.