from Baudrillard, you know, "inventor of the Matrix"

October 12, 2014 4:48 PM

Understanding Jean Baudrillard with Pumpkin Spice Lattes "Back in the day you were stuck with what was seasonal – you ate tomatoes and watermelon when it was summer, and when old man winter rolled in, you were stuck with nature’s shit bag – like potatoes and kale – a vegetable god intended you to hate and smite you with."
posted by rottytooth (74 comments total)

I always assumed "pumpkin spice" referred to the spices used with pumpkins, rather than something containing pumpkin, which is what the article's author is saying. So, a pumpkin spice latte isn't a simulation of a pumpkin, but the marketing is a simulation of seasonality. And it's not a simulacra, since there are such things as pumpkins and seasons.

Also, I quite like kale.
posted by sobarel at 5:33 PM on October 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

The simulacrum is a perfect copy of something which never existed in the first place. Whenever I go past the office Keurig at this time of year and smell this stuff, I get a (small) visceral twinge of annoyance.

I like kale, too.
posted by carter at 5:45 PM on October 12, 2014

The author's kale hatred is a bit of a self-derail. Kale is awesome.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 5:45 PM on October 12, 2014

From the fucking article:
> Did I mention that there’s no pumpkin in your pumpkin spice latte? It’s nutmeg (and a few other spices). In other words, that delicious sip of fall you just imbibed is actually a pure simulacrum, of that fourth order.

That depends on how embittered you are as a consumer, I guess. Pumpkins themselves (most gourds, actually) have a fairly dull, earthy flavor, and the seasoning is essential to bring anything out of them. So fixing a coffee with the spices you would ordinarily put into pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie isn't much of a logical leap, once you've already agreed to transgress on the coffee with anything additional flavoring at all.

So complaining about the label "pumpkin spice" and claiming that there's been a sleight of hand here because it's only the seasonings pumpkins are cooked with, not the pumpkins themselves, requires some deep expectations about what Starbucks would put in a coffee, and relatively shallow understanding of what making a drink entails. And the expectation that "Pumpkin Spice Latte" should be intuited as synonymous with "Pumpkin and Spice Latte". There's no way to put real pumpkin into coffee without having something more closely resembling runny paste as a result. And the effort of adding real pumpkin is kind of wasted since, as noted, it'd be mostly overwhelmed by the flavor of the coffee and spices anyway.

The trappings in the marketing may be a deliberately misleading set of expectations, but I'd argue it's only potentially problematic for people who are disinclined to think about their food anyway.

I'd argue I found a much better illustration of the problematic relationship between food and its representation, from about a year and a half ago..
posted by ardgedee at 5:48 PM on October 12, 2014 [14 favorites]

Something closely resembling runny paste ... ah, the Campbell's Soup slogan that never caught on.
posted by sobarel at 5:58 PM on October 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

How does this relate to other seasonal foods that aren't really connected to a harvest, though? There's nothing about Spring that makes it essential to consume marshmallows; peppermint a Christmas food because we think of it as such. I mean, yeah, some seasonal foods are bastardizations of what's available at harvest time at that time of year, but a lot of them seem pretty arbitrary to begin with; how do you have a facsimile or a simulacrum when there's no original?
posted by NoraReed at 5:59 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

The name is honest--it is actually the spice, not the pumpkin--but the original product (I was a barista during the initial introduction) was a syrup profoundly pumpkin colored for no good reason beyond simulation, especially since it was to be mixed with a lot of milk/espresso/frappucino mix and made to look like the same brown beverage.
posted by ndfine at 6:02 PM on October 12, 2014

Pumpkin spice also offers the perfect opportunity to understand Jean Baudrillard, the thinker of simulation and inventor of the Matrix.

Indeed, as fresh laundry always makes me reflect on Roland Barthes.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:04 PM on October 12, 2014 [17 favorites]

I didn't expect to be spending the evening thinking about the semiotic status of marshmallows.
posted by sobarel at 6:07 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

We live in a world where our globalized and industrialized agricultural system has erased seasons.

We could probably ship pumpkins from all around the world to get our pumpkin fix year-round.

I wonder how these statements will read in ten years? Or maybe even less than that...

To my way of thinking, this article reveals the ways that certain strains of postmodernism, which present themselves as critiques of hypercapitalism, actually function as celebrations of those economic/industrial systems or at least of articulations of the worldview of those systems: rife with arrogance, blind to the earthy realities that literally hold them up.

"We've totally tamed Nature! We can do whatever we want! Nothing is even real." Oh really?
posted by overglow at 6:12 PM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

fuck kale and its unchewable undigestible bullshit nasty self

if i see kale i will fight it
posted by poffin boffin at 6:22 PM on October 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

Oh so that's why you're banned from Safeway.
posted by sobarel at 6:25 PM on October 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

Also, I quite like kale.
I like kale, too.
Kale is awesome.

Bah! It's okay, but kale and its dance partner Kwin-wah are just the latest food fad.

Back in the day you were stuck with what was seasonal . . . when old man winter rolled in, you were stuck with nature’s shit bag like potatoes and kale

Potatoes, on the other hand, are super-food (as long as you don't wreck 'em by turning them into french fries). Quoth Wikipedia:

The potato contains vitamins and minerals, as well as an assortment of phytochemicals, such as carotenoids and natural phenols.

A medium-size potato with the skin provides 27 mg of vitamin C (45% of the Daily Value (DV)), 620 mg of potassium (18% of DV), 0.2 mg vitamin B6 (10% of DV) and trace amounts of thiamin, riboflavin, folate, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, and zinc.

[The potato's digestion-resistant] starch is considered to have similar physiological effects and health benefits as fiber . . . offers protection against colon cancer, improves glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, lowers plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations, increases satiety, and possibly even reduces fat storage.

Hardly "nature's shitbag". They're also not really a winter food, either:

Potatoes do not keep very well in storage and are vulnerable to molds that feed on the stored tubers and quickly turn them rotten . . . . Potatoes are sensitive to heavy frosts, which damage them in the ground. Even cold weather makes potatoes more susceptible to bruising and possibly later rotting, which can quickly ruin a large stored crop.

So this writer is pretty off the mark all around.

I rate the article: "poorly informed ironic rant".
posted by Herodios at 6:27 PM on October 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

The author claims it is irrational to celebrate fall with food since we can get that food year round. But a celebration doesn't need a good reason to be worth partaking in. You might as well claim that it is irrational to eat matzah ball soup on Passover since you can get matzah balls year-round.

And what's wrong with potatoes? Potatoes are delicious.
posted by foobaz at 6:46 PM on October 12, 2014

Potatoes, on the other hand, are super-food

Oh, one more word. And that word is:


Vodka.

 
posted by Herodios at 6:53 PM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

I thought Kitten Spice Latte was pretty barbaric until the barista explained that it doesn't contain any kittens, just the spices used for kitten pie.
posted by oulipian at 6:54 PM on October 12, 2014 [27 favorites]

The existence of pumpkin spice lattes is the least-alarming example of "Humans gonna human" I've heard all day so I'm going to be ok with this.
posted by bleep at 6:57 PM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think the pumpkin spice latte's popularity might actually reflect some profound fact about our consumer culture, but I don't know what it is yet, and this article didn't get me any closer. the search continues...
posted by scose at 7:02 PM on October 12, 2014

I think the pumpkin spice latte's popularity might actually reflect some profound fact about our consumer culture, but I don't know what it is yet...

A lot of people like coffee only when its taste is masked with sugary gloop?
posted by Bromius at 7:06 PM on October 12, 2014

Man, when this guy finds out they sell bottles of Christmas Drink at Ikea that don't even have any Christmas in them, he's going to flip.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:07 PM on October 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

Your essay is bad, and you should feel bad.
posted by drlith at 7:08 PM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

Potatoes: nature's shit bags. Replace artificial bags of shit in your diet with wholesome, natural shit bags, freshly shat by mother nature into some bags. Mmm! Who doesn't love the taste of bagged shit? But today's processed, factory made shit bags contain dangerous chemicals and unhealthy additives. That's why I choose nature's shit bags every time. And if you disagree - go kale yourself. Kale off, you goddamn piece of kale.

Shitbags!
posted by the quidnunc kid at 7:29 PM on October 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

Somebody took an undergraduate class on post-structuralism!
posted by stargell at 7:44 PM on October 12, 2014

Ads for pumpkin spice items tout pumpkins and other fall fare, as if there’s a biological imperative to shove “things that go well with pumpkin” into our collectively fat faces when the leaves start to turn. Nutmeg and allspice are also available year-round, as is canned pumpkin, meaning we could clearly sate our desires at any time.

This person clearly has no gut-level feeling of seasonality. I don't want pumpkin and nutmeg year-round. In the spring I want bitter greens and asparagus to help me remember that winter is over and the earth around me is coming back to life and it's time to de-stodge the digestion. In summer I want tomatoes and salads and light, juicy, fresh flavors that require little or no time near a stove or oven. In fall, yes, I want pumpkin and squashes and pomegranates and persimmons and warm spices like nutmeg and harissa. In winter I want roasted root vegetables and hearty, warm, savory dishes with more warm spices.

That's the only thing that's currently keeping me from plunging into autumnal gloom, in fact — thoughts of "kale salad with pomegranate arils and Fuji persimmon slices" and "roasted Delicata squash rings dusted with harissa powder" and "bean soup" and things like that.
posted by Lexica at 7:51 PM on October 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

I think the pumpkin spice latte's popularity might actually reflect some profound fact about our consumer culture, but I don't know what it is yet...

We like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we hence we like the things that remind us of them. It's not that hard, actually.
posted by stargell at 7:53 PM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

If McDonalds continues their marketing strategy, we will eventually create a generation that thinks mint is a traditional springtime flavor in Ireland.
posted by sourwookie at 8:00 PM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

Pumpkin Spice Latte = Mormon Chai

(Which is to say, if you're not a tea-teetotaler, just get a dang chai. You don't even have to wait for McRib season or whatever.)
posted by Sys Rq at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer went right in the recycling today. Pumpkin everything on the cover I understand, but it was all pumpkin all the time. Pumpkin body butter? Yes. Pumpkin ale? Yes. Pumpkin cream cheese? Ai! Yes! Pumpkin waffles.
posted by morganw at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2014

Comparing potatoes to kale really hurts this guy's argument. Sure kale fucking sucks but... POTATOES??? A vegetable you can actually DO something with? What the hell is he talking about?
posted by ReeMonster at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Pumpkin spice is just the latest poster child for an ongoing half-assed attempt at revisiting seasonal foods in a post-seasonal society.

When I first moved to Japan, I was baffled by all the people telling me about how, "unlike other countries, Japan has four distinct seasons." Early on, I made attempts to correct them, and explain that not only do other countries have 4 seasons, but their entire calendar is based on the system (not to mention that Japanese secrectly sneak in a 5th "rainy" season between spring and summer).

But after a few years here, I realized that the underlying implication is not that 4 seasons exist here, but that they are respected and celebrated in ways that penetrate culture more. Japan still mostly sticks to seasonal foods, and even though we do have a bit of the "pumpkin spice" (McDonalds has sweet potato shakes for autumn now), it's not so much to counter the lack of seasonal foods so much as to celebrate their existence.

Respect for the seasons is also cited as a reason for not switching over to central heating and air- most houses still have room units here (although I suspect the short lifespan of housing is a bigger contributor).

It also permeates domestic tourism (there are hour long traffic jams in the middle of nowhere here during peak season for the changing fall leaves), art, music, etc. in ways that I'm still discovering.

Not sure where I'm going with this, but I guess cultures can and do make a concerted effort to preserve the seasons in the face of technological advancement. It just has to be a priority.
posted by p3t3 at 8:08 PM on October 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

I am happy to see so many people still willing to admit they hate kale.
posted by geegollygosh at 8:13 PM on October 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

John Oliver
posted by Sys Rq at 8:15 PM on October 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

(Oh, hey, wait, it's an actual latte with actual espresso in it? Huh. Sorry to get your hopes up, Mormons. Drink a pie, I guess.)
posted by Sys Rq at 8:22 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't expect there to be actual pumpkin in my coffee. That would be weird. Hell, there isn't even real pumpkin, by a standard that most folks would easily recognize, in most of our pumpkin pies--the stuff that comes in a can, which is perfectly tasty but more easily processed kinds of squashes, from what I've heard. I want it to taste like my brain says pumpkin pie tastes, and it does, and that works.
posted by Sequence at 8:24 PM on October 12, 2014

(Oh, hey, wait, it's an actual latte with actual espresso in it? Huh. Sorry to get your hopes up, Mormons. Drink a pie, I guess.)

Thanks for clarifying because your original comment had me very confused.

Im prett sure chai is also caffeinated though, no? It's black tea.
posted by bleep at 8:45 PM on October 12, 2014

Vodka
Very little vodka is made from potatoes. It is kind of an annoying starch to ferment, since unlike barley or wheat it has no enzymes to break it down into fermentable sugars.
posted by casconed at 8:48 PM on October 12, 2014

I saw quinoa vodka the other day. Discuss.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:58 PM on October 12, 2014

My oh my is this disappointing. Yep, pumpkin spice is not the same thing as pumpkin. So that critique doesn't make a ton of sense. And yes, the weird complaints about potatoes and kale end up more confusing than witty.

But this is also a terrible understanding of what Baudrillard is saying. It's true he's cited as an inspiration to the Matrix trilogy, but he himself hated them and thought them quite wrong in the way they alluded to his work. It's true he has an argument about the stages/procession of simulacra, but the discussion here isn't quite right. Baudrillard's basic thesis, which is actually pretty modernist, is that at some point in time we reached a tipping point where simulacra became more prevalent than reality, and when that happened it was reality that started to revolve around simulation, simulation begat simulacra, and simulacra continued to evolve in ways that made value difficult if not impossible to ascertain. It's not that the picture turns into a napkin soaked with urine - that sort of falsehood masquerading as truth is exactly the sort of thing he assigns to that second order of simulacra. The fourth stage is the stage at which value becomes viral or integral, which is just to say that anything can be "realized" or given the appearance/fantasy of reality.

In this case - and this is the interesting and most accurate part of the post - it's the idea that seasons derive their value from a commercial interest that then produces those seasons as a consumer effect, producing nostalgia, identification with different holiday seasons, and more. Indeed, for Baudrillard, when someone (in any culture) can emphasis that they still have all four seasons, unlike some countries, we're already into that realm of the hyperreal, ie we're defining what is real as the alternative to simulacra, simulacra that dominate and define the scene, and then give us reality as an offshoot. We have seasons doesn't need to be said until it's presumed that seasons don't matter.

The post would have been more interesting if it did more with the seasons and less with the pumpkins, which in this case are something of an orange herring to Baudrillard's actual argument.
posted by hank_14 at 9:05 PM on October 12, 2014 [13 favorites]

Like p3t3, living outside the states has really reinforced my concept of seasonal food. One of the things about Japan I love is that there are readily identifiable seasonal markers, bamboo shoots in the spring, somen noodles (and unagi, a bit) in the summer, matsutake mushrooms in the fall, and, uh, that winter thing.

It's nice, in a way, to live somewhere that doesn't have, for example, strawberries year round. When they do return to the supermarket, it's actually a bit exciting, there's a thrill of "hey, those, they're back" that you don't get when you see them every day. That, and things grown in season, close to where they're bought? They taste better.

The closest, clearest personal experience with really understanding scarcity/seasonal fruits and vegetables was living in China. There, at least where I lived, seasonal meant that. If it wasn't in season, it wasn't available. Growing up, due to a traumatic thanksgiving experience, I hated broccoli. Loathed it. Then, from about December until I left for Japan in June, I didn't see any. I found myself looking for it, checking markets for it, seeking it out on menus. By the time I left, it still wasn't around. When I got to Japan, the first meal I made was basically broccoli and rice. I love the stuff now, but I doubt I would have started eating it again if it was just always there.

There's something to be said for the excitement of apples in season, of outlasting the dull root vegetables of winter to see the explosion of color, flavor, and variety available in spring.
posted by Ghidorah at 9:08 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Im prett sure chai is also caffeinated though, no? It's black tea.

Yeah, that was my original (as it turns out, moot) point.

I guess my real point, if I had one, is that chai -- which would be called "pumpkin spice tea" if Starbucks had invented it -- is available year-round.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:10 PM on October 12, 2014

Since there aren't pumpkin spice lattes here, I've never been able to try one. I just assumed they had pumpkin, anyway. Given that, apparently, it's just pumpkin pie spices...how does it differ from a gingerbread latte?
posted by Bugbread at 9:18 PM on October 12, 2014

I saw quinoa vodka the other day. Discuss.

You can add alpha and beta amylase to anything starchy to break the polysaccharides down into something digestible by yeast. Quinoa vodka strikes me as particularly gimmicky, since vodka has no flavor by design. You might as well make it from whatever fermentable is cheapest, and I can't imagine quinoa ever tops that list.
posted by casconed at 9:38 PM on October 12, 2014

You might as well make it from whatever fermentable is cheapest, and I can't imagine quinoa ever tops that list.

Yeah, that's why I rolled my eyes at it. Gimmicky vodka is the stupidest kind of liquor.

Funnily enough, however, I do see that the vodka in my house is, indeed, potato vodka.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:42 PM on October 12, 2014

Gingerbread flavor is another good example of this kind of thing. My local coffee chain has a roasted marshmallow cocoa they only have in winter. It makes sense for drink places to have seasonal rotations of drinks because then they don't need everything behind the counter all the time and they can add more iced stuff in summer and hot stuff in winter.
posted by NoraReed at 9:59 PM on October 12, 2014

This is like the third "interrogating the PSL" essay I've read this year and I just don't get it. And I love to overthink, I really do, and I am cranky, and I don't like flavored lattes. But why all the hate? Why the need to write pieces setting yourself apart from the suburban Starbucks crowd? If you are not that person, just don't be that person, man.

I mean I just read a bitchy anti-brunch article that I totally agreed with because they gave good reasons-- the metastization of the menu from Sunday to Saturday, the crowded sidewalks full of hungover people eating "brunch" at 5:00 pm, etc. But PSL, who cares? Would that I could be that grouchy.

I do love kale though.
posted by stoneandstar at 10:09 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

A lot of people like coffee only when its taste is masked with sugary gloop?

IOW, a lot of people dislike and disrespect coffee, but nonetheless give in to social pressures.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:32 PM on October 12, 2014

The simulacrum is a perfect copy of something which never existed in the first place.

Stand Alone Complex.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:51 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Bromius: "A lot of people like coffee only when its taste is masked with sugary gloop?"

I'd take exception to the word "masked". I think of it more like cocoa powder. When I was a kid, I thought cocoa powder was the same as chocolate milk mix, so one day I tried to make chocolate mix by mixing cocoa powder and milk. It was, needless to say, terrible. But add sugar, and you've got actual chocolate milk, which is excellent. It's not that the sugar "masks" the cocoa, or that I didn't really like chocolate milk but drank it from social pressure. It's that I actually, honestly like the taste produced by the mixture of cocoa powder, sugar, and milk. The same for the mixture of coffee, syrup, and milk.
posted by Bugbread at 11:14 PM on October 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Im prett sure chai is also caffeinated though, no? It's black tea.

Yeah, that was my original (as it turns out, moot) point.

Oh yes, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But we have customers who are positively enraged that we try to push chai tea - made with spices, and tea leaves - on them, instead of just making them the chai latte they want, which contains milk, and chai flavouring. No tea.
posted by thylacinthine at 11:21 PM on October 12, 2014

Ghidorah, p3t3: I'm not sure you have to leave the States to experience this. Maybe the experience here in the Pacific Northwest is different, but asparagus always shows up at the right season here (and we get an apple explosion in the fall, and the tomatos in late summer). Back East there was a corn freak out in August.

Sure, there are easy ways to get things year-round, but the taste is so much obviously better (and the prices so different) that I feel most people eat by the seasons here too.

I believe that the authenticity of the food is there, even if the option exists the be able to be inauthentic. You just have to be looking for it.
posted by montag2k at 11:21 PM on October 12, 2014

thylacinthine: "But we have customers who are positively enraged that we try to push chai tea - made with spices, and tea leaves - on them, instead of just making them the chai latte they want, which contains milk, and chai flavouring. No tea."

Perhaps because of the ridiculous name? I mean, Starbucks doesn't call it a "chai latte", but a "chai tea latte". Someone first exposed to chai through Starbucks (which I'm guessing does happen, especially among especially non-adventurous customers) would likely assume that "chai" and "tea" must be necessarily different things, otherwise Starbucks wouldn't call it "chai tea", just like it doesn't sell "Cafe au lait coffee", and McDonald's doesn't sell "Fried french fries".
posted by Bugbread at 11:27 PM on October 12, 2014

montag2k, there most definitely are benefits to the most in season fruits and vegetables available, and they are pretty much always better than the out of season stuff out there. The thing is, especially with the national chains, the massive amounts of international shipping, if you want strawberries in Michigan in the middle of winter, you can definitely get them. You can get corn on the cob in April. They're awful, but they're on the shelves. Here in Japan, corn on the cob starts to surface in late June or early July, and it's all but gone now. I won't see it until next summer, and that wait, that makes the first bite I take next year so powerfully wonderful that I'm already looking forward to it.

There's a part in the novel Stones from the River (a novel about growing up in post war Germany) where the main character has a banana for the first time, and they're stunned by it. They've heard about them, but had never seen one.

I realize there's a ton of privilege in what I'm saying, that I'm complaining about the deadening effect of always available produce, and that obviously not all things are available to all people at all times. The thing is, by having strawberries in winter, bananas all year round, we lose that anticipation, that outsized delight in our first bite of the year. Think of the most recent thing you tried and loved for the first time (it's not always easy, shockingly, to remember things like this), and how excited you felt about it.* That feeling, it's wonderul, and I wish it could be more common than it is.

*somehow, I made it until after my 30th birthday before having Thai food. I consider the first 30 years of my life to have been somewhat wasted
posted by Ghidorah at 11:59 PM on October 12, 2014

This sudden obsession with "pumpkin spice latte" is totally viral bullshit. And it's just more fodder for the "are kids today dumber than shit or what" brigade, because for fuck's sake, pumpkin spices are spices that make the flavor of pumpkin stand out more, because it really ain't much by itself unless you're roasting it and eating it caramelized like a squash. So for fuck's sake, it's not original or deep (holy shit, deep simulacra what the fuck?) to bring this question up for the umpteenth time, it just makes you look genuinely dumber than shit or at least culinarily ignorant as shit or unable to process syntax.
posted by aydeejones at 12:42 AM on October 13, 2014

And yes, it often only takes a single flavor note for your brain to fill in the rest. For example, I "vape" e-liquids with tiny amounts of nicotine and some of them contain compounds that are very simple and are simply "sweet" in nature, like ethyl maltol. Some liquids are simpler than others. They are very specific and most people comment positively on them. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what the scent is, because scent is so tied in memory, and just smelling elements of something you've smelled before can cause your brain to "simulate" the total experience. This isn't new and it's not evil or manipulative to do these things. OK, it's manipulative to concoct really crappy "orange juice" using chemical processes that extract and concentrate the "orange" flavor without ever mentioning that the "orange" juice is not simply "from concentrate" but is some freakish orange-derived concoction...but a pumpkin spice latte is no conspiracy. Maybe people are just shocked because their brains do the natural thing and concoct the experience of tasting pumpkin pie and then they read about this OMG PUMPKIN SPICE THING and lose their minds?
posted by aydeejones at 12:45 AM on October 13, 2014

And yes, potatoes and kale are actually good things for many people especially if you have a little bacon grease on hand, and you don't actually have to convince yourself of this, you just have to either need them to survive, or grow up sufficiently to learn to appreciate the flavor. I will allow 15% of the population of western / white folks to dislike the two things, and the rest are just punks.

And holy shit, they go together, doncha know.
posted by aydeejones at 12:48 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Did pumpkin spice latte just come out last year? Because I've only heard of it this year, starting with "It's back!!" posts, and it's all over the Internet now. I'm thinking either 1) it's new (as of last year), 2) it's a naturally occurring viral thing, where for some reason everybody's into it now, 3) it's a natural viral thing with a specific trigger (like some comedian made a joke about it that grabbed the zeitgeist), or 4) it's a marketing viral thing, where Starbucks has done something that got the ball rolling.

But since I haven't heard about people complaining about Starbucks PR, and I haven't heard any callbacks to the original meme-creator, I'm guessing it's not 3 or 4, but either 1 or 2. Either it's new, or it just kinda happened, like pirates or ninjas or the like. So, anyone know what the story is?
posted by Bugbread at 1:36 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

And holy shit, they go together, doncha know.

Yes, mashed potato with mashed kale and bacon or speck is bog standard hearty Northern European peasant food.

Tjhe best thing about it is of course the bubble and squeek the next day.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:42 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Bugbread, pumpkin spice lattes have been a thing for years. They were super popular among my peers (college-aged women) back in ~2007, to the point where I'm surprised they're new to other people. Their wider exposure could have something to do with my cohort entering the workforce. Or maybe we can blame Pinterest and Instagram for facilitating new heights of latte-voyeurism.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 3:43 AM on October 13, 2014

They've only been around here in the UK for the past two years or so, and don't seem to have taken off particularly. But then we don't have that whole quintessentially American pumpkiny cultural nexus. Perhaps Starbucks should introduce some sort of Guy Fawkes themed treacle toffee and woodsmoke latte...
posted by sobarel at 4:17 AM on October 13, 2014

If McDonalds continues their marketing strategy, we will eventually create a generation that thinks mint is a traditional springtime flavor in Ireland.

wait that flavor isn't shamrock
what is real
posted by murphy slaw at 4:27 AM on October 13, 2014 [5 favorites]

I love ginger, clove, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. I love chai and pumpkin pie and gingerbread. And I have no hate for the pumpkin spice latte, though I don't drink any sweet coffee myself. But I do think it is interesting how, in the past decade, the time between October 1st and New Years has become some kind of amalgamated Pumpkin Spice Holiday.
posted by Nothing at 5:05 AM on October 13, 2014

it's a marketing viral thing, where Starbucks has done something that got the ball rolling.

It's at least partly this. Starbucks started it's PSL marketing blitz back in August with a Tumblr campaign to let people "unlock" the PSL early. The drink also has its own twitter handle with some 100K followers.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 5:55 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Pumpkin spice is now a seasonal arms race thing just like Christmas, and I blame Starbucks for that. At this point I've had several different pumpkin pie or pumpkin spice flavored things and I'm burned out.

When I was growing up, pumpkin pie was a treat for Thanksgiving, or maybe Halloween at the earliest.
Autumn is my favorite season by far. It doesn't seem right that the pumpkin-everything wave hits before the leaves start to turn or that SBux is serving PSLs while it's 90 degrees outside.
posted by Foosnark at 6:38 AM on October 13, 2014

off topic but i am right this second chewing pumpkin spice gum

blech
posted by rebent at 8:17 AM on October 13, 2014

200 000 people follow SB's PSL twitter feed? Looks like we've got our first set of volunteers for the Golgafrincham space freighter. Bon voyage!
posted by five fresh fish at 8:34 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

the time between October 1st and New Years has become some kind of amalgamated Pumpkin Spice Holiday.

It is, no lie, my favourite thing. Not so much the relentless promotion of consumer goods, but the IT'S FALL MOTHERFUCKERS YOU BETTER GET FESTIVE kind of thing. (no one link to that goddamn mcsweeny's thing that we have all seen 10,000 times plz k thx) I get pretty irritated by the end of the christmas season from all the aggro christmas stuff, which tends to be more consumer-oriented, so it's nice to have another largely manufactured holiday season which is basically just like PUT ON A SWEATER AND DRINK SOME COFFEE WOOOO.

also pumkin spice is tasty and for some reason makes people hella angry and both those things are delicious to me
posted by poffin boffin at 9:06 AM on October 13, 2014 [7 favorites]

The only thing “pumpkin spice”refers to is itself– like the distinct difference between “cherry flavored” items and “red flavored” candy that claims to be cherry-flavored.

Dude, I'm sorry that you misunderstood the term "pumpkin spice," but your Deep Thoughts are still not valid.
posted by desuetude at 9:08 AM on October 13, 2014

Up next: the cotton stuffed into aspirin bottles' necks, and Foucault
posted by thelonius at 9:26 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

also pumkin spice is tasty and for some reason makes people hella angry and both those things are delicious to me

Don't ever change.

Right now my own autumn cornucopia is Trader Joe's cookie butter on top of Kashi pumpkin spice granola bars on top of vanilla ice cream. All part of a nutritionally complete breakfast.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:19 PM on October 13, 2014

There are chai flavorings that don't have tea in them? I mean, generally it's that dehydrated or ultra-concentrated, but AFAIK all the instant chai you can get has tea in it, even if only technically.

I mean, I've made chai from just the masala spices without throwing any tea in when I don't want caffeine, but I haven't seen those spices offered on their own before unless they're for brewing loose tea with (as opposed to mixing with water or milk).
posted by NoraReed at 5:00 PM on October 13, 2014

Oh, and chai doesn't taste like pumpkin spice at all to me. It's much sharper.
posted by NoraReed at 5:01 PM on October 13, 2014

I was thinking of this thread at the grocery store this afternoon. Here are some mementos of my visit.

The spice must flow, I suppose.
posted by GrammarMoses at 5:42 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

There's nothing about Spring that makes it essential to consume marshmallows; peppermint a Christmas food because we think of it as such

Anecdata, but neither of these are linked seasonally in Australia. I think you might mean the mallow rabbit things (peeps?) which don't really exist here, although you can probably find something like them in ALDI. And peppermint is maybe from candy canes? It is pretty much a year round flavour for mints, gum, toothpaste so I wouldn't think anybody particularly thinks it is Christmas-y.

But then we don't have pumpkin seasonally linked either. It is eaten baked along with potatoes in a lamb roast not baked in a sweet pie served once a year.
posted by bystander at 11:10 PM on October 14, 2014

I was talking about Peeps, which are associated with Easter, itself a Christian co-option of pagan spring fertility rituals; it'd be interesting if the spring-y parts of the ritual held over in Australia, since with the whole hemisphere thing it'd be yet another step away from holiday origins and even sillier as a result. And we get a lot of peppermint products around Christmastime-- peppermint Oreos, stuff like that. It's still available all year round, as is canned pumpkin, but all the special seasonal versions of it come out then.
posted by NoraReed at 11:21 PM on October 14, 2014