Service of When You Thought You’d Seen Everything
Monday, March 28th, 2022

I’m an eat-it-the-old-fashioned-way person [although I can’t deny enjoying some three star meals with refreshing interpretations of food which were even better than what mother used to make]. I like pancakes and waffles with maple syrup, not a sweetened hazelnut cocoa spread–Nutella [which I don’t like]–or whipped cream [which I do but on strawberry shortcake]. I question people who put salt on grapefruit or who drown a magnificent steak in ketchup. I like food as-is. Same with seltzer. Plain please. If I have a yen for a taste of lime, orange or lemon, I’ll squeeze in some fresh juice.
There’s little as divine as a lightly toasted bagel with butter or cream cheese. My favorites are poppy seed and plain. Again the outlier, I’ve never been tempted to try the most popular everything bagel topped by poppy seeds, sesame seeds, onion flakes, garlic powder, and sea salt. Why disguise a perfectly delicious bagel with so much stuff?
Yet the everything bagel has inspired marketers in all sorts of ways.
Charles Passy wrote in marketwatch.com about the everything bagel seasoning mix which, he reported, is in the top five at Trader Joe’s [which calls it Everything but the Bagel…”.] The store recommends using it in waffle mix or on pizza. According to Passy a chef at Spiceology likes the mix on avocado toast, roasted sweet potato and popcorn. The reporter has seen it in or on cottage cheese, croissants and ice cream.
Jeni brand ice cream chose a cream cheese flavor as its base for the everything bagel option wrote Passy. The reporter doesn’t mind the taste but concluded: “Still, part of me objects to an everything bagel ice cream — mostly because it speaks to the worst traits of American food marketing. It’s never enough to have a good idea and leave it at that. Instead, we must take that idea and spin a gazillion products off it — for better or worse.”
To further prove the point Passy mentioned all the iterations of Oreo cookies. “I have trouble finding the original version since the supermarket shelves are filled with flavors from carrot-cake to peanut-butter Oreos. Could an everything-bagel Oreo be far behind?”
Do you like everything bagels? The seasoning mix? Would you give everything bagel ice cream a whirl? What unusual combinations do you create or buy? Is it only in food marketing that a good idea is copied all over the place and at all price points?