I was helping my friend Roseanne move and she had an old box that brought back memories. It was for a bottled water product called "Spirit Water". Yahrens ago my friend and I worked at a software company where the president always seemed to have some side business on the go. One year he was trying to bring a bottled water local to British Columbia to Ontario.
Now, I've always been partial to tap water (and the evidence backs me up) and I've long found buying bottled water somewhat ridiculous (save for "value added" water in the form of a pint of Guinness or a can of Vernors). While living in Seoul I did make an exception. The Korean tap water was actually perfectly healthy. And given Koreans were living to ripe old ages, I wasn't particularly worried about anything deadly in Korean water. The only thing was I didn't like the taste. Whatever the Seoul Water Utility did to the tap water it added a weird metallic taste. Now, don't get me wrong. It wasn't that bad. I cooked with it, made coffee with it, and brushed my teeth with it but I just didn't drink it straight as I found drinking water with a twist of aluminum salts not fully refreshing. Fortunately, filtered water coolers are nearly universal in Korea and it wasn't hard to discreetly fill up several water bottles to meet your potable drinking water needs through the week.
Back in Canada it's become very difficult to find your traditional water fountain in public buildings. You know the old style "Oasis" with the weird Greek symbols on the clunky plastic water lever?
[caption id="attachment_512" align="aligncenter" width="295" caption="After walking in 10 feet of snow to school, nothing was better than taking a drink from an Oasis fountain full of used gum"]
[/caption]I think so many people just lugged around their own water bottles that malls and other public places eliminated public drinking fountains as a way to cut costs and not piss off many people.
Luckily, oh fans of civic tap water, the tide is turning, what with the fears of BPH, the environment, and *gasp* people suddenly wondering if it's wise to spend $1 on what the city provides better for mere pennies.
What I always found funny about Spirit Water, and many such bottled water products, is the claim they're made from "glacier water." A Canadian beer called Kokanee also seems to latch onto this notion that you're drinking glacier water. The implications of glacier water are a) the water was locked up in a glacier before we started pumping dioxin and mercury into our water sources b) freezing removes impurities. The other implication is the water is being bottled right at the source, either they're hacking off huge chunks of a frozen glacier and melting it down or capturing the run off. Now this is where I put my skeptical hat on. Let me suggest I could draw water directly from the Detroit River and bottle it as "glacier water". Huh? Merely saying your beverage is made from glacier water says nothing about how much of the water is from a glacier or when that water was in a glacier. I'm pretty sure if you draw any water from any major water source in Canada some percentage of those water molecules are from a glacier or were, at some point in their history, frozen in a glacier. So it's entirely fair to say the Detroit River is glacier water. No one would buy bottled Detroit River water but call it L'eau De Troit Glacé and you got a sure winner.
[caption id="attachment_514" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Glacier water for small-pox infected blankets?"]
[/caption]Another great name switcheroo is snow crab. Not many people would eat spider crab but call it "snow crab" and you can sell it for a premium.
Häagen-Dazs is another example of the power of a name. Although the ice cream is made in the USA and originated in the USA, the name hoodwinked consumer in the early days into thinking it was some premium European brand. A Canadian example is found in the mid-1990s. General Motors Canada was looking to bogart some of the good will earned by Japanese and European auto makers. They introduced a line of cars under a brand called Asüna. I guess the name sounded Japanese and the gratuitous umlaut resonated a certain Northern European flare. The brand didn't last long.
When antibacterial soap started appearing on the shelves of Zellers at a considerably higher price than normal dish and hand soap I was immediately suspicious. Most soap is antibacterial. That's why we use it. Soap denatures the cell walls of bacteria and makes their guts leak out. I wondered if soap makers were simply repackaging a basic feature inherent in soap and adding a dye that gave the soap an iodine appearance. Some research revealed the antibacterial soaps contain a chemical called triclosan but I was still skeptical. How much triclosan was being added and was it making soap really any more effective? Research seems to indicate consumer grade antibacterial soaps aren't superior to normal soap.
One of my favorite examples of a company making a claim that's both bold and yet all legal like is the case of the Franklin Mint. You know they make those Civil War and Star Trek chess sets advertised in Parade magazine. One of Franklin Mint's gimmicks is claiming its collector plates and diecast models are "limited edition". The implication here is, you know, a limited number are made and can appreciate in value. The Franklin Mint was, however, actually not limiting the numbers made. A collector sued the Franklin Mint and actually lost the suit because technically the Franklin Mint never identified what was limited. As it turns out "limited" referred to the life span of the mold being used to cast the model. All casting molds have a finite life span before they wear out. Therefore what is made from the mold is limited by the slow, steady march of entropy. It's also a bit like the notion of a "lifetime warranty". What life time? Yours or the reasonable lifetime of the product itself?
In Korea, Koreans have a way of adding a huge premium onto anything "western". For example, coffee is a western thing. Even though North Americans and Koreans are both importing coffee beans from the same geographic locations like Indonesia, coffee is about double the price in Korea. While living in Korea this "western cache = more costly" caused me to over think my way into a culinary disaster. In North America we have Asian pears and Chinese cabbage. In Korea, Asian pears are simply pears and our pears are called English pears. In the USA you have Canadian bacon, which we call "back bacon". We both have Brussels sprouts which Belgians call Cleveland, Ohio sprouts (so says Wikipedia … or I mean to say it will after I post this). In Korea what we call green onions they call simply onions. What we call simply onions Koreans called English onions. Anyway, I had not been living in Korea for long and I was looking for some basic field tomatoes to make my own spaghetti sauce (what we call ketchup Koreans call spaghetti sauce). I noticed tomatoes in Korea were quite pricey. Like coffee, most fresh fruits and vegetables that aren't staples of Korean cuisine are pricey. Next to your basic tomatoes were these more exotic looking tomatoes with an odd, leafier top:
[caption id="attachment_513" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Asian tomatoes?"]
[/caption]I reasoned these must be "Asian tomatoes". A bought several of the Asian tomatoes and took them home and used them in my traditional spaghetti recipe. To make a long story short, those weren't tomatoes or even Asian tomatoes and my dinner guest was left thinking very odd things about Canadian dietary practices. These Asian tomatoes turned out to be persimmons. Canadians are not big persimmon eaters. They're not unknown in Canada but not something your average Canadian encounters in the no frills grocery store.
Well, now I know.
-- Karl Mamer
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