Did you ever get punished as a child for doing something naughty, because a parent or teacher didn’t believe you even though you were telling the truth? The problem here is a lack of authenticity—or, to borrow a favorite word from ace copywriter and gore movie maven Herschell Gordon Lewis— verisimilitude.
Consumers in general tend to be skeptical of marketers, which is why verisimilitude is very important. In addition to actually being true, a claim must APPEAR to be true or you break the spell and lose the sale. Today’s badvertising classic is a case in point.
Original State Seal Label (from a plaque at the springs)
I live near the bubbling natural springs of Saratoga, NY. Folks have been coming here to “take the waters” for centuries and the greatest number of springs, as well as the classic bath houses, are located in a park which is owned by the state.
Early in the 1900s an entrepreneur had the idea to bottle the water and sell it nationally. To emphasize the official connection, it was called “State Seal” water and the antique-y state seal of New York was actually shown on the label. Millions were sold and FDR became a big promoter of the springs and the water.
State Seal Spring Water label, c. 1980
Fast forward to the 1980s, and another entrepreneur had the idea to revive the brand. But he/she picked the wrong thing to revive. The new water is again called “State Seal” but the label design is bland and modern. Within a few years the revived brand was defunct.
The original State Seal water had verisimilitude. It looked like the kind of packaging a civic department might come up with if it had no clue about marketing but was simply trying to promote healthy water to its citizens. The revived water had none of this charm and authenticity. The revivalist probably thought the old design was out of date when in fact it was the essence of the brand.
Fetch me that paddle, ma. I think some marketer needs a whuppin’ here….
A few months ago, I wrote about the hybrid battery that failed in my 2001 Prius at 71,000 miles, generating a $3700 repair bill because the battery was recently out of warranty. It’s time I explained the reason for my lack of follow-up posts.
Back in mid-February I got a call from the general manager at the dealership which had done the repair. He was calling not because of the rather robust online discussion of my experience, but because I had given the experience an unfavorable rating in a mail survey. (Yes, good to know at least someone at Toyota is paying attention to what their customers think.) After we discussed my issues he agreed that the matter had been handled inappropriately at his dealership and said he’d go to bat and try to get at least a partial reimbursement from Toyota. He also asked me to forward to him the letter I’d sent to American Toyota President James Lentz, summarizing my issue.
Two days later, on 2/18, this manager emailed me that:
Just got done speaking with my Toyota Factory Representative, she agreed with my assessment of the issue as well she agrees with your points you made to Mr. Lentz.
Based on that conversation it’s my guess you will probably receive a 100% reimbursement check in about 8 weeks at your Saratoga Springs address. Please understand I’m making no promises, but I feel it looks real good.
Based on that 8 weeks, I would have received the check in mid-April. When it didn’t arrive, I checked in with him and heard that:
Money is coming soon, should be no problem…..
Well, the money finally did arrive, on 5/25/10, and it was indeed a full reimbursement. I’m happy not to be out of pocket $3700, but I’m also happy that Toyota was willing to pay it which I don’t think they would have done if a huge number of Prius batteries was failing just out of warranty like mine did. (The cover letter made no reference to my history, by the way, just referring to it as a “goodwill check”.) So good news for me and good news for other Prius owners.
Yesterday I drove from San Francisco to Hollister for the last Tomato U-Pick of the season at Mariquita Farm. It’s run by a couple who decided they’d rather sell direct from the fields than pay rent at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.
San Marzano tomatoes on the vine.
If there is anything better than standing in the autumn sun and plucking a warm ripe tomato off the vine and popping it in your mouth, I would like to know about it. I had planned to pick 10 pounds of San Marzanos for sauce and 5 pounds of Early Girls mixed with a few heirlooms. But my emotions got the best of me and I ended up with 25 pounds of Marzanos and 30 plus pounds of everything else.
My 25 lbs of San Marzanos.
The tomatoes, other than the Marzanos, were so ripe that many of them got squished and overripe on the long drive back (punctuated with a stop for Bun Pho Hue in San Jose) and they ended up in the sauce. I made a classic red sauce, which I wanted for comparison to the “red sauce places” I’m encountering in my new home in Saratoga. I adapted a recipe from Marcella Hazan which goes like this:
Classic Red Tomato Sauce for pasta or pizza
10 pounds San Marzano tomatoes
1 ½ cup each finely chopped onion, celery and carrot
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (mild, not overly “grassy” in taste)
Salt and sugar
San Marzano red sauce following Marcella Hazan recipe
Dump the tomatoes into a sink or very large bowl full of water. Take them out slicing each in half lengthwise and cutting out any bad spots and transfer to a large pot. Bring to a simmer, covered; the water from washing will be enough liquid so they don’t stick. Once the mixture is bubbling away remove the lid and continue simmering about 90 minutes more until the tomatoes have lost their individual identity. Allow to cool to a safe handling temperature, then put them through a food strainer. I did this twice: at a coarse setting to remove the skins, then a finer setting to remove the seeds.
Meanwhile, sauté the onion in about ¼ cup olive oil until translucent. Remove then sauté carrots 5 minutes, then add celery and sauté 3 minutes more. Puree the carrots, onions and celery in a food processer and add to strained tomatoes. Cook 30 minutes then taste for seasoning. I only added 1 T of salt and 1 T of sugar and thought about using even less than this; the tomatoes themselves were that good and complete.
The result was fabulous, rich and tomato-y. Out of curiosity, I’d initially cooked the other squished tomatoes separately. Heirlooms are pretty, Early Girls are sweet, but San Marzanos have the robust flavor profile this sauce demands.
Pizzas and green zebras for dinner.
Dinner was an assortment of pizzas made with the red sauce and with individual tomato slices, accompanied by sliced green zebras (they were getting ripe faster than anything else) in a vinaigrette with garlic and basil. All in all, a pretty good day—assuming you like tomatoes, of course.
My fellow blogger Daniel Berman is a former San Francisco ad guy who, like me, found himself in upstate New York through a twist of fate. We met on Yelp through our reviews chronicling the quest for good food in Albany and environs. Daniel has now taken this a step further with a quixotic campaign to persuade Albanians to chef up and be more like Austin, a city of comparable size. He’s been driven a bit mad by observing that “Our top food blogger is promoting free beef and cheddar sandwiches at Arby’s. And our top food critic is spending her time in converted pubs and pizza parlors.” This sturm und drang caused me to reflect on what my own food experience has been since moving here.
As all things should, we’ll start at the track. One of the wisest and most economical things you can do in the Capital District is go to Saratoga Racetrack early on a summer morning and watch the horses exercise while the dew melts and the steam rises off the grass. It’s free and you can sit in a box seat which will subsequently be occupied by a celebrity or racing nabob, while you sip your coffee or nosh on the breakfast you’ve picked up on the way in.
Coolers claiming picnic tables at Saratoga Racetrack, 10 am.
They clear the grandstand at 10 am and you have to go out, pay, then come back in again. On the way out you will see: most of the tables in the $3 picnic area already claimed by folks who have brought in coolers and tablecloths and will return sometime before the 1 pm post time. I personally can’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon since you can watch the horses and jockeys go by in the paddock, on the way to the races, see the races themselves on closed circuit TVs everywhere, stroll over to a betting station, and potentially splurge by spending a big $2 additional to see the races live by moving to the clubhouse.
So my first look at a quality Saratoga dining experience consists in peeking at what’s inside my cooler. It is this: half a pastrami and swiss on seeded rye with Saratoga chips and Cole slaw from Ben and Bill’s deli, accompanied by a can or more of Genessee Cream Ale.
My trackside lunch from Ben and Bill's Deli, Saratoga.
Ben and Bill were the original Golub brothers, a distinguished Jewish family which owns the Price Chopper chain of supermarkets upstate. Their descendents chafed at the lack of local deli food and resolved to create the best deli between New York City and Montreal, which happens to be placed inside a supermarket in a strip mall. No matter: the pastrami is lean, the cole slaw is excellent and the included pickle is authentically fluorescent. They’ve licensed a few things from Carnegie Deli such as the cheesecake and the gut-busting Woody Allen mile-high sandwich but the $5.99 half sandwich special is really all a reasonable person needs to eat.
This includes a generous bag of potato chips which, as Wikipedia will tell us, were invented right here, across the Northway at Saratoga Lake:
The original potato chip recipe was created by chef George Crum at Moon’s Lake House near Saratoga Springs, New York, on August 24, 1853. Fed up with a customer who continued to send his fried potatoes back complaining that they were too thick and soggy, Crum decided to slice the potatoes so thin that they could not be eaten with a fork. As they could not be fried normally in a pan, he decided to stir-fry the potato slices. Against Crum’s expectation, the guest was ecstatic about the new chips and they soon became a regular item on the lodge’s menu, under the name “Saratoga Chips.”
Ben and Bill’s Saratoga chips are fried up fresh each morning and are miles apart from the uniformity of a bag of Lay’s. Some are burnt, some are a bit flaccid, but that’s the idea. Each one unique, these chips are made to be noticed and savored slowly over a race or two till the bag is gone.
The ideal liquid accompaniment for this would be a growler (64 ounce jug) of IPA from the ever-changing tap at Eddie’s Beverages on Excelsior, except that the track does not allow glass containers to be brought in. On a warm summer day, the light, refreshing and slightly sweet Genny Creme is a fine substitue. It’s a benefit that many upstaters regard this as a working person’s brew, a bit déclassé, so I’m rarely (actually never) asked to share my stash.
When I go back to San Francisco, my treat of choice will be a special from a Chinese lunch place, most likely shrimp in garlic sauce from Taiwan in the Richmond. Except with great difficulty, I’m not going to find anything like that here. Nor will I get Texas brisket or a perfectly simmered pot of turnip greens. But my trackside lunch works well enough, and I feel proud and resourceful regarding my competence in foraging in my new haunts.
Cole slaw, that happy transformation of cabbage into a tart and appealing salad, has to be one of our most healthy, tasty and also inexpensive foods. So why is it that when we order a meal with a “side of cole slaw” these days it’s often served in a micro-cup that would be better suited to sample collection in the doctor’s office?
My theory is that this is related to the predatory financial practices that got us into our current mess. Once you’ve settled on a business model that markets home equity loans to widows on social security, why stop there? Let’s wring a few more pennies from the populace by downsizing the cole slaw served with their early bird specials.
Which is all the more reason that the pictured side of cole slaw, at Compton’s in Saratoga NY, is so reassuring. This is what a side of cole slaw should look like. (Note also the romaine and 3 slices of tomato which are not even mentioned on the menu—a garnish reminiscent of a bygone day.)
I’ve been through multiple market downturns in my copywriting career. Each time, I had some clients who took the stance that you need to maintain or even increase your marketing budget because that’s when you buy market share, on the cheap, from competitors who are cutting back.
Compton’s is doing the same thing in their marketplace, and they’ve won my business. I’m going back at lunchtime for a burger… and a side of cole slaw.
Cole slaw, that happy transformation of cabbage into a tart and appealing salad, has to be one of our most healthy, tasty and also inexpensive foods. So why is it that when we order a meal with a “side of cole slaw” these days it’s often served in a micro-cup that would be better suited to sample collection in the doctor’s office?