Irish Potatoes?

What have we here?
Could these be the world's most precious new potatoes, plucked from the carefully-tended beds of an eccentric billionaire's winter greenhouse? Are they Idaho spuds genetically modified for dwarfism? Peel-and-eat tater tots? Could they be some kind of modern art commentary on the Irish-American immigrant experience?

Nope. They're Oh Ryan's Original Irish Potatoes (TM)! What are these taste treats made of, you ask?:
Like the hummingbird cake from earlier this week, they straddle the delicious/horrifying divide expertly. Also like the hummingbird cake, they have a certain retro feel--the green foil labeling, the playing on outdated ethnic stereotypes ("Ha ha! Those Paddys can't get enough of the 'taters!"), the weird compulsion to make food look like other foods or non-food items.

I picked up this box for something like four bucks at my friendly neighborhood Shaw's grocery store. Look for them wherever trashy, sugary seasonal foods are sold. Get your own box in time for Monday's St. Patrick's Day festivities, and line your stomach with a few Oh Ryan's Original Irish Potatoes (TM) before you start guzzling whisky and/or green beer. It's the Irish way!

Remember the Wonder

In today's New York Times, "A Soft Spot for the Anti-Artisanal" a brilliant pro-Kraft/Hostess/Wonderbread manifesto:

Into every life some Kraft Singles, Hostess Sno Balls and Snickers bars must fall. Could you possibly substitute a wedge of that pampered Camembert for a workaday Kraft Single on a tuna melt? Never. And equal only to the fetishistic satisfaction of eating the filling of an Oreo before you eat the cookie is peeling the Sno Ball’s coconut-sprinkled dome of marshmallow from the chocolate cupcake beneath it and saving its creamy center for last. These products are sui generis in our great American culture where variety rules; you can’t find a real substitute for any of them....

Don’t get me wrong. I’m genuinely glad about the progress being made in the culinary world, and I’m grateful that our daily diets are improving thanks to the tireless efforts of local farmers and obsessive compulsives who have chosen heritage pork as their final frontier instead of space. I salute them.

All I’m saying is that sometimes, people, you’ve still got to remember the wonder.