Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
I know there's a scandal at the 40th Annual "Quick and Easy" Pillsbury Bake-Off.
May 17, 2002 | When I find out that my best friend is one of the finalists in the 40th Annual "Quick and Easy" Pillsbury Bake-Off, I scream with joy. But it isn't long before I start to have odd, troubling feelings of foreboding about the whole event. I become seized with the notion that, like so many things I used to think of as gentle and innocent, there must be a dark and corrupt underbelly to this event.
I begin to think that the bake-off is just the sort of allegedly wholesome slice of Americana where money and influence, and perhaps even the trading of sexual favors, matters much more than the deliciousness of one's Easy One Pot Cheeseburger Pie. I imagine that the prize money inspires the kind of competitiveness that is vicious and ugly and usually springs from unfulfilled sexual desire. Why should the bake-off be free from the kind of judge badgering, influence peddling and knee-whacking that has tarnished the reputation of figure skating?
Instantly, this notion colors my view of the contest. I look at the Pillsbury doughboy on a commercial and I start thinking unsavory sexual thoughts. Whenever that human hand, for example, comes into frame and pushes his doughy center -- exactly where his yeasty genitalia would be if he had any -- I think about sex, and how unscrupulous people use it to get what they want.
In doing a little research, I discover that Pillsbury is not blind to the sexual aspects of the Doughboy. When the doughboy character was first conceived, they had a wife for him. Her name was Poppy and she had a little apron that covered her featureless white torso. The idea was that the Doughboy and his wife would give you the homey, happy domestic feeling that comes with the scent of rising, warm, freshly baked bread, no matter how nutritionally vacuous and preservative ridden that bread may be.
However, market research proved that the Doughboy's wife was a complete consumer disaster. Apparently women, Pillsbury's target customers, didn't like the idea that the doughboy was "attached." They responded to his squeal of glee as he is palpated by the anonymous feminine hand far more enthusiastically knowing that the doughboy was, in fact, "available."
Despite my foreboding, I decide to attend the Orlando, Fla., bake-off as entourage for my friend and sometimes writing partner Pam Norris, who is competing with 99 other contestants for a million dollars. To have access to this glittering event, I obtain press credentials from a small paper on Cape Cod, the Sippewisset Sentinel, a daily that in the summer devotes its pages to a rah rah boosterism of the glories of life on the upper Cape, and in the winter concentrates, Sinclair Lewis-like, on unsavory battles over septic tanks and sewerage and the plume of toxic gunk that floats beneath the surface of many of the elegant summer homes. I do not tell the Sippewisset Sentinel that my "angle" on the story is discovering the murky undercurrent of dark sexuality and sleazy corruption that I believe is the toxic plume that floats beneath the surface of the allegedly squeaky clean Pillsbury Bake-Off.
I have no proof that this undercurrent exists. However, the press badge around my neck has emboldened me to try to be the first reporter to crack the story -- crack it as I might crack open a can of Pillsbury's famous and inedible refrigerator biscuits.
My friend Pam is an Emmy-nominated writer of hit shows like "Saturday Night Live" and "Designing Women." Despite her success in show business, Pam remains dedicated to living her life as if it is the world's longest running production of "You Can't Take It With You." She is always launching into unusual, obsessive projects; successfully entering the bake-off is only the latest.
On its surface it seems like the bake-off has potential for fairness. After all, the approximately 10,000 entries are screened with no names, no résumés, no recommendations. It is, allegedly, a true meritocracy. Anyone who can combine name brand products like Green Giant niblets, Old El Paso Salsa and Grands! canned bread dough into anything resembling palatable food is eligible.
If this contest truly is fair, Pam will win. This is, after all, the "Quick and Easy" Pillsbury Bake-Off, and her recipe is nothing if not quick and easy. In fact, as she has told everyone, it takes 10 minutes to make, and five of those are spent drinking Chardonnay and watching the water boil. It is impossible to screw up. You can't overcook it and really the only thing that could go wrong is if you drop the pan and spill it all over the floor, and even then, depending on the condition of your kitchen floor, it could still taste great.
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