Dried Plum

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Margaret.

Hi, Margaret. Where are you calling from?

San Diego.

Welcome to the show. How can we help you?

Well, I sent you an email about my experience trying to buy canned plums in the grocery store and found out, well, they disappeared from the shelf.

And when I asked the grocery clerk where I could find them, I thought maybe they’d been moved. She directed me, she said, well, I’m not sure about those, but we have these.

And she led me over to a package of dried plums. And I said, well, no, that’s not what I’m looking for.

And then she said, well, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you.

So then I started going to other grocery stores and calling around.

And it turned out that almost nobody knew what I meant when I said canned plums, and they kept directing me to dried plums, which I thought was really interesting.

And they’ve just disappeared. They’re not on the shelf.

But then I started thinking, everybody’s directing me to dried plums. That’s the new term.

And I thought, well, okay, that’s marketing. Instead of prunes, instead of calling them prunes, right?

Instead of prunes, right, because prunes have such a negative connotation, apparently, because they’re associated with old people.

And so I didn’t think anything more about it. They just disappeared.

And then about three weeks ago, I was in another store, and I saw a package of freeze-dried grapes.

I was just stumped because I didn’t think that a common term like raisins was going to disappear or that marketers would even attempt to make that term disappear.

Well, are they different? Are freeze-dried grapes different from raisins? I don’t know.

They might be just a little bit different. They might actually preserve the color a little bit more. They don’t turn brown.

At least that was the packaging. And I hadn’t bought them, so I really don’t know.

Because the reason I ask is because my mother used a freeze-fruit cocktail for us. That was our fancy dessert.

Oh, nice.

And, you know, when you freeze-fruit cocktail, the little grapes in there have a really cool consistency.

So maybe, I don’t know, maybe freeze-dried grapes are different from raisins.

Because they’re dried differently.

And the other ones are, what, sun-dried?

Yeah.

Yeah, probably.

Or heat-dried somehow.

Air-dried.

So it sounds like you’re a little befuddled by the fact that some of these names just seem to drop off the product.

Well, I’m not too confused because I know how marketers and brand names can cause language change.

But it was the fact that it happened to raisins, which I consider such a basic term that they couldn’t possibly disappear.

And then I sent a humorous email, I hope it was humorous, to some of my friends that said, well, how are we going to explain craisins?

Because that’s another thing that you can buy in stores now, which are dried cranberries, which one company has labeled craisins as a play on cranberry and raisin sort of smashed together, indicating that it’s a dried cranberry.

But if raisins disappears, then nobody’s going to know why this little dried cranberry is called a craisin.

Well, I don’t think they’re going to disappear.

I think the raisin people and the crazin people are up in arms because they have a difference of opinion about whose product is best.

The crazins, I think, have a lot of sugar added, and the raisin people are upset about that.

I follow these things.

Because the raisin people don’t add sugar?

No, they don’t add sugar.

Oh, they say that they don’t?

They say they don’t, yeah.

Interesting.

How dare you call something crazins?

Let me ask you a question.

Did you ever find the canned plums that you wanted?

No, they’ve disappeared about four years ago.

So you can order them online.

And then I did ask at a store on Monday just in case maybe that was a temporary problem and they’ve been put back on the shelves.

But, no, they’re still gone.

So, Margaret, what were you going to do with those canned plums anyway?

Is that part of a recipe or do you eat them out of the can or what?

No, I just ate them out of the can.

Growing up in the Midwest, you didn’t get that much fresh fruit, especially, of course, in the winter.

And it was just something from my childhood.

And I saw them on the shelves one day and I bought them.

And then I was buying, you know, a couple of cans a month.

And then they disappeared.

Oh, okay.

That’s okay.

Okay, so you were upset about not having your comfort food then.

I understand now.

Yes, exactly.

Well, Margaret, I hope we’ve helped.

Oh, you have very much.

Thank you.

Okay, take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

You too.

Bye-bye.

What have you noticed when you’re shopping?

Food names, product names?

We’d like to know.

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Or email us, words@waywordradio.org.