Prunes

I was sorting through the baking supplies this afternoon, came across all manner of dried fruits, like dates, apricots, raisins, cranberries - whole, round, shrivelled fruits, that remain relatively unchanged after many years - sitting nicely next to the coconut and promising to become a delicious tasting muesli bar, or fruit loaf, or biscuit, perhaps.

And then I found a packet of something I'd grabbed randomly while whipping my way round Pak n Save, Lower Hutt (bigger than PnS Petone, not as big as PnS Royal Oak but always has more available boxes). It was a packet. Of Prunes. Rebranded prunes. Chopped up little bits of prunes, to look like raisins, taste like Prunes, cheerfully named "Plum Amazins" (cause it's made from plums, but rhymes with raisins.. get it?). You have to wonder how long and how much discussion at the Prune Awareness Association Round Table it took to come up with this name, which is clearly the lastest and greatest things in Prunes since they started wrapping them individually. As though a lonely prune sitting sadly by itself in a little packet would up its sale-ability. Didn't trick my kids.. "that's not a lolly, that's a shrivelled plum in a lolly packet".

Crazy. Seriously crazy. No amount of re-branding is going to better the reputation of the Prune. If it even had a bad reputation to start with? I mean, I'm not raisin-ist, date-ist, or craisin-ist. They're all good, tasty, healthy (not so good for teeth) and nice in muesli. I suppose as a Juice it's got a.. medicinal.. reputation, but that's quite different from the fruit.

Still, the marketing gurus should feel self satisfied because it worked... the evidence in my pantry is the shining packet of "Plum Amazins" - which do rather live up to their name, because I am, seriously, Amazed.