Mrs Elswood pickles exceedingly good cucumbers

When Premium Foods, who bought the Mr Kipling brand when they acquired Rank Hovis McDougall, they kept the phrase “Mr Kipling bakes exceedingly good cakes”. 

The idea of having someone representing a brand has always been a popular one. Psychologically we believe that somehow the person exists, and in a sort of angelic way, is looking down on us as we eat one of their products. We can see them beaming at us as we munch away. We almost believe that there is a real person behind it all. Yet as I have shown in my books shown things often became twisted between the invention and the product even when there was real person involved. It was Schwarz who invented the Zeppelin, and Jacobs who invented Levis.

From what I read in Wiki (and why shouldn’t it be true?) the brand of Mr Kipling was introduced in 1967 at a time most people would buy their bread and cakes from local bakeries. Clearly what the advertisers were saying was that these were ‘home baked’, and they used one of the most recognisable voices at the time, James Hayter, who had starred in “The Pickwick Papers”, and as Friar Tuck in “Robin Hood” in the adverts. Hayter even looked like the type of person you would want to be your local baker.

He had a rich, fruity voice, and rotund appearance. In fact at one time he began playing an unsympathetic character in “Are You Being Served?” on TV, and because the bakery firm were concerned that this would hurt their image he was paid three times his BBC salary to terminate his connection with the BBC (1972) after his first season on the show. In latter years Mr Kipling was voiced by Barry Linehan, another actor known for his unique voice.

It is this use of titles and 'real people' with food products that I wish to to explore a little further

There are lots of them.

To start with, in the U.S. there is a line of cleaning products called Mrs.Meyers. Created by Monica Nassif, she invented the line and named it after her mother, Thelma Meyer, an Iowa homemaker and gardener. Thelma never laid a hand on one of these until her daughter created them. In the University of Minnesota Alumni pages Monica states that she thought of the brand because "We were sitting around saying that this [brand] should be like my childhood: hardworking, Midwestern. Then we just said, oh my gosh, it's like my mom! Mom just seemed like the perfect 'icon' for the brand."

Then there is:

• Mrs Crimble's Cheese Bites
• Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire Puddings
• Mrs Wages' Picking Mix (see http://www.mrswages.com/Page/About_Mrs_Wages.aspx?nt=410)

...and so on. There was Uncle Ben's Rice, but in reponse to complaints about racism the Uncle bit was dropped as well as the picture of a happy smiling person of colour. The Aunt Jemima brand of syrup is also being renamend. Uncle, by the way, was how white Southerners in the USA would address a black man rather than calling him Mr.

Now we come to Yidddishkeit and these 'icons'

There are two market leaders, Mrs Elswood UK and Mrs Adler (USA), although I have discovered one more

The one more is Mrs Mays who makes snacks and we are told is the “corporate founders' grandmother who used to make these at home. These are her original recipe.” Original recipes they may be but the aforementioned snacks are made in a factory in China. The firm ships its raw materials to China from USA and they are packaged in China and brought back to USA. There are regular Kosher inspections apparently. I doubt if Granny shipped anything to outside of the kitchen, and I doubt if it needed Kosher supervision!

Mrs Adler is from the US. Owned by the Manischewitz company her face adorns jars after jars of Gelfilte fish. Indeed it is clear that she specialises in that product. The picture on the front of the jars shows an sour faced woman with the slightest of smiles - more a sneer- on the cover. She has just been to the hairdressers, put on her pearl necklace and hornrimmed glasses, and it is difficult to see her as the type of person who would be, as my mother was, arm deep in fish, egg, onion, and matzo meal as she wielded her hackenfresser to create “chopped and boiled” or “chopped and fried” - or in other words- home made gefilte fish.

On the other hand there is Mrs Elswood, purveyor of Jewish Pickled Cucumbers. Indeed one of her products is Haimisha Pickled Cucumbers.

She specialises in pickled cucumbers, although she has diversified into other areas

However, for a Jewish girl she has completely broken the glass ceiling of grocery. Not confined to the boundaries of Golders Green she is found from Waitrose to Budgens, from Sainsbury’s to Asda, and not just on the Kosher bit of those Supermarkets.

She is the preferred cucumber at Pesach, and you can tell from the picture on the jar. Instead of the sour Mrs Adler with her hornrimmed glasses and pearl necklace, a young, fresh, face beams out at you from the jar. She has beem described in a blog as a young Kate Bush.

However, she hides a secret. She is not British.

Mrs Elswood pickles, according to their owners is not made in the UK. It is harvested, pickled and packed once a year in Germany and Holland direct from the grower.

The brand was acquired in 2005 by Empire Food Brokers, whose Managing Director is Chandresh Patel. "Empire Foods are one of the UK's major fine food distributors and importers, and also sell such products as Thai Taste, Malay Taste and Nem Viet." 

However she remains as Jewish as Chopped Liver.

Some might say Mazeltov! 

 

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Read more about Mrs Elswood and her friend Mrs Adler...and more in the "Definitive Guide to Jewish Trivia and Miscellany" available from Amazon.