Can you trust a tomato in January?

by Vince Staten

Join author Vince Staten as he embarks on the great American ritual of the weekly shopping trip to the supermarket. Like anyone who has roamed the aisles, list in hand, lulled by nondescript music from overhead, he has wondered what happened to the tomatoes of his youth; what is the mysterious white stuff they call Cool Whip; who invented Jell-O; and what makes Oreos taste so darn good. But unlike the rest of us, he has bothered to investigate the answers and ask a few impertinent questions of the experts. Many pressing questions are addressed in Can You Trust a Tomato in January? Who thought of putting American cheese in an aerosol can and is it really cheese anyway? Why doesn't peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth anymore? (It really used to, when your mother was a child.) And which has more lemon in it, Lemon Pledge or Country Time Lemonade? (You'd be surprised!) For that matter, when did they change the name of Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes to just Frosted Flakes? Here ar