Cigars and Mayonnaise
Don't worry, folks. I am NOT posting this in a food-related group, and I am NOT going to recommend dipping cigars into a mayonnaise dip for a tangy, leafy treat.
This post is about two stories that parallel each other in a way that I find interesting, but admittedly many here will find boring!
First the mayonnaise story. When I was growing up in New York, jars of Hellman's Mayonnaise had labels which said "Known as Best Foods Mayonnaise west of the Rockies." Years later, when I was in my 20's, I went to visit a friend in California and made a point of finding a jar of Best Foods Mayonnaise, which sure enough said "Known as Hellman's Mayonnaise east of the Rockies."
Eventually, the labels all simply came to say Hellman's. I did some research recently, and I discovered that originally these were two separate companies, with different recipes. Hellman's bought out Best Foods but did nothing to change the production: so the two recipes, and the two labels, persisted. Thus, despite the misleading messages on the labels, these were not the same mayonnaise after all. But after a while, the company discontinued the Best Foods recipe, and the mayonnaise was all the same, and it all got labeled Hellman's.
Meanwhile, over in Pennsylvania, there was a cigar story playing out. Avanti cigars had two factories. One manufactured Parodi cigars, and the other manufactured DiNapoli cigars. These were Italian-style cigars (dry-cured, and rather different from the typical cigars people usually smoke.) The two cigars were noticeably different from each other in taste, as they were two different tobacco blends.
Then the company closed down one factory, and both cigars were made in the same facility, as they are today. Both cigars are now the same blend, but the company packages some of them as Parodi and others as DeNapoli (for some reason that vowel changed.) Why? Because Parodi had been the popular Italian-style cigar in New England and DiNapoli was the popular Italian-style cigar in New York!
So, there you have it: two different mayonnaise recipes being marketed as being identical, and identical cigar blends being marketed as being different.
This post is about two stories that parallel each other in a way that I find interesting, but admittedly many here will find boring!
First the mayonnaise story. When I was growing up in New York, jars of Hellman's Mayonnaise had labels which said "Known as Best Foods Mayonnaise west of the Rockies." Years later, when I was in my 20's, I went to visit a friend in California and made a point of finding a jar of Best Foods Mayonnaise, which sure enough said "Known as Hellman's Mayonnaise east of the Rockies."
Eventually, the labels all simply came to say Hellman's. I did some research recently, and I discovered that originally these were two separate companies, with different recipes. Hellman's bought out Best Foods but did nothing to change the production: so the two recipes, and the two labels, persisted. Thus, despite the misleading messages on the labels, these were not the same mayonnaise after all. But after a while, the company discontinued the Best Foods recipe, and the mayonnaise was all the same, and it all got labeled Hellman's.
Meanwhile, over in Pennsylvania, there was a cigar story playing out. Avanti cigars had two factories. One manufactured Parodi cigars, and the other manufactured DiNapoli cigars. These were Italian-style cigars (dry-cured, and rather different from the typical cigars people usually smoke.) The two cigars were noticeably different from each other in taste, as they were two different tobacco blends.
Then the company closed down one factory, and both cigars were made in the same facility, as they are today. Both cigars are now the same blend, but the company packages some of them as Parodi and others as DeNapoli (for some reason that vowel changed.) Why? Because Parodi had been the popular Italian-style cigar in New England and DiNapoli was the popular Italian-style cigar in New York!
So, there you have it: two different mayonnaise recipes being marketed as being identical, and identical cigar blends being marketed as being different.
