Requiem for Ro-tel
[This post is a weblog reaction to ro-tel?, which you may need to read before reading this post.]
Amy, you introduced me to Ro-tel when I was down there last time, remember? Here in the frozen white wastelands, Ro-tel only comes in three varieties (regular, mild, and some bastardized large chunk version). It’s usually hidden on the top or bottom-most shelf near the canned tomatoes, and there’s about 1 row of cans for each kind. (Compare this paltry offering to the grocery store you took me to in Alabama, which had, if I recall correctly, a Ro-tel aisle.)
When I first started looking for Ro-tel in college, it was right before the company was purchased by Con-Agra foods. Ro-tel was great, I’d buy a few cans and then just open one up and have instant salsa. (I hardly ever make the cheese dip because that pan is a pain to clean, and I didn’t have then, and we still don’t have now, a dishwasher).
About six months after I made it back up to college, Con-Agra bought out the little southern company that made Ro-tel, and all hell broke loose. My formerly awesome cans of Ro-tel tomatoes became nearly half full of tomato cores overnight.
I know most people don’t care, but I’m kind of creeped out about eating tomato cores. And the tomato ends, blech. I can take about one or two per can, maybe. As long as I don’t know about them (like, for instance, if they are covered in cheese), then I’m okay. But if I see them, then I just can’t bring myself to eat them. With the new Con-Agra recipe, after carefully filtering out the tomato core pieces, I would often wind up with a pile of cores almost equaling the pile of regular tomato pieces. I would stare sadly at the two little mounds of tomato parts, asking myself, “why bother?” before dumping out the little core pieces and starting to eat my now meager snack.
Every few months or so I would buy another can, hoping to get a good one. Occasionally I’d get a really good one, with only about seven core pieces, but they got rarer and rarer. Once I bought a whole case, thinking maybe I was just getting unlucky picking my individual cans. After the tenth can of crushing disappointment, I opened all of the others, just to see if there was even one can in the case I could eat without stopping to sort first. Every single can had enough tomato core pieces to make me feel nauseated.
These days I still buy a can every few months, but I’ve stopped hoping.
Amy, I’ve been waiting patiently for five and a half years for you to publicly recant your love for Ro-tel. Surely you would notice how much the quality has fallen! The fact that you have not done so can only mean one thing: conspiracy! Oh, I don’t think you’re in on it, you’re just a pawn like all of the rest of us. Con-Agra must send all the good stuff to the South, chopping up and throwing your extra tomato cores into the Ro-tel bound for the North. Why? They’re a multi-national corporation, so probably just for giggles. It’s also gotten a lot less hot over the years and as far as that is concerned, I suspect some form of cost cutting. They probably cut back on the spice they send to Minnesota, figuring “It’s got celery, that’s spicy enough for Minnesotans.”
Ro-tel, you are dead to me. I wanted to love you, but after stringing me along for years, now you spurn my every advance. I’ve given my love to a local store brand of “southwest style” canned tomatoes. That’s right: in terms of quality and spiciness you are being soundly trounced by tomatoes from Minnesota. And while nothing can beat that Ro-tel taste, one out of three is no way to live.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:48 am
I laughed until I cried.