Homemade?

By Cynthia

I promise not to turn this into a food blog but I have a rant this week that is food related and I must get it out of my system.

I feel…
I need your help. Can you please explain to me what homemade is? When you go to purchase something and someone says to you that it is homemade what are you thinking? What are you expecting?

I saw…
Last week as I was sitting in an eating establishment waiting on my take-out order at the bar, a man walk in, make his order and proceed to ask the server what the beverages on offer were, she recited the usual, coke, sprite etc. He enquired about local drinks, to which she responded, “We have homemade mauby and lemonade.” The man ordered lemonade and proceeded to one of the dining tables.

I turned my attention to the server who was also doubling as bartender (things were slow). She reached into the freezer and brought out a bottle of store-bought lemon juice with it’s made in America label! I said to myself, surely that is not the homemade lemon juice she’s using to make the homemade lemonade. I don’t think I need to go further, you get the picture. And don’t even try to suggest that it might have been local lemon juice in the bottle because you and I both know it was not.

I experienced…
Another “homemade” incident – at the end of Mass, the priest announced that there is a bake sale and encouraged us to support it. I get all excited, after all, some of the tastiest baked goods and beverages can be had at bake sales, particularly Church sales.

Excitedly I approach the stall; I order a sweet bread and proceed to enquire about the drinks on offer. The man selling the drinks says to me, “We have mauby.” I asked if it’s homemade (now, it is necessary for me to ask this question since all of the mauby sold in Barbados is made from a syrup instead of brewed directly from the bark after ripening for a few days). The man responds that it is homemade. Persistent, I seek clarification, “you mean brewed from the bark?” The man looks at me irritated as if to say, “What else do you think you’d get at a Church bake sale.” I order the mauby, climb into my car excited to try it. Even as the bottle drew close to my lips, I knew I was duped. It was the syrup diluted with water, bottled, chilled and sold as homemade. I was totally p _ _ _ _d!!!! The nerve of these people! Hoping to find consolation in the sweet bread, I bit into it only for it to crumble in my mouth, dry and tasteless. It was like sawdust in my mouth. The expletives that I wanted to spew would not have been becoming of someone who had just spent an hour in reverence.

I say…
Don’t raise my expectations by saying that something is homemade when it is not. Making it at home does not make it homemade so don’t get smart with me.

I ask…
When someone says to you that “it’s homemade” what do you think it means?