I was wrong, dear reader. Horribly wrong. Just two weeks ago, I sang the praises of September. The cooling weather, the wildlife preparing for winter, the coming explosion of color.
D. K. Wall:Alas, I forgot the dark side of September. The insidious tentacles of evil stretching into every nook and cranny, lurking as it waits to pounce. You taste it. You smell it.
D. K. Wall:I walked into my local Barnes and Noble, my reading sanctuary, only to be assaulted by the scent drifting from the Starbucks in the corner. A banner dangled from the ceiling announcing the return of Pumpkin Spice Latte.
D. K. Wall:And not just a latte. Oh no, they proudly pushed their Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino and their Pumpkin Spice Nitro Cold Brew, whatever that might be.
D. K. Wall:Now hold on for one moment before you run off to compose a strongly worded email analyzing my lack of sophistication. I freely admit it. I am a coffee Philistine.
D. K. Wall:My particular caffeinated brew is sold in a bag on a grocery store shelf, usually Eight O'clock. JFG is a backup. I've even used the generic.
D. K. Wall:Spare me the descriptions of how your coffee beans were lovingly plucked from the trees by monks, hauled by donkeys down steep mountain trails, and sailed across the ocean in a private stateroom aboard a masted schooner.
D. K. Wall:Forget about whipped, frothed, aerated, tamped, pulled, drizzled, dusted, or dressed in a foam fern.
D. K. Wall:My coffee is brewed in a Mr. Coffee on my kitchen counter and poured into a mug snatched from the dish drainer.
D. K. Wall:It is not sipped, sampled, or savored but gulped the way it was meant to be. Black. No cream. No sugar. And certainly no pumpkin spice.
D. K. Wall:Now I have no qualms with pumpkin. Fresh pumpkin is the best, but I have canned pumpkin in the house year round, mainly because it's the best cure for canine digestive issues.
D. K. Wall:But that's the problem with pumpkin. It's smooth, soothing, boring. But add a little pumpkin spice and it becomes magical.
D. K. Wall:It's just cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and sometimes allspice, though its addition sparks a debate that fractures family and ignites civil wars. So I'll stay out of that.
D. K. Wall:Whatever the mix, grandmas everywhere added it to their pumpkin before baking. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies.
D. K. Wall:Pull any of those out of the oven, and you'll find me sitting at your kitchen table, boring coffee in hand, ready to partake. That scent wafting through the air is irresistible.
D. K. Wall:Which is part of the problem. Someone, no doubt a devious marketing executive with an Ivy League degree, thought adding a spice meant for pumpkins to non pumpkin items would make a fortune. That bad idea spread like kudzu in the South on a hot summer day.
D. K. Wall:This time of year, you can lather yourself with pumpkin spice soap. Wash your hair with pumpkin spice shampoo. Freshen up with pumpkin spice adult wipes. Once dried off, apply pumpkin spice deodorant.
D. K. Wall:In case your house wasn't overwhelmed already, be sure to use pumpkin spice trash bags and hang a pumpkin spice air freshener for the ultimate effect.
D. K. Wall:Just don't think you are leaving the house smelling like grandma's kitchen. If I were downwind, I'd give you as wide a berth as I would a group of middle school boys doused in Axe body spray.
D. K. Wall:That olfactory assault is bad enough. But the invasion of pumpkin spice into our food supply is reprehensible. At least, food beyond the pies, bread, and cookies I expect.
D. K. Wall:And by cookies, I am not including Pumpkin Spice Oreos though some product manager thought that was a good idea.
D. K. Wall:And Twinkies They are bad enough on their own. Why, for the love of humanity, do they sell pumpkin spice Twinkies?
D. K. Wall:The one that really hurt my heart, or at least my gastrointestinal system, was Pumpkin Spice Moon Pies.
D. K. Wall:A moon pie for those of you unfortunate enough to never savor the delicacyis essentially two graham crackers with a marshmallow filling. To achieve maximum nutritional catastrophe, the concoction is dipped in chocolate.
D. K. Wall:As a kid, I thought they were the best snack. Washed down with an ice cold RC Cola, of course. That would be royal crown cola for those of you not in the know.
D. K. Wall:We could go down the mythology road to explain how RC and a moon pie became intertwined, but understand that my devotion to RC was because their bottle caps could be exchanged for tickets for rides at the Nashville Fair Park.
D. K. Wall:The sad truth is most of the people who live in Nashville nowadays have probably never tasted an RC, munched on a moon pie, or even know what the Fair Park was.
D. K. Wall:The rides are long gone. I haven't had an RC or a cola of any sort in years. And I probably couldn't choke down a moon pie anymore.
D. K. Wall:But I will always have those glorious memories of standing in line for the Skyliner roller coaster on a hot, humid summer night with the smell of exhaust wafting through the air from the racetrack.
D. K. Wall:Bag of popcorn in hand, of course. Not pumpkin spice popcorn though, like I ignored in the store, along with the various pumpkin spice potato chips or even the pumpkin spice goldfish. The cracker, not the swimming kind.
D. K. Wall:I admit, I did pause at the sight of pumpkin spice vegan marshmallows. Not because I was tempted to purchase them. No such thought crossed my mind.
D. K. Wall:Rather, the vegan part confused me. But I guess that allows you to make vegan pumpkin spice rice crispy treats if you're so inclined.
D. K. Wall:Alas, my snack choices are somewhat healthier nowadays, like carrots and celery dipped in hummus. I'll admit that chickpeas alone can be a bit boring.
D. K. Wall:So I'll venture into a black bean hummus or a roasted red pepper hummus or garlic or even a little pine nut. But pumpkin spice hummus just seems unnecessary.
D. K. Wall:I also like to snack on cottage cheese. Weird enough to eat the acidic curdles of milk, but adding pumpkin spice to it is downright criminal. Not much weirder than pumpkin spice yogurt, but that exists too. Even ice cream.
D. K. Wall:Surely, I thought, this trend wouldn't invade my breakfast, a stack of hot pancakes slathered with maple syrup.
D. K. Wall:But, yes, they make a pumpkin spice pancake mix and even pumpkin spice maple syrup. I don't even mean high fructose laced sugar water that stores try to claim as syrup.
D. K. Wall:This is labeled pure pumpkin spice maple syrup, though I question the purity once the spice has been added.
D. K. Wall:The ultimate horror, though, I found in the canned goods, Canned meats to be exact. If, of course, you consider Spam to be a meat.
D. K. Wall:Yes. That's right. Pumpkin spiced Spam. Though in fairness, that might be the one exception where pumpkin spice might be an improvement.
D. K. Wall:Surely that's as far as they would go. They wouldn't possibly tinker with the ultimate Southern food.
D. K. Wall:With trepidation in my heart, I traipsed over to the section of my grocery that probably doesn't exist much outside of my little corner of the world. I'm talking liver mush, obviously.
D. K. Wall:We take our liver mush seriously. We'll argue all day long about how it's different from liver pudding or scrapple. And of course, which is better?
D. K. Wall:We will also point out that the law stands behind us. Yes, North Carolina actually regulates how much pig liver is present in liver mush. For the record, that's a minimum requirement, not a maximum.
D. K. Wall:For those of you unversed in this particular cuisine, I highly recommend that you do not peruse the ingredient list of this pork based delicacy beyond the liver.
D. K. Wall:There will be items you will never have considered edible. Just know we take the phrase whole hog quite literally.
D. K. Wall:Once the meat has been carefully selected, AKA the leftovers after bacon and ham, It is mixed with the right amount of cornmeal for consistency.
D. K. Wall:And importantly, the proper spices added for taste. Recipes vary, of course, like competing potato salads at a family reunion. But think salt, pepper, onions, garlic, and a touch of sage or thyme.
D. K. Wall:This is tradition. Surely, no one would mess with the recipe.
D. K. Wall:I scanned the packages. More brands than you might have ever imagined compete for this narrow product market. I am proud to report not a single pumpkin spice flavor to be found.
D. K. Wall:Some things are just too sacred to mess with.