Eating Obama

One thing I know for certain: Barack Obama sure seems to make some people hungry.

"Now, for some pie!" PunditKitchen, http://punditkitchen.com/2008/11/11/political-pictures-barack-obama-pie/

We’ve had Obama Waffles (“Change You Can Taste!”), White House lawn-grown watermellons,  and Obama Bucks to buy all of this food. More recently there have been Obama Fingers–a tasty fried chicken treat, and this frozen ice cream treat that appears to be vanilla covered in nut-sprinkled chocolate.

On a less sinister note, we’ve also witnessed portraits of Obama in the medium of over 1,000 cupcakes, Obama campaign logo cookies, and even Obama (flavored?) hot sauce.

What’s going on with all this Obama-inspired culinary activity?

Are folks just hungry, and want to combine their love of (or hate for) Barack Obama with nutritional ingestion? Are some supporters on an Obama Eucharist kind of trip, thinking they’ll witness some kind of miraculous transubstantiation after eating foodstuff emblazoned in his image? We Obama supporters often were accused of looking upon the man as Messiah. But my answer to all that was always, “Don’t hate because you have a boring snoozer of a candidate. We Dems certainly have had to suffer with such candidates in the recent past.”

As for the more negative portrayals, is food just an efficient shorthand tool for expressions of racism? In the case of the non-US food companies, do they really just have no clue? Well, at least with the frozen treats, it seems as if the whole racial “____ on the inside and ____ on the outside” meme is a feature of their product line. Clearly they know more than they seem to be letting on. But perhaps they still see the product as harmless, even complimentary? The Americans–I have no sympathy for them. Everyone past a certain age who grew up here knows what they are doing when they invoke food-related racial imagery.

**Sigh**

I don’t know. Damn the Internets, though, for bringing this constant barrage of images to our front doors/browsers. It’s going to be a long 4-8 years…