I’m colossal laziness of advertising awards and research commissioned to flatter advertisers, such as Top of Mind – made by Datafolha and published by sheet on Thursday (28). What do I get from knowing the toilet paper brand that wins the hearts and asses of average Brazilians?
But I must confess that, even without gaining a foothold, I can’t resist looking at the most remembered brands in the Top Food category. The research reveals what is in the pantry of a Brazil that we, professionals and dilettantes in gastronomy, pretend not to see.
Between the Brazil of natural fermentation bread and the Brazil that digs through the garbage to eat, there is a gigantic universe of people who consume margarine, soft noodles and burnt coffee.
So much margarine is bought that Top of Mind reserves a subcategory just for her.
Science has already demolished the myth of healthy margarine, although it is still insisted on as a marketing ploy. In gastronomy, margarine has always been abhorred.
The industry, which is well aware of this disgust, what does it do? Use the power of per$u$ation to convince a respected and famous French chef to be a poster boy for margarine. People who watch TV fall like a duck.
It’s not just a question of money. It’s so cool that you eat margarine, oatmeal flavored snacks and fukushima-green gelatin.
On the other hand, the universe of gastronomy is a social aspect that goes beyond class. There are the bored rich, the social climbers, the smug hipsters, the dazzled influencers, the studious workers. And there are journalists, who can also fit the above definitions.
We journalists are deluded by the drama of the reporter-source relationship. We received invitations and received gifts. We go around without paying for the lives of the rich and end up thinking that this is our life.
This is reflected in consumption habits, which are obviously paid for. We forget that the real Brazil still dines on soft noodles.
As shown by the Top of Mind survey, all eight brands of pasta mentioned spontaneously are national, made with common flour, which crumble if cooked a little beyond the point.
In gourmet Brazil, soft pasta ended in 1990, when Collor released imports. Italian durum wheat noodles are here to stay, and industrial egg pasta has never been heard again.
A similar process is underway with burnt and bitter coffee, a national institution since the 19th century and rejected by the gastro-churminha.
We went from Swiss capsules to terroir coffee, with medium roast, ground at home and filtered through a Japanese filter that costs twice the kilogram of the most remembered powder brand on Top of Mind.
Our countrymen like petroleum-black coffee, made from defective beans, roasted in the flames of hell until charred and, if you hesitate, mixed with sugar before being strained and served in an American cup in a dirty bar.
This is Brazil, and who doesn’t agree to go to Portland or Copenhagen.
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