At what point in the cognitive process does one's desire to have something ready-made outweigh one's desire to eat something that's, you know, good? It goes without saying that we all have our dirty food secrets, but it can go too far. The newest trend seems to be ready-ready-made products, things that are convenient already but are made even more convenient by the magic of industrial-strength food processing.
Take, for example, prosciutto—salty, nutty, piggy, delicious, and fashionably pret-a-manger. Great prosciutto is readily available around the country and can be sliced to order at just about any deli counter. If you want it diced instead, it takes only about 30 seconds, at most, to turn those slices into dice. And yet St. Louis-based Volpi is under the impression that people would rather have bad prosciutto that's been sitting in a plastic container for who-knows-how-long pre-diced and ready to go. Aside from the fact that the dual-container clear packaging makes the diced prosciutto look like lung tartare, this stuff is vile, and salty to the extreme. You might honestly be better off buying Bacon Bits. But as bad as the prosciutto might be, it pales in comparison with Oscar Mayer Fast Franks. These are downright gross. They are individually wrapped hot dogs in "bakery fresh" buns that can be microwaved—remember, the hot dog and the bun come in the package together—and 35 seconds later, boom, hot dog, or at least a prefabricated approximation of a hot dog that took about 15 fewer seconds to "make" than a real one would have.
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