I’m home again and after two weeks abroad, I realized that I have not cooked for myself in what feels like forever.  So, with joy and abandon, I pulled out my cookbooks and decided to whip up some very non-German style food.  From the latest issue of Eating Well, I selected a number of dishes for consumption over the next week, including tacos, thai chicken pizza and stuffed chicken breasts.

The stuffed chicken breast, served with rice and a steamed artichoke boasts a stuffing of prunes, Gorgonzola cheese and fresh thyme.  I recently had a lovely sandwich of prunes and pulled pork, so I was game.  During my trip to my local grocery store, I was unable to locate prunes anywhere.  I was, however,  able to locate numerous displays of “dried, pitted plums” with packages that screamed in red and yellow letters, “anti-oxidant rich plums,” “delicious taste, low in calories,” and “aids digestion.”

Is the average American fooled by this simple name change.  Everyone knows (right?) that dried plums = prunes.  The jokes about prunes are numerous but clearly people are eating them, so why try to dress up prunes as something they aren’t.  Is this a misrepresentation or just a harmless euphemism?  What will they think of next? Has anyone else found any food euphemisms that make them scratch their head?