Emerald Bile

Secrets are tedious. I don't hate the deceit, I really couldn't care less, nor do I hate the fact that they are exclusive and make people feel left out. I just hate the pomposity secrets inspire in their keepers, that viscous smugness. Just look at your local Priest. Does he have a fucking smug-arsed expression on him? Well, that won't just be because of the Masses and holiness. The main reason will be because of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. All those secrets he carries beneath his habit, making the face on him all lordly and sly.

Of all secrets, the ones I hate the most are secret recipes. Like anyone could give a flying fuck about them! "Oh no, Philomena, I can't give you the recipe for my fudge, it's a family secret". It is not a secret though, is it? A secret would be if you could make fudge out of hay. The fact is, that Philomena's recipe will be a minor variation on sugar, butter, condensed milk, syrup and vanilla. Yawny, cunty, hole.

But I can almost forgive those old crones making the song and dance about their cooking. It's something to do, while their spines crumble and the grave approaches. What I can't fucking forgive is companies, who have a lot of money and make boring things, being all secretive about what it is that they make. Heinz, for example only allow a handful of people to know their recipes for the various tinned and bottled things that they make. What happens to the indoctrinated people if they tell anyone? Do they get shot? Jesus!

Having secret recipes does not even deter competitors - there are millions of other companies making baked beans and ketchup and selling masses of the stuff, without needing to bleat on "secret" this and "secret" that, and they taste enough like the real thing to be OK enough that you'd buy them, but not so good that they can charge quite as much as the original. Heinz should just think to themselves: "Imitation is the highest flattery", and then just get on with inventing more things to put inside metal tubes. And if the competitors did get hold of the recipe, what would actually happen? Would Heinz go bust? I don't think so. People like the Heinz labels and the thought of the beans, or whatever, just as much as the taste - they'd still buy their stuff.


On a more personal level, as someone who loves Heinz baked beans, I can tell you for free, that if one of the Keepers of the Heinz Secret sidled up to me and said "Noreen, this, this recipe here, this is how you make Heinz baked beans. Do you see? It's got a pinch of cinnamon in it, a fucking pinch of cinnamon and that, that, Noreen, that is the difference between the Heinz baked bean and the Tesco's value one". Do you know what I would say? I would say: "I really can't imagine ever being arsed to boil dried white beans and piss around with all those sugars and tomatoes and whatnot, in order to recreate what I can just go out and buy and get from a green can, or a close approximation in a different coloured can. Thank you for the secret recipe, but I won't be making it myself". So just stop having secrets and carry on boiling pulses and pounding tomatoes and whipping eggs. Thank you.
Noreen