On Saturday I was buying chocolate chips for Christmas cookies. As the (young) checker scanned these, she excitedly commented, “Did you see that they make these in butterscotch now?” I smiled and replied, “They have made butterscotch chips since I was a small boy, and before that.” Then I shared how my grandmother made butterscotch chip cookies more often than chocolate. She smiled patronizingly, clearly getting more information than she expected or desired, and wished me a good day.
Inspired by this memory, the next day I decided to make butterscotch cookies. To my surprise, I had to go to three stores before I found a package of butterscotch chips. There were milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate (?), peanut butter, and mini chips, but no butterscotch. When I finally found them, it was an off brand and not my beloved Nestles (from whom Grandma’s butterscotch chip cookie recipie originated). when I was young, there were two kinds of Nestles’ chips, semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch.
All of this led to a question, What happened to butterscotch?” When I was young, butterscotch was a major player in the kingdom of sweets. Besides butterscotch chips, there was butterscotch syrup for ice cream, butterscotch hard candies, and butterscotch pudding, none of which can be easily found on store shelves (or ice cream parlors) any more. How many 20 somethings have ever tasted a butterscotch hard candy? When was the last time you were offered butterscotch anything in a restaurant?
For the time being, all of these things still exist, but they are getting harder and harder to find, crowded off the shelves and menus by caramel. While I understand that some people find these similar, the heavy, overripe taste of caramel cannot equal the light, sweet, subtlety of good butterscotch (and salted caramel is an abomination). Will our great grandchildren ever know the taste of butterscotch?
Do flavors become extinct like species? We have more options of food and drink than ever before, but do tastes die out along the way? In preparation for this post, I tried to think of other flavors that have disappeared or are disappearing. Certainly black licorice is on its way out as a candy, though the anise flavor continues in many recipes and alcoholic beverages. What else may be disappearing? I’m not saying foods, because food products and preparations come and go, but what tastes will not make it to the second half of the 21st Century?
I welcome your comments, memories, and flavors.
Image: Butterscotch sweets. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterscotch
May we vote to accelerate a flavor’s extinction? I’m thinking of course of pumpkin spice.
Mace. Mace as a spice flavoring is something I can always add to a recipe and completely confuse my tasters.
Marjoram- I have to use my carefully hoarded seeds to grow it each year. You can’t ever find it fresh anywhere.