hercule poirot meets inspector lastrade

Last week, we talked about the pounds I have taken off with my revised diet and exercise regime. Or, at least, I was writing about it (exercising my rights). 

But I will not take off any more pounds if I backslide into the ways of sin as I did just after I wrote that essay.

While shopping at Hawaii, I saw a can of Pringles. I have never been fond of the snack. They taste as if someone had used powdered mashed potatoes to craft a marginally-interesting nibble.

It was the color, not the name, that caught my attention. Fluorescent pink. An odd marketing choice for Pringles.

Then, I saw why. The color was designed to complement the flavor -- prawn cocktail.

As some of you may recall, I have a taste-treat relationship with prawn-flavored snacks that verges on the dysfunctional. You need only ask my English friend Hillary Bagnall. Even though they are forbidden carbohydrates, I bought a can.

Tasting three of them was sufficient for me. They were an original taste, with that prawn-like tang that some mad scientist devised in a Moldavan laboratory from the scales of a Chernobyl-glow fish. 

While walking to the garbage can, I noticed the writing on the can "Perfect Flavour." It was not the misrepresentation that caught my attention; it was the British spelling with that extraneous "u."

I love a mystery. The can provided several clues. Had it been imported from Britain? Alex does sell a number of English-made food products. Or maybe Canada. That seemed far more likely.

But my deduction was far more Inspector Lestrade than Sherlock Holmes. Or, to be more accurate, Hercule Poirot. Because the answer was on the back of the can -- along with the Minister of Health's inevitable chiding that the product contained "excess calories."

The place of manufacture? Bélgica. Belgium. One of the last places I would have guessed -- if ever.

But there is a moral in that label. When I moved here, I would have been hard-pressed to find any imports from Britain on the Mexican coast. Now, I am breaking my fast with Pringles from Belgium.

I guess that is some kind of progress.