Worldwide Rude Food Origins

So you may be thinking "why does this even exist?" and its a fair question. Well, before I had ever stepped on an international flight, me and my family always spent time going through international food shops. Supporting independent businesses before it was cool, and exploring the world the only way we could, by submersing in the ourselves in the rich multi-cultural fabric of our society within the UK.

Whilst discovering a whole host of new flavours and connection through the beauty of shared experience, there where also some other forms of experience, and even humour. Language is a beautiful thing, complex and with formats beyond count, and always evolving. In the UK there was great trauma (for some) when our household brand Jif became rebranded as Cif - why you may ask? Well because Jif in some languages meant ejaculate, and the fact it was a cream cleaner caused great objections to international acceptance. Globalization has a cost, much of which we already know, but one of the least respected casualties is a simple one, one that creates a wry smirk or a guilty laugh for those who see a message, unintended (or atleast we think) for those who speak another language to the intended market for the product.

I remember sharing Christmas presents as a child and my mum receiving a pack of Krapp toilet paper (Sweden) from my auntie. The shear unintended hilarity and yet relevance of the product name literally reduced my mother to tears of laughter - and also great resentment when someone used it for its intended purpose one night. I took a lesson from this, human experience in its self relies so much on shared knowledge, and when this is challenged in a silly and simple way by everyday things it can make us forget about even the most difficult of things.

The sheer unfathomable probability of an item being named by a marketing function in one culture, creating a product that in another language sounds almost entirely counter to its intended purpose in another is a fascination. A pure miracle. Why is it that a biscuit roll in Thailand, sounds like a filthy google search in English? Why is it that a child's sweet in Denmark is something that makes children in British slang? Purely human, purely multi-cultural, lets celebrate our differences, and instead of pride, lets instead embrace the things we can chuckle about and share that laugh together!

Some people may think this is a product that can only be appreciated by vulgar young men, but actually I think what Worldwide Rude Food hampers share is the beauty of the complexity of human language, and in a serious world, we can still spend some time to have a laugh at the unlikely probability, the amazing unfortunate circumstance, and the fact we can only share this through our differences, but ultimately and more importantly our similarities.