Unlike many good Southern women, I am not a huge biscuit fan. When I was a kid, my Granny would make canned biscuits for us to fill with syrup and that’s as close as I get to loving biscuits. It’s more of a nostalgic thing for me. That being said I must say I was incredibly intrigued by Tudor’s new biscuit, The Politician. (New is a relative term, they have evidently been out since April, but I had not heard about them.)
If you too have not heard of The Politician, let me enlighten you. This is an egg, cheese and fried thick bologna biscuit. And like a good Southern woman I love fried bologna just a few times a year. The radio commercial goes something like “We all know politicians are full of bologna so we decided to name our new biscuit after them.” There is a parade and cheering by the crowds as the politician is honored with the naming. I am paraphrasing a lot.
Now, Oshel Craigo, the owner of Tudor’s, is not new to politics. In the past he has been the representative for Putnam County in the State Senate for 20 years and worked his way to Senate finance chairman. To say he knows a thing or two about politicians is quite the understatement. I have read in various places that Craigo thought this would be fun, a lark, a way to get politicians to laugh at themselves. And that’s all fine and well. I applaud Craigo for pointing out something we both know and are uncomfortable with.
It’s interesting to me where we can find commentary on our own society. Music and films, books and theatre, cookbooks and clothing. A favorite of mine is advertising. In my undergrad years at Concord I once used a magazine ad from the ‘50s as a primary source document in a paper dealing with the Cold War. The advertisement showed an Army soldier smoking Camels in a hotel room, a red phone displayed prominently on the night stand. Advertising can both lead and mirror societal perceptions, at times with subtlety, at times blatantly; sometimes all simultaneously. The Politician seems to be doing all of these.
To have a bologna filled biscuit named after politicians to get them to laugh at themselves is not actually fun. It’s more of a nervous laughter. More like seeing a truth we don’t really want to know but can’t get away from. Like getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar and hoping if you tell a good enough story you can get away with it. Yet this country is not a cookie jar. It is a repository of peoples’ lives and hopes and dreams. It embodies faith and trust and an inordinate amount of power not to mention money.
The underlying truth of the matter is that the American people do actually think most politicians are full of bologna, or fill in your favorite manure. Politics as usual in this country has become something of a laughingstock. We none of us are surprised by the recent information coming out of DC these days leaked by Edward Snowden. We none of us are particularly surprised by recent information that our phones may be listened in on, or our email read. Of course our government is lying to us. Of course our government is spying on us. Of course the politicians are all full of bologna. Why would we expect anything else?
The fact is we should expect something else from our government. We should expect truth and respect. We should demand it. We should demand more choices in our representatives than the one between “bad” and “not so bad.” We should actually have as many choices in our representatives as the menu board at Tudor’s.
