I was in the break room when I saw a work associate scooping out some instant coffee.
She said, “would you like some Pumpkin Spice latte coffee?”
I answerd, “No thank you.” And because I felt the need to fill the silence, and because everything I say is trivia, I added, “Did you know there’s dairy in Pumpkin Spice flavoring?”
“I did know that,” she said.
“Why is it necessary? Why would they have to add dairy with the pumpkin?”
“Well, of course there’s no pumpkin.”
I blinked at her. “Wait. What?”
She gave me one of those are-you-kidding-me looks. “No. There’s no pumpkin in pumpkin spice flavoring.”
Through waves of horror I said, “You mean it’s pumpkinspice flavor, NOT PUMPKIN … SPICE FLAVOR?”
“Yeah, it’s just the nutmeg and cinnamon. Like pumpkin pie.”
A local paper recently polled its readers on pumpkin spice cocoa, Pro or Con, and I had responded, “Don’t put vegetables in cocoa.” Other remarks like that swelled in my memory.
She said, slowly, “… Have you ever tasted pumpkin spice?”
I said, “No, I don’t like pumpkin. I always thought, ‘Why would people want their coffee to taste like artificial pumpkin flavor?’”
So, we had a good laugh, and I learned something today.
Still, I can’t see why it isn’t called cookie spice or eggnog spice or, for God’s sake, Cinnamon and Nutmeg spice.
5 responses to “Pumpkin Spice”
This is over my head.
Wait a minute – now I’m wondering why there’s dairy….
Hattie – don’t they have pumpkin spice flavored things in Hawaii? ~~silk – it looks like Starbucks originally used pumpkin puree, but then that turned into artificial pumpkin flavor, and now they keep quiet in what’s in it because vegans got mad about the condensed milk, and then there were ground up bugs in it for color, and then HFCS. I imagine it’s all chemicals now.
Phew! Thank goodness they are protecting the public from contamination with the use of proper chemicals. Yes, we do have a Starbucks here, but I hadn’t noticed whether they had pumpkin-flavored stuff. I’ll bet the parking lot of your Starbucks doesn’t have chickens running around in it, though.
Hattie – Can you imagine? Gary would be there every day, and he would name all the chickens.