Spotted Dick. Photo: Slashfood.

A Welsh municipality has renamed a British pudding because workers tired of the snickers caused from its double-entendre name.

Spotted Dick is now Spotted Richard on the menu in the government cafeteria in the North Wales town of Flintshire, the Daily Mail reports.

"It just seemed political correctness gone mad," Klaus Armstrong-Braun, a local politician told the Daily Mail. "There was a sign in the dining room for things like rice pudding and then this Spotted Richard -- I had to ask what it was. Whoever has changed it needs to be told they are being silly."

What do you do when times are tough? Reinvention! Tropicana (and Pepsi) have already done it, and now Heinz is getting in on the action.

Gone are the days when the tasty gherkin graced the label. Did you ever notice it? The gherkin has shrunk over the years, once looking quite hefty (look to the right), and now an almost-forgotten blip at the bottom of the label. Blip or not, it's been on the bottles for over 100 years, and now Heinz Ketchup is trading it in for a "vine-ripened tomato" and a new tagline: "Grown not made."

I get the switch, since nothing about a gherkin makes you think of ketchup, but does it really matter? Does putting a vine-ripened tomato on the label make a difference? I guess I'm just crusty about everything continually changing to look modern. Old isn't necessarily bad. Remember the wave of nostalgia that came with those old Coke bottles? Poor gherkin. Couldn't the pickle and tomato just share?

From The Heinz Book of Meat Cookery (1930), HJ Heinz Company

I'm interrupting the semi-regularly scheduled Midnight Sausage series to share molded food images and recipes from my personal collection of early-to-mid 20th century cookbooks. There will be aspic. There will be mousse. There will be various gelatins. All will be semi-solid and of debatable degrees of edibility.

Please feel free to shimmy and shake your way to the comments section to share your very own magical, masticable molds of yore.

Previously - Vegetable Supper Salad

Last year, the HJ Heniz Company received a score of 91 points out of a possible 100 on the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a ratings system based run by the University of Michigan and independent consulting firms, which tracks American consumer preferences and overall satisfaction. It was the highest rating in the history of the index and there was some small speculation that the company could not sustain that level of performance. But this year, for the seventh consecutive time, Heinz is coming out on top of the ACSI list again. Their score did dip slightly to an 87 out of 100, but a spokesman said "the survey results illustrate once again, that Heinz offers high quality food products to our consumers" - and that the customers are clearly satisfied.

Heinz may have some real competition next year, though. They only narrowly beat out their three closest competitors on the ACSI list - Hershey, Kraft and Mars - each of which scored 86 out of 100.

It seems a little late for a company to suddenly be jumping on the low-carb bandwagon (at least, I haven't previously noticed it in my area), but that's pretty much what Heinz has done with their one-carb Reduced Sugar Ketchup. The ketchup has 75% less sugar than their regular ketchup and 2/3 fewer calories. Since it is being marketed as a healthier alternative to regular ketchup, the company notes that it still has plenty of heart-healthy lycopene from tomatoes in it, so anyone who switches to it won't be missing out.

Frankly, it's hard to imagine that a low carb ketchup will really stand up to regular ketchup, let alone to Organic Heinz, and because you don't generally consume ketchup by the cupful, how harmful could a few extra grams of sugar be? They're probably not has unhealthy as the French fries or other food that is being served with the ketchup in the first place.

The HJ Heinz Company has had the highest consumer satisfaction rating in the country for the past six years, and it's no wonder because, although they make many different products, they make one of the most popular and best loved condiments you can name: Heinz ketchup. Everyone likes Heinz, or at least, they think they do. Endless taste tests rank it sometimes higher and sometimes lower than other brands, and the brand still averages a high score. One recent test, however, may actually forecast a change in the way Heinz makes their ketchup. In it, Organic Heinz came out above regular Heinz.

For years, organic goods such as sauces and, of course, ketchup, had a hard time catching on with consumers since their flavors and consistency were too unfamiliar. Perhaps tastes have grown up a bit, or the technology is simply better, but if the organic version is now scoring higher with tasters, we could see a resulting increase in the availability of organic ketchup, possibly in place of the traditional stuff.

Where would you rank Organic Heinz? Is it as french-fry worthy as the classic?

Heinz is coming to Russia in an effort to wrest market share away from Baltimor. America's most popular ketchup is synonymous with the condiment. So is Russia's.

Baltimor, which takes its name from the words for Baltic Sea, is associated with the word ketchup by 81 percent of the Russian population. And Russians are ketchup crazed, consuming more than three pounds annually. They use it on meat, fish, eggs and dumplings, among other things.

Now that Heinz has bought a majority stake in a St. Petersburg food manufacturer that's a major player in the world of condiments it has its work cut out.

Baltimor offers 15 varieties of ketchup. These range from the cayenne and chili-laced Ajica to Winter Garden, a sweet and sour ketchup with prunes. In case your wondering, Winter Garden is recommended for pizza, pelmeni, pasta and potato fries. Mmm...prune pizza.

Heinz has a very unusual new marketing idea, offering customized labels for bottles of their products. They are not the only company to offer custom imprinting, but surely they are the only condiment company. And who would have thought that custom ketchup would be a draw in the first place?

At MyHeinz.com you can select one of five different products and add either an "everyday message" or a "custom message" to it. The everyday messages include: Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary (would only recommend this in conjunction with another anniversary gift - like a barbecue) and Get Well Soon. The custom message can be almost anything, so get creative.

Heinz suggests that the bottles are appropriate for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, family reunions and tailgating. We're still not sold on the anniversary idea, but those last two occasions actually seem like ketchup would be a perfect topper for them, not to mention the fact that a kid would be thrilled to see his or her name on ketchup put out at their birthday party.

Sarah asked how your dressed your dogs - mustard? relish? chili? Personally, while I enjoy dogs dressed with all kinds of things, my very favorite way to eat them is with ketchup. I know it's boring compared to a loaded dog, but I also know I'm not the only one who likes them that way. My ketchup of choice is Heinz .

Heinz Ketchup is celebrating its 130th birthday this year and more the 50% of the Ketchup sold in the US is made by Heinz. Out of the many ketchups I've tried -including those ghastly green and purple monstrosities from Heinz, various "natural" ketchups and homemade ketchup - I've found that classic Heinz generally tastes the best. It has a sweetness that complements a slightly spicy dog, a little bite from vinegar and salt and a smooth texture. Of course, the texture of classic comes from the high fructose corn syrup that is in it and, because I generally try to avoid foods with high fructose corn syrup, I was delighted to discover that Heinz Organic doesn't have any! Granted, it came out in 2002, but old habits are hard to break. It tastes a little fresher and has a little more body than the classic Heinz, which actually makes it tastier than the classic - and it still goes perfectly on any hot dog (or fries, burgers, etc.).

The next year could see lots more of Linda McCartney's frozen vegetarian foods on shelves throughout the U.S. and Europe. The former Beatle's former wife's line of food was recently bought from Heinz by American company Hain, according to The Guardian. Hain produces products like Celestial Seasonings teas, Terra Chips and Soy Dream. The figures involved in the deal weren't made public. Perhaps the best of the headlines to come out of the deal is Newsday's: "Hain Celestial and HJ Heinz 'Come Together' Over McCartney Foods."

Sure, everyone has a method for getting ketchup out of the bottle. Tapping the neck of a Heinz bottle with the base of my palm, right around the "57" has always worked for me. Robert Allgeyer inverts this method, however. Over at Bob's Diner, he has a whole page dedicated to the mechanics of ketchup pouring. According to Bob, it's all about increasing the flow of air into the bottle and giving the ketchup an extra push by tapping the neck of the bottle from underneath. In a footnote, Bob admits that an open palm is actually a little better than a fist. I had the open hand part right, but apparently I was applying my G-forces in the wrong direction.

[Image: Robert Allgeyer]

China has officially given all 43 varieties of Heinz baby food products the clear from GM influence.

Greenpeace had claimed that Heinz baby cereal products designed, I think, specifically for the Chinese market, contained genetically modified ingredients. Heinz denied the claim but the Ministry of Agriculture in China decided to put the products through a series of tests to find out.

The official Xinhua News Agency has reported that the products and their raw ingredients were not made from genetically modified crops. Such foods are not yet approved for consumption in China as they continue researching the effect of modifications on agriculture in general.

Behind all the other odds and ends, stacked up alongside some canned tomatoes, was this lone, canned Heinz Treacle Pudding. Generally known as cake and not pudding on the US side of the Atlantic, this traditional British dessert is a round of sponge cake that is saturated with a golden syrup known as treacle. Treacle is a type of light molasses that is left over during the sugar refining process. It makes what would otherwise be a plain and fairly dry dessert moist and sweet, so the combination of treacle and sponge is a time-honored British favorite. Come to think of it, the combination of treacle and nearly anything is a British favorite.

The label on the cake promised that it was microwaveable, meaning that I could avoid a 30 minute stove-top steaming just to eat it. I put it on a plate, covered it with a microwave-safe bowl and hit "start."

Several British newspapers have recently run articles on the sometimes-misleading labeling practices of organic baby food in the U.K. Most of the interest stems from a report in consumer magazine Which?, pointing out one brand of organic chicken baby food that was only eight percent chicken and mostly potatoes. Apparently EU labeling laws say that if meat is listed as a baby food's main ingredient, the product should be at least 40 percent meat; if a label says something like "chicken and vegetables," the food need only be 10 percent meat. Some baby food products by companies like Heinz and Cow and Gate have less of certain ingredients than they should, according to stories in The Daily Mail, The Telegraph and The Mirror.

Roughly 54,000 pounds of Lean Cuisine Asian-Style Pot Stickers were recently recalled by Nestle Prepared Foods company for fear that the chicken and vegetable dumplings may contain pieces of plastic. The package code 5262595512, the words "Best before Oct. 2006" and the establishment number P-7991 are printed on the right side of the boxes. A Food Safety and Inspection service release is available here.

Also, approximately 1,500 pounds of Weight Watchers Smart Ones Sirloin Beef and Asian Style Vegetables frozen dinners have been recalled by Heinz Frozen Foods due to an undeclared milk protein that may be an allergen to some. The meals were sold in Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C. More info here.

[Via FoodIssues.org]