share


Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer

Dear Frozen Peas Manufacturer,

We are writing to you because we feel that the peas illustrated on your package of frozen peas are a most unattractive color. We are referring to the 16 oz. plastic package that shows three or four pods, one of them split open, with peas rolling out near them. The peas are a dull yellow green, more the color of pea soup than fresh peas and nothing like the actual color of your peas, which are a nice bright dark green. The depicted peas are, moreover, about three times the size of the actual peas inside the package, which, together with their dull color, makes them even less appealing—they appear to be past their maturity and mealy in texture. Additionally, the color of your illustrated peas contrasts poorly with the color of the lettering and other decoration on your package, which is an almost harsh neon green. We have compared your depiction of peas to that of other frozen peas packages and yours is by far the least appealing. Most food manufacturers depict food on their packaging that is more attractive than the food inside and therefore deceptive. You are doing the opposite: you are falsely representing your peas as less attractive than they actually are. We enjoy your peas and do not want your business to suffer. Please reconsider your art.

 

Yours sincerely.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

LYDIA DAVIS is the author of one novel and eight story collections. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and was named an Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers including Maurice Blanchot, Michel Leiris and Marcel Proust.

READ NEXT

Interview

October 2014

Interview with Vanessa Place

Kyoo Lee

Jacob Bromberg

Interview

October 2014

Vanessa Place is widely considered to be one of the figureheads of contemporary conceptual poetry, yet while books such...

feature

June 2013

Jean Genet in Spain

Juan Goytisolo

TR. Peter Bush

feature

June 2013

‘1932. Spain at the time was over-run with vermin, its beggars. They went from village to village, in Andalusia...

Interview

February 2016

Interview with Gerard Byrne

Izabella Scott

Interview

February 2016

I first encountered Gerard Byrne’s eerily dislocated films at Tate Britain, where 1984 and Beyond (2005–7) was shown on...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required