Dear Gorton’s,
I realize that I have only myself to blame for trusting the Gorton’s fisherman. He just looked so, well, seaworthy. Nobody twisted my arm to take advantage of the buy one get one free store coupon for your Premium Tilapia Filets. I can tell you though, that when I discovered that one package with five pieces of fish cost $10.99, I wouldn’t have bought them without it. Admittedly, overpricing can be effective. Having been raised on the old adage that you get what you pay for, I did think “Wow, this must be really good to have a price this high”.
You billed your tilapia as “five star extra large fillets”. The Five Star had a little trademark sign next to it, so I guess that if anyone else ever gets tempted to call their fish five star good, they’ll think twice. I do wish, though, that the money you spend on brand patent attorneys’ salaries could be spent on actual fisher-mans’ salaries instead. Your tilapia may well have been five star good, but there was so little of it within the soggy inner layer of breading I found once I had successfully penetrated the crispy outer layer of breading that I couldn’t tell. My advice would be to begin touting the excellence of your bread rather than your fish, because there is far more of it in this product.
I am accepting this experience as punishment for being lazy, thinking that it would be easier to just put something into the oven for a few minutes than to buy my own fresh fish, season it, and cook it on the stove-top. In the process of trying to remove enough of the piping hot bread to be able to taste the fish before it got cold, I burned my fingers. When I factored in both the time it took to remove the bread, then treat the burns, I hadn’t saved any time at all! Now, don’t panic, I’m not going to get a lawyer. I ran some cold water over my fingers, and they were fine.
In fact, I am writing to thank you for this experience—it has taught me several valuable lessons. The first lesson is—fast food really isn’t fast. I could have seasoned and seared my own fish in less than the 25 minutes it took to defrost and heat your processed fish. The second lesson I learned it that I’m worth the effort of shopping for–and the time it takes to season and cook my own delicious food. Finally, I learned not to depend on a stranger in a yellow raincoat, no matter how attractive his beard.
The Big Picture 