Branding and food should come to all as no surprise, as the brand is a shorthand sign of what the company, artist, creator is hoping to tell you about the brand. Is it Upscale? Down Home? A little bit of both? To this degree The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue tickles me in a peculiar way.
I’m not a displaced southerner in New York. I am in fact less than an hour away from where I was born and raised on Long Island. My parents however, were displaced South Carolinians (Cah-Ro-Lin-E-N or Cah-Ro-Line-An) who taught me both to joys of creamed corn, stewed vegetables, ox-tail, okra and the effect that a double boiler can have on white Carolina rice.
Do I eat Boiled Peanuts? No…That wasn’t common in either region that mom and dad are from, but seeing the palmetto with the state flag’s crescent moon as a part of the masthead is a signal from afar that recalls childhood summers of peas, beans, BBQ and krispy kreme.