. . . . There are still no Oscar Mayer 
“Selects” beef hotdogs. And no 
braunschweiger, “Not even for ready
money,” as my mom liked to say, 
quoting Oscar Wilde. “It’s not even 
available to order,” I learn from the lifer 
in the meat department. That’s
the standard response these days. 
There’s plenty of Goya products,
due to the boycott, but the canned soup 
has been decimated. “At least we know 
there’s plenty of soup, just no cans,” 
says Steve, as heard recently on 
the radio news. It’s unappetizing, 
I think, to eat canned soup in 
the heat of summer, the slightly gummy 
gelatinous warmth of too-soft vegetables
in salty broth. A few tiny cubes 
of chewy chicken. 
What did mass-produced canned 
food taste like to the women of 1900? 
That’s the year my mother’s mother, 
Leola Isabel Warnock Freeman, 
was born. I am ashamed to admit 
that until I Googled and found a photo 
of her tombstone on “Find A Grave” 
dot com, I had no idea of 
the day or month of her birth.
March 21. It says it right there on 
the flat slate grave marker, 
beneath her name and death date,
August 21, 1989, seven months
before her youngest child, 
my mother, would die at home
of breast cancer. To the right 
of my grandmother’s name 
hangs a decorative rosary in relief. 
As I zoom-in to get a closer look 
an ad pops up. A Kim Kardashian 
look-alike times three, wearing a mask 
with a clear window to allow 
her glossy nude lip to be admired 
in full pout mode. $5.99.