Song of Kraft Dinner
by Anne-Marie Burrus
for Vicky on the occasion of her 50th birthday, October 2009
You’re not as old as you might think.
Kraft Dinner’s older by a score.
Mother would have had her share
with ration cards throughout the war.
(That might go some way to explain
eating dinner on the floor.)
On the floor in fluffy robes,
the TV tuned to CBC
(in our two channel universe
we loved Don Messer’s Jubilee),
Koolaid and Jello, ruby red,
set off the gold – macaroni.
Spaghetti boiling swans around,
but noodles poodle in the pot.
And any age can make a sauce
that glistens gold while it is hot,
(but yes, is kind of flannelated
sticky stuff when it is not).
But hey, as we grow tall and smart
our standards drop. We eat it cold
for breakfast while we’re studying,
or late next week. It doesn’t mold;
maybe ketchup hides the fuzz,
maybe it’s eaten before it’s old.
As cares of middle age set in,
it’s nice to make a mindless meal.
No extra virgin margarine,
fromage, crème fraiche, no grapes to peel.
Kraft goes with neither red nor white,
inspires no oenophilic zeal.
A box of KD fits the times,
much like it did throughout the war.
It’s carbon footprint is quite small,
recycled food waste, not much more.
It cooks in 10! And local too!
We’re all 100 miles from a store.
Kraft Dinner is the staff of life,
your comfort in the years to come,
curled up in your home theatre
with mac and cheese and hunny-bun.
May your shelf-life be as long
as the macaroni that you gum!
October 4…the day two of my sisters are the same age. Ten years ago I wrote this occasional poem for Vicky’s 50th birthday. With apologies to Oscar Wilde, whose Ballad of Reading Gaol provided the armature on which I hung my fluff. It’s all up hill from here, treasured readers!