Tender, Juicy Obama Fingers Hit the Shelves
Spiegel Online
By Charles Hawley
A German frozen food company hopes to raise sales with a new product: Obama fingers. The tender, fried chicken bits come with a tasty curry sauce. The company says it was unaware of the possible racist overtones of the product.
Selling products has, of course, become a bit more difficult than usual these days. No wonder then that companies everywhere are turning to optimistic marketing messages in an effort to counteract the steady drum beat of negativity coming from front page headlines around the globe.
Many sales executives have drawn the same conclusion: What better poster child for hope than US President Barack Obama? There are Obama dolls, Obama T-shirts, Obama soap-on-a-rope. There is even Obama thong underwear on offer.
Not wanting to miss the boat, a German food company has now gotten into the act. Sprehe, a company that has all manner of frozen delicacies on offer, has come up with a new product it calls “Obama Fingers.” Far from being real digits, though, the “fingers” in question are “tender, juicy pieces of chicken breast, coated and fried,” as the product packaging claims.
Fried chicken, in other words. With a curry dip.
“We noticed that American products and the American way of eating are trendy at the moment,” Judith Witting, sales manager for Sprehe, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “Americans are more relaxed. Not like us stiff Germans, like (Chancellor Angela) Merkel.”
The idea, she claimed, was to get in on the Obama-mania which is continuing to grip Germany. The word “fingers” in the name refers to the fact that it is a finger food. “It’s like hotdogs,” Witting said. “No one would ever think they are actually from dogs.”
For Americans in Germany, though, there is a risk that the product might be seen as racially insensitive. Fried chicken has long been associated with African-Americans in the US — naming strips of fried chicken after the first black president could cause some furrowing of brows.
Witting told SPIEGEL ONLINE the connection never even occurred to her. “It was supposed to be a homage to the American lifestyle and the new US president,” she said.
Wild Thing’s comment…….
LOL They’re chicken fingers. How’s that racist? Not that I’d buy anything with Obama on it. Heck, they’re probably negative calories and taxes your system when you eat them. And I suppose as a bonus, you get 2 left wings with the Obama Fingers.
….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Haven’t heard from PETA yet?
Do you think we can feed them to animals ?
Gotta love the Germans!!!!!!! Can you imagine the outcry if Tyson Foods had come out with these?!?!?! LMAO
Hey “O”…..if the flippin’ shoe fits….wear it!!!! Like so many other things, it’s only racist if you make it that way!!!!
Anyone got a watermelon to go with the “Fingers”????
I want an O’Vomit doll with a noose around its neck hanging from an oak tree. It would make a wonderful dining room table decoration.
Eddie, all we need to do is give the schwartzer enough rope and he will do it himself.