Raspberries Are Not Blue

Who decided that the color of raspberry flavor is blue? From slurpees, to ice pops, to lollipops, it seems that the food industry has universally declared that light blue denotes raspberry. For those of you that live under a rock and/or haven't had the joy of picking raspberries off of their thorny stalks, raspberries are red and some of the wild ones (black caps) are dark purple giving us the term black raspberry. In late summer, when I walk by the lake, there are lots of bushes growing along the road and I grab myself a handful on every trip...just as I did 30 years ago on the same trip. They only ripen over the course of a week so ya gotta get while the gettin is good!

Now I realize that stupid people wouldn't be able to actually read a label in order to tell the difference between the reds of strawberry, cherry, and watermelon. Oh, no, another red thing. What ever will I do? Raspberry is my favorite flavor but I just can't eat it when it's blue. Maybe because it's unnatural, or it's an in-the-face reminder to me that I'm eating chemicals instead of the real thing.

My favorite food of all time was my grandmother's raspberry pie. My brother's favorite, too. On our birthdays, we always had pie instead of cake. And she'd make two, one that she'd sneak to us on the side just for us. She made sure that my grandfather, Pop as we called him, had a slice of pie at dinner (lunch) and supper every day and always with a side of extra sharp Vermont cheddar cheese. I miss her.