Warning: This is one of those quasi-philosophical ramblings that I sometimes get into, so read at your own risk.
The other day I grabbed a yogurt for a snack. I was deep in thought and needed some sustenance. As often happens when I’m deep in thought, I was operating in a state of absentmindedness. When I put the first spoonful into my mouth I vaguely noted that it tasted rather plain. That didn’t really register until I put the second spoonful into my mouth and my tastebuds again signaled my brain as to the plainness of the taste. Glancing into the cup I discovered that I had forgotten to stir it up. Sure enough, on the front of the cup was the statement, “Fruit on the Bottom.” Of course it didn’t say what to do about that, but in the past I had been paying enough attention and was smart enough to stir it up before eating.
After a thorough stirring I settled back and concentrated on the next spoonful. There was the flavor. Fruity yogurts always seem too sweet to me so I didn’t notice if this was sweeter as a result of my having eaten some of the plain yogurt before I performed the required stirring. But, at that moment I must have channeled Forrest Gump because it hit me that “Life is like a cup of yogurt. If it’s too plain you need to stir it up!” Do you think that any of those ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates or Democritus or Play-doh ever thought of this? Of course, they would probably have been eating one of those expensive Greek yogurts that are all the rage now.
To see if anyone else has waxed philosophical on this subject I turned to my old friend Mr. Google. There I learned some interesting things. Did you know that the Chowhound doesn’t stir her FOTB yogurt because she doesn’t eat the fruit! She buys it because she thinks that the plain yogurt that sits on top of the fruit tastes better than regular plain yogurt. The incredibly cynical Clyde at Clyde Weys Musings is bothered by the fact that when you stir it up yourself, you can’t really get a thoroughly stirred product. This is just done by a big corporation in order to save a few cents. The folks at cockeyed.com went so far as to pour out the unstirred contents and separated it in an attempt to find out how much fruit is really hiding at the bottom! The lady at PinkBites agrees with me that fruit yogurts are too sweet so she proudly offers her recipe for fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt. Spoiler Alert! She puts fruit in a cup and pours plain yogurt over the top. I wonder how long it took her to figure that out. Her test kitchen must have been humming for weeks!
It’s really amazing what you can learn by doing a little research. The problem is, now I can’t remember what I was thinking about when I sat down to eat the yogurt.