Monday, June 23, 2008

What a mystery looks like

I discovered salted seersucker in the frozen-food section of my favorite Asian market in January 2008. Yesterday, I thought to check if this mystery item was still there and took this photograph as a reminder — I did not dream it, did not make it up. The package says (in English) "seaweed." The store's owner suggested that the only explanation of "salted seersucker" is mistranslation.

Of what?

Orange Crate Art remains the only item returned by Google and Yahoo searches for "salted seersucker."

[Click on the image for a larger version of the mystery.]

[Update, 8:31 p.m.: The mystery is no more. A search for seaweed and seersucker reveals that seersucker is a variety of brown kelp, though what's depicted on the package is unmistakably green. Still no entry for the seaweedy sort of seersucker in the Oxford English Dictionary.]

comments: 1

j said...

there should be a prize for being the only answer to the question..."salted seersucker?"

you certainly have my congratulations!

and thanks for the information on the origin of the word seersucker- who'd ever guess?