In Praise of Tarts

I LIKE PORTUGUESE TARTS; DO YOU?
Screaming at capacity from his stroller, surely in fear of the devil herself, in isle three yesterday, I made a lame attempt to console the toddler with some recognition. Something along the lines of “What’s happening man” or “be cool fool” or “chill child” I dunn’o. His dad helpfully provided that “he dropped his sausage” while he rudely ignored me. In adult terms his boisterous reaction to the loss of a half eaten snag would need to be set in a Changi prison camp late 1944. Here at Bunnings the adult reaction varies between embarrassment (a real pain the toddler knows nothing of yet) that we’ve created a grease slick someone will slip on, through to another day another sausage, to thank god it was beginning to make me feel sick anyway. Of course to the toddler who was still unsure that there would be another day, this first, was the only sausage and this was a real disaster that deserved be wailed over. Little did he know that far greater pains like the afore mentioned embarrassment, some of which his parents were now experiencing, would soon have to be endured in silence and with the greatest effort to show no sign at all.

It struck me then that our attitude to loss matures as we do from a point where no cost of replacement would be too great to a point where any cost would be too much and loss would in fact be welcome. A growing number of folk in fact are now prepared to invest in loss as evidenced by Phillip Nitschke’s ability to occupy media space and that he prowls in an admittedly small hatch back with his name and website address emblazoned boldly as I witnessed in London Street recently. Yes according to my observation he does house calls.

This maturation of attitude to loss (MAT2L in text speak) is enormously influential on our lives especially our commercial lives, a fact which has not escaped the insurance industry but I’m not here to bore you with a lesson in economics or to sell you insurance. It’s the fate of the humble Portuguese tart that I wish to address. If there is to be a continuing market for Portuguese tarts (you remember $2.00ea) bakers are going to have to modify if not revolutionise their marketing techniques. As it now stands a family size Cadbury hazelnut chocolate block costs $4.81 or 2.405 Portuguese tarts. A Good (according to my receipt) mango costs $2.49 or 1.245 Portuguese Tarts. Line up the three products, one family size Cadbury hazelnut block, 1.931 Mangoes and 2.4 Portuguese tarts and to the self funded mature punter the chock block is the obvious outright winner. Lets face it, to those in this category one of these can be the price of good, well adequate sex. Health fanatics may choose the 1.931 mangoes but no one faced with the purely economic choice is going to choose the tarts and I can’t imagine what sex you’d get for,no not with, 2.4 Portuguese tarts. As I see it the baker has only three options. One: Start marketing their tarts to those such as my toddler who are not yet equipped to be rational but have screaming clout. Two: market their product by weight at a variable daily rate thus tricking codgers like me who don’t do the math or check their change. Three: Invent and spread the rumour that Portuguese tarts have a secret ingredient that (a) increases libido (b) extends life or (c) both.

I raise these matters in the hope that those bakers of tarts might survive without resorting to that popular survival ploy of substituting or reducing ingredients to cut costs, a sort of “get it made in China” phenomena the end result of which is a product that looks sort of like a Portuguese tart but by the miracle of artificial colour flavouring and preservative turns into a homogenous Mars Bar like gum relating to the original product is in name and vague memory only.