The Adventure of Buying Food Labelled in a Language You Don't Know

Friend: "Michelle, can you tell me if what I bought is baking powder?"

Michelle: "Hmm, I've never seen baking powder that looks crystalized like that, but I'm pretty sure it does have 'sodium' in its name like the English on this package. Let me google it."

Pause while the great Chinese firewall tries to block Google and my VPN says no way . . .

Michelle: "Oh, here it is on Wikipedia: 'monosodium glutamate.'"

Scrolling down while we both take a gander . . .

Friend: "I bought MSG? Oh no!"


As a side note, I remember my family teasing my brother, Michael Smith Glauser, saying that he couldn't have Spaghettios because the can said "No MSG." Ba ha ha.