I Can't Believe It's Pink Margarine

99% Invisible

SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars

Design, Arts

4.8 • 28.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Margarine is yellow, like butter, but it hasn't always been. At times and in places, it has been a bland white, or even a dull pink. These strange variations were a byproduct of 150-year war to destroy margarine, and everything that it stands for. During this epic fight for survival, margarine has had to reinvent itself, over and over again.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.
0:05.0	When producer Chris Barubate was growing up, he spent a lot of time with his grandparents in a
0:11.0	suburb just outside of Montreal.
0:13.8	I loved those visits, but coming from English Canada, I couldn't help but notice all the subtle
0:19.0	differences when I was in Quebec, Like how all the gas stations
0:23.0	had this Winking Tired Owl logo on the outside,
0:26.6	or how the Simpsons all spoke
0:28.5	with working-class Montreal French accents.
0:31.3	Ah, we, s sauce it, and rebel.
0:35.0	Do?
0:36.0	Okay, but but...
0:39.0	But this one thing really got to me.
0:42.0	Every morning, I would sit down for breakfast and I'd get my toast and I would look in the butter dish and there would be margarine, right?
0:51.0	Okay, that's not so weird. Lots of people like Margarine, but let me explain.
0:55.0	Margarine is this spread made with vegetable oil
0:58.0	that's supposed to closely mimic butter.
1:00.0	Pass the butter, please, Vicki.
1:03.0	Vicky, the butter please, Vicky. Vicky the butter.
1:05.0	Hey, what's going on?
1:09.0	I switched from butter to Imperial Margarine.
1:12.0	You mean this is margarine?
1:15.3	But there was something off about my grandparents' margarine.
	...

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