Playing with our food

Sometimes, journalists worry about the wrong thing.

All of these stories on artificial intelligence and how difficult it is to tell if a photograph is genuine, or has been constructed by AI. They offer tips to help sort out the real from the fake.

The assumption, never challenged, being that people want to differentiate what exists in reality from what doesn’t. That they care. Lately, I’m not so sure. I’m starting to worry that caring about whether something is real has become a journalistic quibble.

On July 4, I was doing what any good, patriotic America does on a gorgeous Independence Day — sitting in my office, scrolling Twitter — when New York wit and political firebrand Molly Jong-Fast shared a photo of a trio of ice cream pints in “Gefilte Fish,” “Matzo Ball” and “Black & White Cookie” flavors.

“Introducing,” the headline read, “ICE CREAM WITH A LICK OF CHUTZPAH.”

My immediate response was to ask: “Is this real?” There are a variety of tests to determine this. The first is the gut test, which said: “Noooooo, can’t be.” Manischewitz is not marketing ice cream in these flavors.

But instinct can fail you in an era when Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are in negotiations for their cage fight match, perhaps at the Colosseum in Rome. I didn’t initially think that was real either.

Second, examine the evidence. I looked closer at the photo. Very nicely done. Professional. No muddy Dall-E pastiche this. These are cartons you’d see in a grocery freezer case.

Third, consider the source. The tweet came from @ManischewitzCo. On Twitter since 2009.

Could be some realistic-looking parody account? I began to scroll down, looking at what they’ve been sending. offerings, and quickly stumbled over Hash Brownie macaroons. That clinched it: these weren’t real. If they sold Hash Brownie macaroons, I’d have heard of it.

The next step was to check the press. An article in the Jewish Chronicle last year, when Manischewitz started plugging gefilte fish hot dogs:

“The reaction has been swift, with a mixture of jokes, happiness, and revulsion expressed by the Twittersphere. Even Israel got involved, tweeting: ‘Haven’t the Jewish people suffered enough?’”

So the New Jersey company is trolling itself, some kind of meta parody. You expect this sort of thing around April 1. Maybe Manischewitz is trying to brand July 4 for themselves, a bit of pointed holiday frivolity, the way Eastern European Jews played cards on Christmas to quietly defame the holiday.

I had to ask: What do you think you’re doing?

“What we’ve been doing...” began Elie Rosenfeld, CEO of Joseph Jacobs Advertising, Mansichewitz’s marketing agency “for decades upon decades.”

“Manischewitz is a 130-year-old brand that certainly has huge, huge amount of heritage. ... Smart brand ownership says, ‘How do we ensure that 130 years becomes 260 years? How do we speak to people in a way that is relevant?’” Rosenfeld continued. “Over the last year and a half or so, we have been balancing our social media. Our Facebook and Instagram feed is much more traditional. We’ve allowed Twitter to be Twitter.”

Given that Twitter is a toxic hellscape run poorly by a right-wing South African egomaniac, a free-fire zone of mendacity facing off against delusion, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

What about the risk of alienating customers? When the Berghoff Restaurant pretended to close in 2006, as a ploy to fire its union waitstaff, then reopened under a new name, an imitation of itself, I never went back. Never set foot in the place. Not once in 17 years. And I loved the Berghoff.

Do you worry about driving customers away?

“It’s actually not a concern,” Rosenfeld said. “We’re in a world where people need to confirm and understand what is real and what is not when consuming content online. Where something that doesn’t have huge consequence on one’s life and on society, there needs to be an area where being able to laugh. Being in the middle of that conversation is a place we feel comfortable. We certainly don’t want to upset consumers.”

I ran the ice cream trio photo by my wife, who pronounced it “young and funny.” I circled back to Molly Jong-Fast: Did she realize it was a joke? No, she did not. Nor was she amused.

“It’s so dumb,” she said, taking down the RT to her million followers. “What a dumb, not funny joke.”

Part of the problem is that such flavors aren’t out of the realm of realty anymore. On Wednesday, the Sun-Times coincidentally ran a big feature story on ice cream mentioning Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream’s “Everything Bagel” favor, and Van Leeuwen offering a Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing flavor last spring. Manischewitz dangling novel products they’re not really offering is like grandpa announcing he’s taking a yoga class that he has no intention of attending. Too bad gramps, maybe it’d do ya some good.

One of Manischewitz’s Twitter followers is Eddy Portnoy, director of exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City, the citadel of Yiddish scholarship.

What does he make of this?

“I love their imaginary products,” Portnoy replied. “They’re clever and funny and it’s a terrific way to take what should be a moribund brand and make it relevant to the youths.”

Ouch. Not what I’d hoped to hear. I pushed back. “So I’m old and out-of-it to react by wondering, “Is this true?” and feeling vaguely duped because it wasn’t?”

“That’s the trick of a quality parody — making the viewer question whether or not it’s true,” he said. “I’m old too, but my dissertation was on cartoons of the Yiddish press and it involved a lot of parody, so I have a decent eye for it.”

The same division is found online, with the traditional press taking a narrow view.

“Twitter users couldn’t decide what to make of the freak ice creams with some saying they’d be more than happy to indulge, but others said it made them ‘side with antisemitism.’” the Jewish Chronicle reported Wednesday, in a story headlined: “Kosher food maker sparks concern and outrage by announcing gefilte fish ice cream: Jews react with horror to the new product.”

Believe me, I’m sorry not to get it, and find myself among the dubious, grumbling, “C’mon guys, read the room.” A nation where half the citizens have renounced factuality and the other half can’t quite keep their attention on fascism reassembling itself like the metal cop in Terminator 2.

“It’s an opportunity to speak to people in a humor way, laughing with our community,” said Rosenfeld. “We are that funny uncle at Passover, or a July 4 barbecue, sitting in a corner, making jokes.”

We all have uncles like that. Some people love them. Others, not so much.