Here is a little lesson to be learned by all who dare to make pancakes.

When S.Rod and I were visiting my parents this weekend, we learned that an item lived in their kitchen pantry that had not been purged in quite some time. Sure, all of the front line items were replaced every month. But when it came to this item that had never been used, you know the ones that get pushed to the back and forgotten, the maintenance had fallen out of favor.

S.Rod brought up the idea of having pancakes for breakfast, so my mom recalled that she had some pancake mix in the pantry. She pulled out a small box of Aunt Jemima Original Pancake Mix. “Look,” she said, “it hasn’t even been opened.”

Being the pop culture enthusiast that I am (okay, semi-enthusiast), I noticed that the logo appeared pretty outdated. I looked for an expiration date on the box, but there wasn’t one. So I searched for another indicator: the copyright date.

To my complete shock, it said “© 1991 The Quaker Oats Company”. If you know that companies usually update the copyright every year, then you also know that we were twelve hours away from eating sixteen year old pancakes!

My mom, shocked as much as I was, could not believe that it was that old. She swore that she had only had this box for a couple years at best. So we looked to the only person who could possibly know: Aunt Jemima herself. Well, actually, “her” website.

While it turned out that the lot number and barcode yielded no expiration information, the truth came from an unexpected place: Aunt Jemima’s History. You see, it turns out that in 1992, Aunt Jemima’s head was tilted into a more upright position. With one look at our box with the tilted head, we knew our pancake mix was definitely celebrating its sweet 16!

< --- Logo as of January 2007

The moral of the story: If you're gonna eat hotcakes, then you better make sure your Jemima ain't tilted!

And if you think that we were being a bit silly about the old pancake mix, then you should read this letter to Dear Abby.

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