Food Tales

When I was a kid I was picking out frozen pizzas in the grocery store and a sales clerk there told me not to choose one of the brands because they put wallpaper paste in their sauce. I put back that particular brand and chose a different one, and he commended me on my taste. Now, most modern wallpaper paste is made of a synthetic adhesive, but it used to be made of starch and water or wheat paste and water. By those standards, he may not have been outright lying to me as there certainly was a certain amount of starch and water in the pizza sauce, but I don't think anyone could have used that marinara to hang posters. Looking back, what's more surprising to me is that I was so ready to believe what some stranger told me in a grocery store about pizza. Then again, I read online the other day that the dye used in some candy is banned in almost every country except the U.S. and I believed that, too.