I first became aware of the Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Sunflower Seed Butter Cups while getting into line at a Trader Joe's, when my hand carelessly brushed a package of them in the display case onto the floor. Somewhat embarrassed about putting an item that had been on the floor back in the rack, I decided instead to impulse purchase them. I am not saying that some marketing whiz intentionally designed this to be a sales tactic, but I am also not totally dismissing the idea, either. But I was planning a trip, and decided that these might be a healthy but tasty snack item. And at 99 cents, about the same price as a mainstream candy bar, I decided there was no reason not to buy them.
Let me explain the concept here. Imagine a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup, but with dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate, and sunflower butter instead of peanut butter. (The name reassures us that this butter is made from the seeds, and that someone has not tried to make butter out of the roots or stalks of the noble heliotrope, which despite their adaptability to many different purposes, seems like it would be pretty far-fetched). That was the concept, and for several days I was in suspense: would it be what I was expecting? And indeed, it was. Everything from the dimensions of the packaging, to the cardboard tray with the little perforated wings, to the brown pleated paper cups (that perhaps is meant to mimic a pleated skirt, with the sensual charade of slowly peeling it away being a subliminal appeal, and I hope that no one thinks the worse of me for imagining that a marketer, somewhere, has realized that idea), was exactly the same as what I have come to expect over the decades from a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. And when I tasted it, despite the difference in flavors, the experience was similar. A bit "meatier" and more natural, but a snack both tasty and filling, with my only complaint being that they disappeared too quickly. When I first ate them, there was another, foreign factor that disturbed my eating: I was examining a mazegill polypore, which despite its general appeal to my sense of trypophilia, caused something to clash in my brain, as if I felt I was eating that. But while Trader Joe's marketers can account for many things, such as clumsiness-based marketing strategies and what it would be like to have a hand on a girl's knee at a 1950's drive-in movie theater, I do not blame them for not being able to account for the possibility of bracket fungi within the line-of-sight at the time of consumption.
As I mentioned previously, the consumption of the Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Sunflower Seed Butter Cups was pleasing not only to my tongue, but to my self-image. I had tried something new. Something that was figuratively more refined while being culinarily less refined. Beneath the expected packaging, I tasted something new and different, and had a momentary feeling of accomplishment.