This article surveys rumors and ‘contemporary legends' concerned with the contamination or adulteration of various commodities. The article compares common Euro-American folktales like the ‘Kentucky Fried Rat’ or stories concerned with the explosive effects of Pop Rocks with southern African rumors about will-sapping sugar and cannibalistic tinned meat. The global prevalence of such rumors suggests that they represent a shared reaction to the advance of modern capitalism, namely, a popular critique of commodity fetishism, of the loss of social knowledge about the production of commodities. However, such a critique is mostly mischievous or at most subversive. The global prevalence of commodity rumors may suggest that capitalism's alienation is evenly balanced by its desirability, even in those societies most marginalized by its global advance
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