Speaking of stereotypes (as I have doing in recent posts about salt-and-pepper depictions of Asiatics): did you notice how chubby all those chefs are, in the set I talked about in my last post? And indeed, not really very much to my surprise, other sets depicting non-Asiatic chefs are equally chubby–like this one:
This time around, the racial or ethnic marking seems to be Italian–consider the ridiculous comic opera moustache. And those things they are holding that look like pretzels in the shape of an S and a P must therefore be Italian taralli. But the ethnicity hardly matters, for if they are salt and pepper shakers, clearly, and if they are chefs, then they must be chubby. Very very chubby. So cutely chubby that you want to hug them or hit them. More examples to follow.
Perry Nodelman 