Wait, what? I thought CONSUMED(I,THIS) was a place for homemade food. Real food. Food from scratch. What’s up with this picture of plastic tubs of convenience food? Has CONSUMED(I,THIS) sold out?
Yes. Well, no. I mean, I guess, kind of. But not in the way you think, at least. I agreed to participate in a new program called TasteSpotlights, run by the fine folks at TasteSpotting. They match up bloggers with products, and ask the bloggers to give their opinions on the products. I saw a tweet that said “Want to try some cream cheese and give your opinion?” and I said “Sure, send me some free stuff.” So I can’t be selling out becuase I’m not getting paid. Except in cream cheese. And a box of Triscuits. And a box of some terrifying cracker conceived and manufactured by the Corn Lobby called Sociables (“Perfect for Entertaining!”). Oh, and a really nifty brushed aluminum cheese knife embossed with “Philadelphia.”
I was fully prepared to despise these cream cheeses. (Sorry: cream cheese spreads.) I mean, do you really want to eat something that has an ingredient called “cheese flavor”—an ingredient, I might add that is “a dehydrated blend” of no fewer than eleven sub-ingredients, two of which have sub-sub-ingredients? Tasting the products has not reduced my loathing for their science-experiment ingredient lists—I don’t feel the slightest urge to go purchase them for myself—but I did like the flavor of the products more than I expected. Hey, at least they’re full-fat! Here’s what I thought:
General Reaction
My big problem with these spreads is their texture. It’s heavy and gloppy. Far too heavy and gloppy for a brand that has an ad campaign centered around images of clouds. Perhaps this is a good texture for baking or other cooking applications, but flavoring cream cheese destroys its prolific culinary flexibility. Spinach artichoke cheese cake, anyone? (Note to self: make spinach, artichoke cheese cake and submit to thisiswhyyourefat.)
Sundried Tomato & Basil
What impressed me here was that you could actually taste the sundried tomato. Not just some ersatz sundried tomato chemical, but the actual flavor, complete with its sourness and meatiness. The basil flavor was also there, and distinct. But my question is: why do I want these flavors in my cream cheese in the first place? I mean, chives in cream cheese? Sure. Lox trimmings? Why not? Makes sense. But to put sundried tomato in a cream cheese just feels like a feeble attempt to exploit the cache of this new and gourmet ingredient. Except that sundried tomato hasn’t been new or gourmet for a few decades now. (Which is not to imply that Philadelphia is the first to put sundried tomatos in cream cheese.)
Spinach & Artichoke
Again, I was impressed with the clarity and quality of spinach flavor tat came through here. The artichoke didn’t taste like much, but I could see little chunks of artichoke in there. For this flavor, the “Why?” question has an obvious answer: this is cold spinach-artichoke dip with the ratios inverted. Fans of that dip will probably be pretty happy with the flavor of this cream cheese. I guess you could go ahead and dip bread straight in there. Or just put it out at a party with Sociables and HFCS shooters. You lazy bastard. ;)
Numerical score (for TasteSpotlight purposes): 2 out of 5.
