I tend to value good quality food but sometimes the cheap, plastic stuff really does it for me.
Example:
I kind of actually prefer soft serve ice cream (from the machine) to the chunky, rich, expensive high quality gelato.
I prefer using those plastic orange American cheese slices in my grilled cheese sandwich rather than actual good quality cheese. Likewise, I really like that store-bought neon orange cheese dip for dipping nachos. It’s gross, cheap and crappy but I love it.
Still have never had better ravioli than the canned Chef Boy-Ar-Dee brand…and the even cheaper house brand is every bit as good. I’ve had much more expensive ravioli at Italian restaurants…and don’t like it anywhere near as much. Why pay five times the price for a product that I don’t like as much? Hand me the can opener!
Kraft Grated Parmesan cheese. I bought fresh Parmigianno Reggiano once, and while it was fine, I didn’t find it a huge improvement. It’s not what I crave when I want cheese on stuff.
I like pesto and I frequently buy Progresso pesto. I have made my own pesto from scratch before, and while it was good, it isn’t good enough for me to buy pesto ingredients and haul out the blender every time I want it.
I also prefer canned or frozen veggies over their fresh or organic counterparts.
You’re not alone. One of the amazing things I learned reading Modernist Cuisine is that they agree. Both frozen and canned vegetables are generally more flavorful than fresh because they don’t spend all this time just sitting around like “fresh” ones do. Fresh is great - if you have your own garden. But otherwise your so-called “fresh” vegetables have been sitting around in a truck, processing plant, warehouse and store for days, while the frozen or canned version has been packaged in minutes or at most hours of being picked.
My mom used to serve us “pork cutlets.” I believe they were the cheek portion of the hog. Little, kind of gluey, chewy pieces of pork that she’d dredge in flour and brown really crispy in butter and lard.
Whatever they sell as pork cutlets now is not the same. It’s more of a tough cut of pork run through a tenderizer.
My husband’s mom used to serve beef heart to them. She got it free from the butcher. He still asks for it sometimes. She boiled it forever and chilled to slice cold for sandwiches.
Then there was all that free pheasant, deer and fish.
Hell, no. Who has the time to cook regular grits? Instant will do 9 times out of 10. Ditto Kraft Singles in a grilled cheese sandwich and Kraft Dinner when you want mac & cheese.
When I was a kid, we only ever had Log Cabin, Mrs Butterworth or the other brands of commercial pancake syrup. So as an adult on my own, I bought a bottle of real grade A maple syrup once, and was surprised to find that I didn’t like it. I figured that I was just used to the commercial stuff.
+1. I like both the “real” stuff and the Kraft, but I like that the Kraft stuff has some volume to it that soaks up the sauce a little when I dump a couple of tablespoons onto a plate of spaghetti. That same amount of the real deal would be an overpowering amount of Parmesan flavor.
Boones farm and arbor mist wine have always tasted better than anything more expensive I’ve tried. And no beer I’ve tried is as good as PBR which is about $14 for a 30 pack.
What a waste of a good pork jowl; they really should be made into guanciale!
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I like pesto and I frequently buy Progresso pesto. I have made my own pesto from scratch before, and while it was good, it isn’t good enough for me to buy pesto ingredients and haul out the blender every time I want it.
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Pesto freezes pretty well, so it’s worth making a big batch and freezing it in smaller portions.
There’s threads on the SDMB about maple syrup, but basically A is just lighter, not better. I prefer grade B maple syrup over A. Wikipedia explains it some:
