bangs head against table
I love halvah, and Joyvah has never let me down. In attempts to share it with my friends, I found that most felt it tasted like some variety of chalk. I have had home-made and while it is undeniably superior, I doubt you’ll like it either. Home-made borscht is probably superior to the stuff that you find in jars in the kosher section. But, it’s still beet soup and the very scent of it disgusts me.
Lately I’ve been trying different brands of halvah at the local Russian market. One of the Soviet brands (which are labeled helvasi) tasted like Joyvah, mixed with some kind of spoiled food. I’m still not sure if the brand was supposed to taste that way or if it was actually spoiled. I finally overcame my fear and tried Achva, an Israeli brand. It has traces of a spoiled flavor as well.
I can see a reason for putting cheese on the label. In many grocery stores, halvah is sold as a gourmet deli product. The label may be there to tell employees where to put the stuff- It’s an international food, but is usually not in the international food aisle. It’s a kosher food, but it is usually not in the kosher aisle. It’s candy, but I have never seen it in the candy aisle. If the store has a deli with folks selling potato salad by the quarter pound, and running hunks of cheese and meat through the slicer, halvah will be on top of the deli counter. If they have no deli counter, halvah is 90% of the time in the same place they keep the gourmet cheese.
I do know of one product which does mix halvah with cheese. The aforementioned Russian market has a wide variety of products labeled “bar cheese”. They are actually what Americans call cheese cake. Each is just a bite or two, and they have no crust. Varieties include-with chocolate, with vanilla, with cappucino, with creme brulet, with nuts, with kiwi, and with halvah. I cannot taste the halvah in that variety, and it only lists the ingredients in Russian.