111–120 of 236 posts
The Kingdom of Cheese is a climate-controlled enclave with just cheese - the person there is happy to help you decide because they know you'll be back eventually as indeed the products there have those crystals.
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Yeah, especially for things like cheese sauces I find that it's better to just grate it yourself. It will _not_ melt correctly otherwise, and the additives mess with sauces more than you'd think.
Agreed. I went down this rabbit hole last year, going as far as even buying sodium citrate that's supposed to help it melt together, with mixed results and awful taste. Never came close to anything resembling a well melted, good tasting sauce.
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You are making up stuff. Skill and pretentiousness are independent variables. Assuming that one is correlated with the other is a sign of poor judgement. I know people that fit would fit in each of the four quadrants {skillful-pretentious, unskilled-pretentious, skillful-humble, unskilled-humble}. Anecdotally cooks are not usually pretentious - perhaps in your circles or in your city things are different? Personally…
>Anecdotally cooks are not usually pretentious Not saying they are, but the types of folks that constantly point out little details that only they themselves can seem to distinguish often are.
types of folks that constantly point out little details that only they themselves can seem to distinguish often are highly skilled.
I'm sure there plenty of things that you notice, that others just ignore you about (for the same reason you're ignoring them).
Hang around some cooks, and pay attention to what they notice. I also know some cooks that bullshit, so it isn't easy.
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Perhaps the best example is parmesan. You should buy a small brick and shred it, then compare to the Kraft tube we all know -- the difference is massive.
I've had both and I'm going to have to disagree with you here. For the other cheeses, buying a brick is always the right choice. For parmesan, if its going on pasta I'm picking the green plastic tube of presumably mostly filler 100% of the time. Brick parm lacks the proper texture and has too strong of a flavor. Green tube mystery powder I can pour onto my pasta in mounds that then absord the butter making a soft del…
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That's actually crazy to me. Like, a sealed, generic brand bag from the cold section of a chain grocery store vs a block purchased from the deli and shredded by hand? The difference is massive! Taste will vary between the two anyways but the texture difference is categorical. The pre shredded has grainy flour like stuff all over it, the manually shredded is completely smooth with no graininess at all. I can 1000% tel…
>>The difference is massive! Like...in what way? If I buy a block of Aldi's cheddar and Aldi's pre-shredded cheese it tastes the same once it's mixed into something - except the block saves me like 20p and wastes 10 minutes of my life on grating and cleaning up afterwards.
GP literally told you the ways in their post: texture. Taste will vary regardless of the anti-caking agent, of course.
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Are you buying cheese that's shredded at the deli or something? The processed stuff in the bag seems to be plainly noticeable to me... e.g. https://www.health.com/thmb/weSqKiqtCDqtEK3nJ5HWrViwQNM=/150...
>The processed stuff in the bag seems to be plainly noticeable to me... Sure, when you're eating it by the handful, but when it's melted in a dish (the thing people typically use it for) you aren't going to notice.
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I think you are generalizing from your own tastes. Just because you don't notice something doesn't mean that others don't. I started to notice this when I was hanging out with a very smart friend who worked as a restaurant cook. They just noticed heaps of stuff I didn't if we went out for a meal. I wasn't sure if it was training or natural ability.
>I started to notice this when I was hanging out with a very smart friend who worked as a restaurant cook. They just noticed heaps of stuff I didn't if we went out for a meal. Or they were being pretentious to try and impress you. I suspect even they can't tell if melted cheese within a dish started out pre-shredded or not.
And just because someone knowledgeable shows you something you hadn't noticed before (and then you start noticing it all the time), it doesn't mean it's just all in your head. Being discerning about things can be taught. (And sometimes knowing can be a curse!)
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The point of the anti-caking agent is to prevent the cheese from sticking to itself, which inherently affects the texture of the cheese in your mouth... it doesn't stick to itself the same way freshly shredded cheese does, particularly if the cheese is soft and sticky like processed american cheeses. Although it is likely less noticeable for dryer and harder cheeses.
>The point of the anti-caking agent is to prevent the cheese from sticking to itself, which inherently affects the texture of the cheese in your mouth It does so by keeping the cheese 'dryer' than it normally would be. Putting it in your mouth basically undoes that. You're only going to notice if you're eating it by the handful, not when you're using it in actual food dishes.
That's not how chemistry works.
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> While cellulose is an anticaking agent, I don't think I've ever seen it used for cheese. Typically you see cheese using a modified corn starch. I've seen potato, corn, and cellulose. I suspect the ideal choice depends on the type of cheese. Here's shredded parmesan with cellulose for example: https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/42642acb-1802-40dd-bfa6-795...
parmesan is pretty much the only one i ever see with cellulose
> parmesan is pretty much the only one i ever see with cellulose
Can you stop, please? You keep contradicting yourself, and I don't really see the purpose in repeating, over and over, the assertion that because you can't perceive a difference in something, no one else can either. That's pretty arrogant, and ignores, well, basically everything about how humans work.
These subtheads here are just noise, and are distracting me from the rest of the interesting conversation.
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Perhaps the best example is parmesan. You should buy a small brick and shred it, then compare to the Kraft tube we all know -- the difference is massive.
I've had both and I'm going to have to disagree with you here. For the other cheeses, buying a brick is always the right choice. For parmesan, if its going on pasta I'm picking the green plastic tube of presumably mostly filler 100% of the time. Brick parm lacks the proper texture and has too strong of a flavor. Green tube mystery powder I can pour onto my pasta in mounds that then absord the butter making a soft del…
This is all just a matter of taste, though. Sounds like maybe you grew up with the green tube mystery powder, and developed a liking for it, and that's "parm" for you. You never developed a taste for the "real" stuff, and that's fine! We all like what we like, and no one should tell us that we're liking it wrong. (I, too, grew up with the green tube mystery powder, but my tastes changed. It happens.)
> Sometimes if I'm looking for a snack I just pour the green tube mystery powder directly into my mouth.
This made me chuckle; I used to do the same thing when I was a kid (despite the disapproving look from my mother). I've tried it as an adult though, and now I don't like it (not quite "gross", but not something I enjoy).