Comment on Great Depression: Part Deux

• Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  You mean pasta surrogate and cheese surrogate.

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  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The pasta is real, the seasoning is real, the cheese basically is not real.

    For example, regular Cheeseburger Hamburger Helper contains trace amounts of blue cheese, which is absent from the Deluxe Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper. The “Deluxe” product also contains parmesan cheese, palm oil, and lactic acid. These can all impact the texture and taste of the dish.

    In an email to the Daily Dot, an Eagle Foods representative wrote the following: “The difference between the Double Cheeseburger Mac and the Cheeseburger Mac products are that, for the Double Cheeseburger, the ingredient ratios are slightly different and there is double the amount of cheese powder in the seasoning packet.”

    dailydot.com/…/regular-deluxe-cheeseburger-hambur…

    Its only ‘real cheese’ if you consider a dehydrated powder that you have to add butter or milk / water to, and then prepare with heat as a ‘cheese flavored sauce’ to be ‘real cheese’.

    Yep, the tiny trace amounts of ‘100% Real Cheese!’ it contains are indeed tiny denydrated crumblets of real cheese… but I am fairly sure that by that metric, Cheetos are also ‘real cheese’.

    For most Americans under the age of 40, the idea of making an actual cheese sauce out of… an actual block of actual dairy cheese from their refrigerator… that is literally a foreign concept.

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    • Rooster326@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Because to make a proper cheese sauce you need to make a proper roux, and idk who you think is teaching the average person to do that.

      That is certainly not common knowledge today, and I doubt it has ever been common knowledge your everyday person would know. Nor is it easy to do for the inexperienced cook.

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      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Used to be that parents and grandparents would teach the kids how to cook something a bit fancier for a holiday.

        But we’re all too atomized and busy and politically polarized these days for that.

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      • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        the cheese sauce i make is great and its roux is very improper.

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    • xorollo@leminal.space ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’m aware you can, but also cheese is expensive.

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      • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        And making cheese sauce is like, the easiest thing to fuck up. I’m having trouble with an analogy, but it’s not easy. If we’re talking about a roux based sauce at least. If there’s an easier way I would love to know.

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      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Oh I’m not saying its all 100% bad.

        Having a reasonably healthier, similar tasting alternative is good when it is a good deal cheaper.

        I’m just saying it doesn’t cross my bar of ‘real cheese’.

        Used to be a bit of a brie and wine snob, and I still have the strong opinion that basically all pizzas should be 3 cheese blends, not just one.

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  • thinkercharmercoderfarmer@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Usually not. I have not had the pleasure of this particular variety but in my experience it’s just plain old pasta and cheese and herbs.

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    • Eheran@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      What sort of cheese is that supposed to be?

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      • NateNate60@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        It tastes similar to Kraft macaroni and cheese (known in Canada as “Kraft Dinner”). So I would guess young, unaged cheddar or Colby cheese. There is also probably a good amount of whey powder, which is a by-product of cheese production.

        It’s not fake, just highly processed.

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      • thinkercharmercoderfarmer@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        A quick search says cheddar and blue cheeses for this type.

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      • Duranie@leminal.space ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Different cheeses depending on the end goal. If you dehydrate cheese it can be ground into a powder. I’ve seen cooks on various shows do this to recreate powders for popcorn seasoning, home made Doritos, Cheetos, or even for long term prepping/storage. Makes it easy to create sauces in a pinch as well.

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• Asidonhopo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Its food for the new poor. The generationally poor were eating chicken wings back in the 80s for $0.19 a pound and loving them. Now, after the dreadful gentrification of wings post-9/11 we’ve got ways to stretch a dollar you’ll never learn unless you marry in.

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  • thinkercharmercoderfarmer@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Kinda. I definitely had hamburger helper back in the 80s, but kit meals were a luxury we could only sometimes afford. Necessity is often the mother of culinary invention but even among “the poor” there’s some variability in cash and time (and information availability) constraints, and things like hamburger helper (cheap but not the cheapest, but also quick and easy to make) have been a fixture alongside the true broke-ass “we need food and have basically zero money” recipes.

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• brb@sh.itjust.works ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Where’s the cheeseburger part?

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  • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That’s the ground beef, it’s basically Mac and cheese with hamburger meat IE ground beef.

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