Taste Testing Mozzarella Cheese
Jun. 28th, 2023 07:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerOne of the challenges of living in our post-industrial society is sorting through the amazing array of choices we have. Which is the best for each of us? That question applies to big-ticket purchases like cars as well as prosaic, everyday purchases like groceries. With cars it's well understood that a shopper should test-drive at least a few before buying. Such a comparison might only be checked once every several years, though. But how about groceries? How often do you buy a few of nearly the same thing and try them all? With groceries the costs are way lower than cars, yet I'll bet few people think of doing that very often. I know I don't. Hence the Beer Tasting 2022 project I started months ago. Recently I decided to apply the same idea to two different brands of mozzarella cheese.
I love mozzarella cheese. And as I've been cooking at home a lot more the past few years I buy it fairly regularly. There are several different brands I see at the grocery stores I usually shop. For years I've basically bought whichever one's at the store I happen to be at, or whichever one's on a small sale versus the other. Embedded in that habit is the assumption that the cheeses are equally good, so all I've got to solve for is price and convenience. But are the cheeses equally good? It's time to check!
To keep this comparison simple and apples-to-apples I bought two blocks of mozzarella cheese. One is the pseudo-Italian brand Galbani that Safeway carries, the other is Trader Joe's brand. (I call Galbani pseudo-Italian because while the label and all the advertising touts it as "Italy's #1 Cheese!" the fine print says what's sold here is made in the US.) I left pre-shredded cheese out of this comparison. I already know shredding it fresh from a block myself tastes better than pre-shredded. I did that comparison over a year ago; I just didn't write about it. These cheeses are also both the whole-milk variety rather than part-skim milk. That's another comparison I've already done. Buy the whole milk stuff, it's better!
These cheeses look virtually the same. The shapes of the blocks are slightly different, but once shredded the cheese is indistinguishable. It's the same color and texture. Of course, color is not the basis for choosing cheese. Taste is! So, how do they taste?
There's a clear difference in taste between these two. I was surprised because I thought they'd be close. Trader Joe's mozzarella is way better. TJ's has a creamier, very slightly nutty flavor. Galbani tastes like plastic. If I hadn't just opened the sealed package and shredded it by hand I would've though it came from a bag of shreds.
I invited Hawk to try the cheeses, as well. Without me telling her my opinion first, she made exactly the same observation I did.
"Are you going to throw the Galbani out?" she asked.
"No, it's not quite that bad," I said.
She agreed and offered to use it on a dish she was making. But then once she made it she said the flavor of the cheese was so poor she left that part of the meal uneaten. So maybe I will throw out the remainder of the 1-pound block. We're well enough off that we can afford to trash $5 of cheese we don't enjoy.
I love mozzarella cheese. And as I've been cooking at home a lot more the past few years I buy it fairly regularly. There are several different brands I see at the grocery stores I usually shop. For years I've basically bought whichever one's at the store I happen to be at, or whichever one's on a small sale versus the other. Embedded in that habit is the assumption that the cheeses are equally good, so all I've got to solve for is price and convenience. But are the cheeses equally good? It's time to check!
To keep this comparison simple and apples-to-apples I bought two blocks of mozzarella cheese. One is the pseudo-Italian brand Galbani that Safeway carries, the other is Trader Joe's brand. (I call Galbani pseudo-Italian because while the label and all the advertising touts it as "Italy's #1 Cheese!" the fine print says what's sold here is made in the US.) I left pre-shredded cheese out of this comparison. I already know shredding it fresh from a block myself tastes better than pre-shredded. I did that comparison over a year ago; I just didn't write about it. These cheeses are also both the whole-milk variety rather than part-skim milk. That's another comparison I've already done. Buy the whole milk stuff, it's better!
These cheeses look virtually the same. The shapes of the blocks are slightly different, but once shredded the cheese is indistinguishable. It's the same color and texture. Of course, color is not the basis for choosing cheese. Taste is! So, how do they taste?
There's a clear difference in taste between these two. I was surprised because I thought they'd be close. Trader Joe's mozzarella is way better. TJ's has a creamier, very slightly nutty flavor. Galbani tastes like plastic. If I hadn't just opened the sealed package and shredded it by hand I would've though it came from a bag of shreds.
I invited Hawk to try the cheeses, as well. Without me telling her my opinion first, she made exactly the same observation I did.
"Are you going to throw the Galbani out?" she asked.
"No, it's not quite that bad," I said.
She agreed and offered to use it on a dish she was making. But then once she made it she said the flavor of the cheese was so poor she left that part of the meal uneaten. So maybe I will throw out the remainder of the 1-pound block. We're well enough off that we can afford to trash $5 of cheese we don't enjoy.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 06:21 pm (UTC)This is how we felt about Kroger-brand ricotta vs. a name-brand one. And Kroger owns Safeway IIRC.
I try to avoid Kroger-brand whenever I can [edit: after the ricotta test], though I do buy the milk (and in emergency, the eggs).
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Date: 2023-06-28 06:28 pm (UTC)Safeway's in-house dairy brand, Lucerne, is generally okay. I like their shredded cheeses for when I want pre-shredded. They have block cheese in a number of varieties (cheddar, jack, colby) but oddly they stopped making/selling block mozzarella in the Lucerne brand several years ago.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 07:00 pm (UTC)We do get Kroger colby-jack cheese and similar - not shredded, in blocks, but basically same. Somehow the ricotta, the time we tried it, was just really tasteless.
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Date: 2023-06-29 01:05 am (UTC)~Sor