• sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 days 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.

    https://www.dailydot.com/news/regular-deluxe-cheeseburger-hamburger-helper/

    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, nobody has time to be that fancy, or even knows that is a thing you can do.

    • Rooster326@programming.dev
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      5 days 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.

      Though I think most Americans would be happy with Sodium Citrate if they knew about it

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 days 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.

        • Rooster326@programming.dev
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          5 days ago

          Yeah and many have.

          I can make Chicken Parmesan with our family recipe sauce, and a proper lasagna. With coffee cake for dessert.

          I sill was never taught how to make a roux. And I come from a family that home cooked meals every night.

          I learned how via YouTube, and I still can’t do it without fucking up 50% of the time.