Cheesy Memories
In the fall of 2001, I figured out that I'd had an allergy to milk for most of my life, and since then, I've made many changes to my lifestyle to avoid milk products. Because I haven't eaten cheese in a long time, I forget what it tastes like, for the most part, and even sometimes what it looks like. Seriously, one time I was brought an omelet in a restaurant and I had to ask the waitress to confirm that atop it was indeed the cheese I had asked be left off my omelet. (Yeah, I ate for free that night.)
But this most definitely does not come close to what most people consider cheese. And their cheerful insistence that it melts beautifully is a complete delusion. This stuff doesn't taste good by itself--as I found in a lousy quesadilla last night--but because I didn't want to be wasteful, I thought I'd try to make salsa con queso dip by melting it with some salsa I had in the fridge. It took forever in the microwave--I tried high and low temps--and it was not smooth at all.
It made those "tofutti" individually wrapped slices look good, and that's not an easy feat for sure. I have to wonder if it's because some people who have never eaten real cheese have no experience for comparison. I also wonder if there's pressure not to match it perfectly because true vegans should not want imitations of animal products. Now I'm scared that when I do finally put the money out for an expensive but milk-free tiramisu (one of the things I've missed most), it'll skew to the bad tasting side of non-dairy products formulated from those perspectives. Maybe one day I'll feel daring enough.
But this most definitely does not come close to what most people consider cheese. And their cheerful insistence that it melts beautifully is a complete delusion. This stuff doesn't taste good by itself--as I found in a lousy quesadilla last night--but because I didn't want to be wasteful, I thought I'd try to make salsa con queso dip by melting it with some salsa I had in the fridge. It took forever in the microwave--I tried high and low temps--and it was not smooth at all.
It made those "tofutti" individually wrapped slices look good, and that's not an easy feat for sure. I have to wonder if it's because some people who have never eaten real cheese have no experience for comparison. I also wonder if there's pressure not to match it perfectly because true vegans should not want imitations of animal products. Now I'm scared that when I do finally put the money out for an expensive but milk-free tiramisu (one of the things I've missed most), it'll skew to the bad tasting side of non-dairy products formulated from those perspectives. Maybe one day I'll feel daring enough.
Comments