When grocery shopping, it pays to be strategic. From price and packaging to potential time savings while cooking, here’s what to consider at the supermarket.
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Please make this a series
Spending on maple syrup is worth it; Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano is worth it; I’ve never had Natalie’s juices, but I believe they are worth it, as I do understand the science of what you said. Explaining about vanillin might have made the argument for cheap vanilla more cogent and effective. As it stands, you gave no motivation other than price.
The only one I disagree with is the imitation vanilla. What is it made of? Man-made chemicals I presume.
I like Simply Orange orange juice.
It’s not car oil, for heavens sake. It’s just corn syrup. I happen to like pure maple syrup ie the dark one with Log Cabin (another corn syrup) I can adjust the flavor of the maple syrup which can be heavy flavor.
Finally someone who knows dark maple syrup tastes better.
Trời chị Lâm Tú Lan có 45 tuổi thôi sao mà chị Lan già hơn em vậy tóc bạc của chị nhiều quá vậy 😮
so only vanilla extract.
Thank you so much for your tip!! I have always thought you were not supposed to get the imitation!!
I agree totally about these products! Except. I try NOT to buy things in plastic. The food industry needs to fix this! Also, spend your money on LOCALLY made food. Eggs, milk, honey, maple syrup, produce…worth it on so many levels.
I disagree about buying dark amber maple syrup. The most difficult to find is the extra light, or "fancy" maple syrup– is my favorite. Very delicate, much more pure sap flavor. It's only produced from the very first sap of the spring and is typically used for candy making but if you ever try some, you'll be hooked for life! The darker amber syrups are all mixed and blended and I think have "off flavors". And in my opinion, if you can find it, find some with a hint of wood smoke, it's pure heaven!
Vanilla is the best example, but the entire category of spices is full of exceptions to the "you get what you pay for" rule. Go for the least expensive spices, and consider that buying whole spices instead of pre-ground is usually the cheapest AND most flavorful choice. All cumin seeds are pretty much created equal for the purposes of a home cook, and by saving on the basics, you can afford to expand your spice cabinet with that Chinese five-spice or whatever that will create new possibilities.
Recently heard Jack's claim of how good Natalie's orange juice is, so I bought two (expensive) 8 oz. bottles
I was not impressed with the flavor. Additionally, the shelf life is quite short. I took out the second bottle from the refrigerator 7 days later. It was undrinkable. Upon removing the cap, it seemed the juice appeared to be fermenting, foaming at the opening.
It tasted horribly. Had to pour the remainder down the drain.
I agree you can't taste much or any difference in real v imitation vanilla when baking. Where you taste the difference is when you put it in frosting, hot chocolate, or any other time you add the vanilla after you take it off the heat.
more!
Good tips. I used up some leftover oranges by making juice and it's so much better then others, but it's so much more labor intensive. I'd recommend people checkout Ethan Chlebowski here, he ended up getting into a bit of a series on cheese and vanilla and others of "do I really need to use fresh or can I use pre-grated?" "real vs imitation vs. powder vs…. vanilla" (a note on vanilla: heat will destroy any subtleties in the vanilla. So if you only use it for baking, then imitation is fine. But if you are gonna make ice cream or frosting, real stuff is better)
Italy: The word for sheep is pecora.
America: The word for sheep is republican.
😉
1:37 Are you sure it isn't pasteurized for longer (at the lower temperature)?
I bargain shop for most things but never skimp on cheese, syrup or bourbon.
This is the kind of kitchen table journalism that everyone could use more of. I love every single one of these rating and taste test videos
Please, Keep giving us all the tricks of your trade.
Dan did a great episode on vanilla. Basically, imitation vanilla is vanillin without any of the other flavors of vanilla. When you cook, those flavors evaporate, leaving nothing but vanillin behind.
If you want to splurge on real vanilla, add it at the end of cooking or to uncooked food and beverages. Waiting to add vanilla to ice cream after you cook the custard will preserve the complex flavors.
Adding real vanilla to cakes and cookies bakes out the deep flavor, so you are wasting money.
Would love to see a segment about potatoes that have gone green. Is it safe to trim the green and eat the rest, or does the whole thing need to be tossed?
Huge fan of this channel and Jack, but please keep in mind that this is a big country. Showing me, in California, something I can only get east of Philly is interesting, but not helpful. Maybe regional picks?
Any Canadian knows that darker maple syrup is lower grade. The flavor might be more intense, but the lighter syrup as a more delicate and refined taste.
Bear in mind that the grading systems for maple syrup, which assign the nominally higher ratings for lighter syrup with milder flavor, have their roots in the historical use of maple syrup. Today the syrup is most commonly used as a valued condiment, especially for breakfast foods. If it's used as an ingredient in cooking, the intent usually is to impart that distinctive maple flavor to the recipe.
But before refined cane sugar started to become more widely available in the late 19th century, maple syrup was perhaps the most commonly used general sweetener in the U.S. and Canada. If you think about it, one of the culinary virtues of the white sugar we're familiar with is that it sweetens without adding any other distinctive flavor element. Maple syrup, of course, not only makes things taste sweet, it also makes them taste . . . well, mapley. Sometimes the cook wants that, but often that's inconsistent with what you're trying to achieve.
So, back when maple syrup was used mostly as an all-purpose sweetener, cooks valued more highly those maple syrups that imparted the least maple flavor, in sweetening whatever they were cooking. And thus when the grading systems were devised, they reflected that valuation of the qualities of maple syrup. Today, of course, that's the inverse of what we usually value maple syrup for, which is almost always the more intense and robust maple flavor. Accordingly, if you really like that maple flavor on your pancakes, don't be put off by what may seem an ostensibly "lower" grade assigned to a syrup you're considering buying.
Please make this a series!
It is so much easier to make your own vanilla extract Just get a bottle of vodka and vanilla beans let it sit and you have a fifth of vanilla.
Some people actually prefer the sugar and water pancake syrup.