Lucerne Cream Cheese (8 oz.)
Item Purchased: Lucerne Cream Cheese (8 oz.)
Location Purchased: Dominick’s / 3145 S. Ashland / Chicago, IL
Price: $1.50 + tax
Purchased on: 02/16/08
Review: Does this California based company set up to supply Safeway and Dominick’s grocery store with inexpensive dairy and other foods know that they named their company after a city in Switzerland? Do they also know that their food is a decent starting point, but never a pinnacle or peak, like the Swiss Alps that the brand name brings to mind?
Take this cream cheese, for instance. As an inexpensive and acceptable ingredient for a frosting or filling, you can do much worse, but I wouldn’t spread this stuff on my bagel daily.
With a taste that is rather flat and cries out for more, keep Lucerne’s cream cheese in your refrigerator as an element for those late night baking inspirations. Just don’t go dipping your carrots or fried dough in it. Spend a quarter more for a name brand or a dollar more for a variety made locally/organically.
Rating: 2.5 / 5
March 7th, 2008 at 1:21 am
I guess I think of cream cheese the way I think of butter the way I think of ketchup.
I don’t think about them much. As long as they aren’t grainy or rancid, it just doesn’t cross my mind. All I ask for from any of the above is basic consistency, no major off-flavors, and a reasonable price.
Granted, I don’t think I’ve ever tried dipping carrots or fried dough in straight cream cheese. being rather firm, I can’t help but wonder if you took a portion and mixed in a dollop of plain yogurt if it wouldn’t solve both the dipping consistency as well as the lack of flavor problems.
-transiit
March 7th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Any shopping trip for me is a struggle between my brand-recognizing self and my grandma’s frugality. Usually grandma wins: butter is butter, sugar is sugar, and…Crunchy Nuggets are GrapeNuts, more or less. Cream cheese is different, though. I can tell a difference, so even though Safeway may be selling Lucerne for $1.50, if it’s a bagel or cheesecake I’ll go for The Brand any day (I agree with transiit that Lucerne would do fine in a dip). On the other hand, most of the other dairy products in my fridge are Lucerne.