Welcome to Celia’s Perfect Artichoke’s first Product Review!
Often when I’m grocery shopping, I stare at the many products available in each section (tomato sauces, canned artichoke hearts, broths, olive oils, canned tomatoes, coffees, canned tuna, salad dressing, and of course wine, etc.) and wish I could taste them before I make my decision. I’ve learned over the years, that price is not necessarily a good indicator of quality, and as I’m sure you know, photos on the packaging are never to be believed. Getting eyes on the actual product and tasting it, is really the only reliable way to judge.
Since I started writing on Substack, I thought this might be a good platform for occasional Product Reviews. I recruited two friends, (both were chefs in my restaurant kitchen many years ago), my partner Franz (also in the restaurant business for most of his life), and my granddaughter who, although she is studying fashion design at FIT in NYC, also loves to cook and bake, and often helps me in my kitchen.
We all gathered in my kitchen, where I set up 5 tasting stations. We blind sampled 7 different broths; six are seen above, as well as one sample that was homemade.
I only used chicken broth and stayed away from no-salt and no-fat varieties.
Each taster had a sheet to rate the samples on appearance, aroma, and most importantly, taste. A total perfect score was 100 for each sample.
Even though we tasted blind, I came into this sure that I knew which would be the favorite… the brand I always buy, and the brand my mother always bought… College Inn. Needless to say, my arrogance got the best of me. It did not come in first, or even in the top 3. Not only was I wrong, but one brand that I have disparaged was one of my top 3 and tied for second place over all!
This is always the fun of blind tasting. You never know when you will be surprised! It’s also interesting to see the different results from different tasters. One soup does not necessarily fit all! This is why it is important to have different opinions when testing.
Below are the results… but don’t take our word for it! I encourage you to test a few samples of your own. I’d also love to hear which are your favorites… and not so favorites!
Also, let us know if there are any other food products you would like tested!
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