Friday, April 16, 2010

Confused by my yogurt

I recently bought this yogurt at the grocery store.  It looks completely ordinary.






































 But look closely:  notice anything different?  Here's a hint:






































The paper label was on the inside of the yogurt container, actually in the yogurt!  Why???
Did I get a defective batch or is there some good reason for this?

It was a little annoying to have to extract the soggy liner from the yogurt container because it tore into pieces when I tried to pull it out.  I guess if I had just eaten the yogurt with a spoon it would've been fine, but I was using it to make a smoothie for the kids.  And so I needed to dump the little yogurts out of their containers into the blender, but the annoying labels kept falling in too and then tore into pieces as I fished them out with my fingers.

And so I ended up with this:



















A soggy, annoying mess on my counter.

I don't think I'll be buying that yogurt again.  Fortunately for me, there are at least 50,000 other kinds of delicious yogurt to choose from here (seriously, the yogurt aisle at the grocery store is incredible!  But that's another post.).

But, really, why?  So confused...

6 comments:

  1. Hi there - I can give you part of an explanation, me being a girl from New Hampshire who has lived in Paris for the last 20 or so years! What you bought was not yogurt but what they call "Petit Suisse", which is like smooth cottage cheese. Not made with the live creepy crawlies. You are supposed to eat it by taking off the lid, turning it over onto a plate/bowl so that the whole cylinder plunks out at once and then you can peel the paper away from the petit suisse in one long strip! Add honey/sugar/maple syrup (or not) and enjoy! They also come in little tiny colored plastic pots, they are fruit-flavored and little kids adore them, just the right size for snack and they are full of protein.
    Bon appétit! Alexis

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  2. Alexis, thank you so much! That makes perfect sense -- I knew there had to be a good reason. Is Petit Suisse the same thing as fromage frais? The yogurt selection here is amazing and I clearly have a lot to learn!

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  3. Yup, petit suisse are made from fromage blanc, or fromage frais (I'm still not too sure on the difference between those two, if there is one). You can also buy plain fromage blanc/frais in larger containers instead of the tiny individual ones. I can never seem to finish a big container, I guess I just prefer yogurt, and you are right, the selection here in Europe is absolutely amazing! No artificial thickeners or gelatine, I like that. Why Dannon in the States has to add that stuff to its yogurt when here they don't, I'll never understand.

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  4. There is a creamy French-style yogurt sold in Montreal that is made from 10% fat milk (half-and-half, pretty much). No need for carageenan to thicken that stuff!

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  5. I just figured out your yogurt issue today 9when i bought, on purpose, some fromage frais . . . and I see someone beat me to it. Glad you solved the mystery.

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