Food Fridays: Cheeze & Thank You Fresh Mozzarella In Basil Oil

Thanks to my lovely sponsor, Miranda Gavrin,¹² Thing of Things is reviewing Cheeze & Thank You Fresh Mozzarella In Basil Oil.

On my first bite, I thought “wow, this is delicious mozzarella.”

On my second bite, I thought “this mozzarella has a weird fucking texture. Has it gone bad? I don’t think it was past the best-buy date. Am I going to be puking mozzarella all night?”

On my third bite, I remembered that this was vegan mozzarella.

As a lacto vegetarian and mozzarella fan, the taste is exactly correct. Through some eldritch witchcraft, the creators of Cheeze and Thank You Mozzarella turned soybeans, tapioca, water, and coconut oil into a precise facsimile of the taste of mozzarella.

Unfortunately, the texture is all wrong. Good mozzarella is soft and pillowy, tender and a bit stringy, with just the right amount of give. But Cheeze & Thank You Mozzarella is too thick, firm, and chewy. It peels apart in sheets rather than strings. It’s a bit too dense and doesn’t have that melt-on-your-tongue quality that good mozzarella has. The texture reminds me of nothing so much as my very distant memories of chicken.

Miranda says:

I’m one of those vegans who hasn’t eaten real mozzarella since Obama was president, so I was willing to take the Cheeze and Thank You mozzarella at its word regarding what texture mozzarella should be, because the flavor was so good it seemed like an authority on the matter. If you’re not expecting a specific different thing, it’s a perfectly good texture. The most surprising part was also the best part, namely—and I’m afraid there’s no way to say this that won’t make some of you giggle—that it gushes basil-flavored moisture into my mouth with every bite. It’s light and fresh and delicate and exactly what I want out of cheese. I could eat a truly unreasonable amount of it in one sitting. I haven’t tried to make anything fancy with it, because that would require more than thirty seconds to pass between opening the package and putting some in my face. I’m not sure what else goes in reviews, which is why I mailed some to my friend who’s a better writer than me. It’s good cheese and people should eat it.

I tried some Cheeze & Thank You Mozzarella in lasagna. It tasted completely fine. However, the Parmesan from the same company also tasted fine in the lasagna, in spite of tasting horrid out of the container. Presumably, the tomatoes and noodles and meatballs were hiding any imperfections in the cheese taste. Ideally, I would have also tested this in a pizza, but Cheeze & Thank You Mozzarella tasted too good and I wanted the rest of it in my stomach and not in a pizza, which if you think about it is a very positive review.

Miranda adds:

I really like it. Pi describes it as "basically a good lasagna". The mozzarella melted more than none but did not get gooey and stringy.

I think Cheeze & Thank You Mozzarella will serve for any purpose where you primarily want the mozzarella flavor, rather than the texture. I think, for example, it would do well in a caprese sandwich or salad, where the slices of mozzarella would be thin enough that you wouldn’t really notice the texture. It also apparently does well in lasagna. I also suspect that vegans who crave mozzarella would like Cheeze & Thank You Mozzarella, because their memories are faded and it really does get the flavor right. If you’re just snacking on mozzarella balls for fun, however, the texture is quite uncanny.

1. She bought me the mozzarella.

2. I’m very bad at sponsored content.