Excellent coffee... fake cream?

I like cream in my coffee, real cream - half and half or even heavy cream. And I'm aware that some purists find that horrid. But a flying rats patootie just flew over.

So why on earth would a restaurant that serves good coffee offer fake, no need to refrigerate, cream? When faced with that problem today, I was given several different answers... I asked how they make their white russians. Answer: ice cream. Second answer: bar cream (I don't even want to think about what that is). Third and final answer: some heavy cream from the pastry chef.

If you serve Intelligentisa coffee, shouldn't you serve real cream? I think so. End of rant.

I agree. Not only with "why fake cream?" but also--why milk when I ask for cream? Surely cream/halfandhalf is a standard ingredient in restaurant? So why then milk? Sometimes it seems the nicer the restaurant, the more likely I am to get skim milk with my coffee.

In fact--I often no longer order coffee at nice restaurants because even if the coffee started out as quality, by the time it is served to me, it is what we Westerners sometimes call cowboy coffee--that is, it's been riding the range all day! Better to stick with tea; at least I can control how fresh the brew is, and since I take lemon, not milk, I've avoided that issue, as well.

Bryan, I feel your pain!

Lillafury

Lillafury wrote:In fact--I often no longer order coffee at nice restaurants because even if the coffee started out as quality, by the time it is served to me, it is what we Westerners sometimes call cowboy coffee--that is, it's been riding the range all day! Better to stick with tea; at least I can control how fresh the brew is, and since I take lemon, not milk, I've avoided that issue, as well.

Well, I drink my coffee black, but I feel exactly the opposite about this issue. Unless a restaurant gives me some indication they care about tea, I order coffee. Otherwise what you get is a generic teabag and a nasty, tepid little pot of flat-tasting water from an urn. I could deal with the teabag, but to be drinkable, tea absolutely has to be made from water that still has some oxygen in it, which is poured over the tea at a near-boiling temperature.

These days you hardly ever get really terrible coffee.

bryan wrote:I like cream in my coffee, real cream - half and half or even heavy cream. And I'm aware that some purists find that horrid. But a flying rats patootie just flew over.

So why on earth would a restaurant that serves good coffee offer fake, no need to refrigerate, cream? When faced with that problem today, I was given several different answers... I asked how they make their white russians. Answer: ice cream. Second answer: bar cream (I don't even want to think about what that is). Third and final answer: some heavy cream from the pastry chef.

If you serve Intelligentisa coffee, shouldn't you serve real cream? I think so. End of rant.

Ah, Bryan....you have struck a chord deep within me.....

I recall about 1975 when I, a native Midwesterner, visited NYC for the 1st time.

After shlepping around all day, I stopped for a cup of coffee in a department store coffee shop (don't remember which store) and sat at the counter. The counter girl plopped a cup in front of me & asked if I wanted milk or cream.

"Yes, please", sez I, not realizing it was a multiple-choice question.

"Heavy, coffee-cream or half & half?"

I blinked.

'Or milk? Whole, 2% or skim?'

Sudden, irrational panic at being faced with an unexpected plethora of options gripped me.

"Coffee-cream, of course," I coolly replied, hoping my nonchalance would cloak my dairy naivete.

Later, at Gristede's, I noted there was an added option of medium cream. I was bedazzled by East Coast sophistication.

I consider one of the most abhorrent creations of mankind (along with genetically engineered bioweapons and Steve Guttenberg) to be "coffee whitener".

What, exactly, the hell were its creators thinking? (because you know it had to be created by committee --- it's such a perfectly mediocre product)

It falls within the category of what I regard as "un-food". You know the kind of thing I mean. Items that don't exist in Nature. Things Third-Worlders never have a craving for (think Cheetos, Twinkies, Tang, Gummi anything) Stuff that would be regarded with mighty trepidation by primitive cultures.

I suppose there are lactose-intolerant coffee lovers out there who thank their lucky stars for this water, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, sugar, sodium caseinate (a milk derivative - not a source of lactose), dipotassium phosphate, mono- and diglycerides, artificial flavor, beta carotene color miracle.

At least it's Kosher.

zaphod wrote:I consider one of the most abhorrent creations of mankind (along with genetically engineered bioweapons and Steve Guttenberg) to be "coffee whitener".

I remember the first time I saw fake cream actually labeled, simply, "Coffee Whitener." I was conflicted. On the one hand, I was repulsed, as by all other artificial, non-dairy, chemical cream substitutes I'd known called "Creme," "Pream," "Coffeemate," etc. On the other hand, here was a product that had the courage of its convictions, the balls to come out and declare what it really was, not what it really wasn't. It didn't claim to make the coffee taste like you had put cream in it; it didn't claim to make the coffee taste mellower, better, or even different; it didn't imply that it would "mate" well with coffee, or complement it in any way; it didn't claim to be an analog of any natural food product. All the name said is that it would make coffee whiter. Which is exactly what the product did. Integrity like that is rare in our world.