Posted on 10/27/2022 6:33:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Lumpy. Slimy. Yogurt but worse. These were all words I used to describe cottage cheese at one point in my life. If you asked me how I felt about the ingredient, I would have delivered a scathing condemnation, a brutal takedown of a food I saw as a curse to all things creamy—that is, if I even thought of it at all. Until recently, I had nearly completely forgot cottage cheese even existed. It seemed like a food lost to the ‘90s, like SlimFast and Bagel Bites. But unlike all those packaged diet foods of the era, cottage cheese was not a highly packaged monstrosity packed full of fake sugar to make up for its obvious lack of fat. Rather, it’s real cheese, a curdled milk product, that provides a blank canvas for anything else you choose to eat with it. As a child, the nothingness of the flavor of cream cheese was made more offensive by the noticeable texture—the little cheese curds floating in the watery bath of their own creation felt like spoiled milk. But there were a lot of foods I was sensitive to as a kid. Olives, asparagus, beans of any variety: They became bearable, even enjoyable, as I grew older. Why did I leave cottage cheese behind?
For me, the hatred of cottage cheese stems from diet culture and my association with the ingredient as nothing more than a diet food. I remember the women in my life with their Weight Watchers cards during my childhood, carefully tallying their allotted calories for the day. Cottage cheese was a favorite due to its low calorie content. Though I never participated in these diets myself (I did not have an “almond mom,” thank god), I can imagine that after restricting yourself so much over the course of the day, being able to indulge in something, anything—even cottage cheese—must have been a relief. It was one of the few foods you could eat in bulk without worrying about the “consequences.” That being said, I don’t think I ever saw someone eat cottage cheese for the pleasure of the experience. In my mind, it was always framed as a food you should eat, not one that anyone should be excited about. It was meant to be tolerated, not savored. So, in my own rejection of diet culture, I saw no need to ever stock my fridge with the stuff.
I felt the same way about salads for a while, lamenting the undressed kale concoctions peddled by raw vegan YouTubers in the mid-2010s. But then I learned that salads, when prepared with care and consideration, can come in all forms, some cooked and crispy with plenty of fried components, others salty and umami and bursting with acidity. I stopped seeing salad as a sad albeit healthy choice. It ceased to be about health at all—salad returned to its neutral status, finally free to be itself without contending with the confines of diet culture.
But for many of us, cottage cheese has not yet recovered from its diet culture-induced reputation. About a year ago, I decided to try it again on a whim, turned off though I was by its lumpy texture as soon as I opened its plastic container. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that cottage cheese actually isn’t bad. In fact, quite the opposite: I loved it. Combined with some chopped cucumber, fresh dill, olive oil and black pepper, it came together as a delightful breakfast salad. Upon more experimentation, I discovered that this neutral ingredient pairs well with a long list of other food items: smoked salmon, onions, canned fruit, fresh berries… the list is never-ending.
There’s nothing wrong with attempting to be healthier, to feed ourselves better food so we can feel our best. If that’s what you’re going for, cottage cheese, with its surprisingly high protein content, is undoubtedly a decent choice for many. But an obsession with thinness is not about health—it’s about maintaining a beauty standard that upholds racist and sexist ideologies, that functions to exert control over bodies that do not fit the prescribed mold. It’s no wonder that the low-fat fad foods of the ‘90s are so unappealing now: Some of them tasted bad, sure, but all of them were tinged with this toxic body hierarchy that very few of us have materially benefitted from. But hear me out: Cottage cheese is a victim of this mindset just as much as we were. It does not deserve to be relegated to the annals of culinary history, preserved in the Jell-O molds of our grandmothers’ heydays. It’s time for cottage cheese to come into the light and for us to accept it with open arms, embracing its weird lumps just as we try to embrace our own.
That’s how my mom ate it quite often in the summer.
CC
Cottage cheese is a blank slate that you can build anything on.
If you can get raw milk you can make your own and top with heavy cream that was soured with lime juice.
Delicious.
Yummy with most any canned fruit, especially pineapple.
When eating it alone, my mother would always put salt and pepper on cottage cheese.
That's because Sam never had my mom serve her ½ Cup Cottage Cheese with Maple Syrup. Yum!
In some dishes it can substitute for sour cream, if sour cream gives you problems, or you don’t need the sour/acidity of sour cream.
It’s juicy and well balanced. Maybe a handful of almonds for the healthy fat content.
Summertime, a little lemonade, sweet tea, or an Arnold Palmer...
Also sometimes, sometimes, it can substitute for ricotta.
Id rather eat it right out of the container than on fruit, that just sounds nasty.
Preference: Breakstone, Daisy or another brand?
I absolutely hated cottage cheese up until I was in my late 50’s.
Love it now!😁
its pretty bland
I love cottage cheese. It’s comfort food. I like it with canned fruit, especially mandarin oranges or pineapple. I even like to dollop some on applesauce for a cool refreshing snack. I was surprised but glad to see this posted here.
Or just maybe our taste buds changed?
After my inlaws retired to Texas, they sent us some grapefruit from their tree. Hubs says “Go buy some full fat cottage cheese.” So I did and dang that is a great combo. Blueberries are my other favorite to pair it with. Fresh pineapple is nice too.
We never ate cottage cheese before that. Now we can’t live without it.
I’m still a child in some ways.
I don’t like mixing certain textures, nor my food touching.
I typically eat all of one thing at a time too.
I’m a little OCD.
Cottage cheese with salt and pepper on toast has been a comfort food for me since childhood. I still have it for dinner once in a while, though now I prefer to put cajun seasoning on it.
My wife likes to dip cottage cheese on Ruffles potato chips.
ALSO, bring back REAL watermelons that have seeds and aren't so darn DENSE and TASTELESS.
I wish it were more readily available in the no salt version.
I eat cottage cheese every day but come on, must they load it up with so much salt? It tastes so much better without it.
I don’t need to keep count, it’s that I don’t like sodium-bombing myself just on general principle.
I have a very simple diet so this issue an annoyance that shouldn’t be.
People: Do you like Cottage Cheese?
Me: Not only is it cheese, the word “cheese” is right there in the name. How is this even a question that gets asked by people???
Other people: Won’t all of that cheese cause digestive problems for you?
Me: Not so far. I wash it down with a lot of beer and/or wine. Does that help?
Me still: You see, my people have been consuming dairy products for thousands of years. Also, pork is delicious and nutritious. Do you really want to continue this conversation? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
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