Corn in Cup... Wot.

I ran into the concept of "Corn in Cup" in an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway (I'm a biiig fan!!).

I don't get it. If I want corn in a cup, I buy some corn, cook it, maybe add some salt and butter, and put it in a cup.

Really, whatever is the benefit of that stuff as a ready-made product? It seems to me like Strawberries in Cup, or Potatoes in Cup. Sure, potatoes are nice, but what's with the cup?

Please, dear learned tropers, do enlighten me!

Courtesy link: http://www.nelsons.com.my/products.php

I don't know, I got distracted when I started to go all grammar nazi on their horribly written website.

Because of convenience. Same reason people buy pre-grated cheese.

Oh, God. Pre-grated cheese. PRE-GRATED cheese.

edited 15th Mar '11 11:35:03 AM by EthZee

Good for eating on the run - you know, gotta hit up the mall, get yoru mails done, take the kids to three practice events, and network with all your neighbors.

Yeah, I don't get it either, but I'm totally fine plopping myself down in from of a computer for twelve hours a day. What is up with the busy-bodies?

Pre-grated cheese is good for cooking, though.

edited 15th Mar '11 11:45:22 AM by pvtnum11

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

It's a strange world!

And I'm actually guilty of buying pre-grated cheese one or three times. But I agree that it's just completely insane, and I actually stopped buying the stuff. Freshly-grated Emmentaler on a good bowl of spagghetti is just toooooo freaking yummy!

edited 15th Mar '11 11:52:41 AM by vijeno

It's only a matter of time before we have automatic sidewalks and furniture you clean with a hose.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Yep. Convenience. Same reason they put ramen in a cup, and soup in a cup, and and single servings of dry cereal in a cup.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I don't have a problem with ramen in a cup, though (or Pot Noodles as they're called over here).

Pre-grated cheese... I guess it's alright, grating can be a hassle. I just dislike it on purely arbitrary grounds.

Life saver for me! I eat a heck of a lot of grated cheese, and to grate 200 grams of the stuff for my pasta dinner is time consuming and requires a lot more physical exertion than I want to be putting into cooking my evening meal. Buy a bag, dump it all on, it's exactly the same thing in the same quantity and costs about the same.

Until I get me an electric grater for the same purpose, I'll stick to pre-grated!

edited 15th Mar '11 12:16:07 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

I initially read "hose" as "house"... >_>;;

Pre-grated cheese simply doesn't taste the same. It never has the right texture and size. There are differences, though: Pre-grated Parmesan is okay, but pre-grated Emmentaler definitely isn't.

^ An interesting idea, though I don't think dropping a house on your furniture will make it cleaner.

And somehow, that remark would have been funny, but has a bitter taste now, after the Japan tsunami. :-/

I'm always confused by instant mashed potatoes. I mean, you're cooking a meal, so you're probably already going to some trouble. Would it be that difficult to wash and peel some potatoes, boil them, and mash them?

Be not afraid...

Not at all.

I've found that cooking and healthy food is really more a matter of organisation than anything else. For good mashed potatoes, you need milk, probably some nutmeg or onions. So you have to buy all that. Once you've committed yourself to buying things with some thought beforehand (and if you have the time and money needed for that), it's not a big deal.

The main purpose of instant mashed potatoes is that you can leave them in the pantry for a few months without them growing.

Fight smart, not fair.

Or rotting.

If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?

In the UK, pre-grated cheese tastes exactly the same. It is the same thing, just grated rather than sliced or left as a bar.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

Well, I have the impression that it's somehow dried out, because it was in that grated form in that bag for some time. Might just be my imagination of course. And also, it's never the size I want.

They also add some sort of powder, don't they? Normal cheese when grated begins to stick together after a while; pre-grated cheese has some powder added to it to keep it dry.

In addition to the decay issue, peeling and then boiling real potatoes takes a heck of a lot of time. Just because you're trying to cook a meal doesn't mean you've got the time to do so indefinitely - there's a big difference between a twenty minute prep meal and an hour and a half prep meal.

Getting pre-grated cheese is just being lazy, though, unless you don't own a grater. ;) Nine times out of ten the block cheese is cheaper, and it doesn't require more than a few seconds of grating unless you're using unusually large quantities of cheese.

Edit: And yes, they do add anti-sticking ingredients to pre-grated cheese.

edited 16th Mar '11 12:02:44 PM by Karkadinn

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

Again, not something that actually reflects in the taste in Britain, at least with the brands I prefer (Galloway Cheddar for example). And I do alternate randomly between normal, sliced and grated cheese so would know! Would make sense for it to be that way, but production process differences may account for the differences in my experiences against everyone else.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

Karkadinn: Pressure cookers are your friend! ... I used to be of the same opinion as you, but then I found out that it was really more an excuse than anything else. It doesn't actually take that much time, once you know how to synchronize it with the rest of the process.

Boiling potatoes isn't that time-consuming. Peeling them perhaps.

I've seen packages of cheese presliced into little cubes for cheese platters. How lazy is that? I mean, I suppose grating takes a reasonable amount of time, but chopping it into cubes?

Be not afraid...

Well, I find it pretty annoying to clean cheese graters personally...