Night Cheese, Part V: Manteche

I am here to warn you about Manteche.

What is Manteche?

Don’t ask Wikipedia.

No worries. I’ll tell you what Manteche is.

Manteche is a disastrous cheese chimera crafted by the brain trust at BelGioioso Cheese Inc. in Denmark, Wisconsin. It has been on display as the sole cheese in the wine shop at Wegmans for about a month, and I have been practically dreaming about it since I looked more closely and read exactly what it consists of:

Here is a more detailed schematic:

Yes. Manteche is provolone cheese. And butter. How could we possibly go wrong?

Here is what iGourmet has to say about Manteche. There are four lies hidden in this description, can you find them?

Answers:

#1: “is a unique cheese”

As a cheese, it is provolone, i.e. a fairly unexciting sandwich cheese. As a butter, it is unsalted butter, i.e. the most boring and pointless form of butter. Two different dorks in a room does not a quirky party make.

#2: “The Provolone and butter flavors pull from each other over time.”

I don’t even know what this means but I fell for it anyways. First of all, as you can sort of make out from the picture the only pulling these two sections are doing is AWAY from each other, I could barely hold them together when I was trying to eat the cheese. Second, I tasted the touching parts and the non touching parts of this stupid thing separately and the provolone was provolone and the butter was butter at every location, sorry but no.

#3: “BUTTER FILLED BURRATA”

JUST STOP, BELGIOIOSO. DON’T EVER MENTION BURRATA IN THE SAME BREATH AS THIS SHIT AGAIN, BELGIOIOSO. WE ARE IN A FIGHT, BELGIOIOSO.

#4: “is a tangier cheese”

This was quite possibly the blandest provolone I have ever tasted PLUS UNSALTED BUTTER WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT, BELGIOIOSO?

Despite all the above LIES I am still pretty gullible and thus 100% willing to accept that manteche, when obtained in “the Basilicata or Calabria regions of Italy,” might be a delectable and tangy treat. But don’t bother with this one stateside.

Avoid.

The Ez Factor:

He ate the cheese. Skipped the butter. (Danjumbo ate the butter.)