5/12/09 | Spaghettios Meatballs
[ Currently Eating: Leftover Fake Cassoulet ]
I think I’m suffering from selective pasta amnesia.
The reason I think a part of my brain is on the fritz is that, try as I might, I don’t recall Spaghettios that included “donut holes” in the mix along with the hoops.
What in the world is going on?
I’m just an Unfrozen Caveman Cheap Eats Editor. All these extra pasta shapes confuse me.
To be honest, I probably haven’t had Spaghettios since my youthful Camping Days - and probably only a few times at that. This kind of pasta in a can was banned in our household except during special motorhome trips when it just felt right to eat. It’s probably for the best anyway, because as I’ve mentioned, I’ve always felt bad after eating Chef Boyardee and similar products.
Anyhow, back to the stupefying inclusion of the inner pasta dots along with the O’s. I’m surprised there aren’t riots in the streets. If you look at the picture on the can, there aren’t any little pasta dots. I just see the O’s, meatballs, and gooey, splashing sauce. As a sidenote: the “liveliness” of the pasta in the picture is a little disturbing. It almost looks like it’s alive. Some sort of viral spaghetti and meatballs that’s about to latch onto your face and telepathically feed you nightmares featuring irate Italian chefs waving cleavers. The Horror.
But yep, there are no pasta dots in the can picture. I wish the product was called Spaghettios with Dots and Meatballs so I wouldn’t get confused. I guess it makes since for them to include them in the can, otherwise they’d go to waste. Last I checked, there is no Home for Wayward Pasta Dots just yet. And they taste pretty much the same.
Oh, the taste. I’ve often written about my dislike of “sweet” things - this usually applies to tomato based products as well. There are only a few brands of spaghetti sauce that we can tolerate (Hunt’s in a can is one of them).
But for some reason, I rather enjoy the oversweetened orangey sauce that comes in these products. I’m not quite sure why, maybe my Sweet taste buds get all nostalgic for it. It has a fairly decent flavor, and I like that it’s very cheesey tasting. Afterwards, I had a slight taste of tin can in my mouth that was difficult to wash out. I find this often happens with canned food that contains tomato products. It wasn’t as bad as some of the other canned tomato items, but it was still noticeable.
The meatballs are tiny 3/4 inch perfect spheres of pureed beef-water-breadcrumb mixture. Incidentally, I keep wanting to type “metaballs” instead of “meatballs“. Something to do with a habit of typing “metadata” I guess. Hmm… MetaMeatBalls.
The noodles are pretty much your plain Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup type of soft, overcooked pasta product. They aren’t spectacular, and you pretty much don’t even notice much about them. It’s like they’re just there to fill up the rest of the empty space that the metameatballs don’t cover.
Anyhow, I guess you aren’t going for texture in this product. I pretty much just wolf the whole thing down - if it wasn’t for the meatballs, I wouldn’t even chew.
The price on this can was a buck fifty at F&E, which I thought at first was kind of reasonable. However, the other day, I think I saw a 26 oz. can of Spaghettios (nearly twice as large) for only a dollar. But I don’t recall if it was plain Spaghettios or if it had the meatballs in it. Surely the meatball variety costs more? Anyhow, the end result is that I upped the review score on this a bit because I’m assuming you can get it for cheaper than I did.
So the surprising thing is that I didn’t feel ill at all after eating this. I don’t know what’s happened. It’s either that they’ve done something to the main recipe over the years to prevent it from irritating my bowels, or my stomach has taken a strange liking to these canned spaghetti products.
For the sake of my health, I sincerely hope it’s not the latter. The last thing I need is the OK to ingest this stuff on a daily basis. It’s almost like it was a GOOD thing that it used to make me feel sick - that way I didn’t eat it very often. As for the stupidity of eating things that you know make you sick - I’m like one of those folks who occasionally hit their heads against the kitchen counter to see if there’s a different result than the last time.
Actually, I’ve been thinking maybe my pasta shape amnesia has been brought on by that very action of me smacking my head on the counter. Or maybe, the dots aren’t really there and I’m just hallucinating them!
All in a day’s work.
Price: $1.50 for 4.75 oz. can
Found At: Fresh and Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10
May 13th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
ohh yeah, Spaghettios are another edible pre-made spaghetti. You know exactly what to expect and it tastes like that every time…but I think any “meat” additions throw off the Spaghettio experience.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:18 am
When I was little and refused to try a new food, my parents used to joke-threaten that the next meal I’d get was spaghettiOs. When I finally tried them as an adult I nearly got sick, they really lived up to their reputation. Maybe it’s an acquired taste….
May 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Its had those little mini O’s in there for as long as i can remember. People aren’t rioting because it’s always been that way
May 14th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
@skibs - I was actually digging the metaballs, even though they were plastic-ey fake tasting. i’m pretty sure the large can i saw was the plain spaghettios variety now.
@anita - It’s very strange how I can tolerate it now, but I couldn’t before. I’m not sure what’s going on - the same thing with Chef Boyardee stuff.
@dave - I suspected the dots were not a new addition, but good to hear from someone who has been eating them. So, has the flavor pretty much stayed the same through the years?
May 15th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I’m impressed it didn’t make you sick! Even the smell of that stuff usually makes me ill; I don’t know if I could’ve toughed it out enough to eat!
May 16th, 2009 at 1:53 am
OMG I thought I was the only person who still remembered Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer!- I used to love that skit.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:52 am
They are not saving anything by including the dots. Pasta is made by extruding it out of a die. The die is a ring shape and the dough comes out so it could make long tubes. Instead they cut it into very short rings. It is not a circle where they cut the hole out and throw that away (or keep it). I suspect the dots are scrap pieces and someone came up with the idea of making the scrap into very small pieces and throwing them in as a cost savings initiative.
May 16th, 2009 at 9:35 am
@allie - I actually like the taste surprisingly, but I know a lot of people hate it.
@gigi - oh yeah, old school SNL!
@eva - but if they’re reusing scrap, it seems like that they ARE saving money as you said. Or at least not wasting the scrap pasta.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Its been a few years since I’ve had “Sgetti O’s” as my sis and I call them. There were the smaller o’s in there at that time but they weren’t so numerous. It looks like your can was mostly little baby o’s… Maybe just a fluke that you had so many in you can. I agree with you about the meatballs…You know they’re gross and you shouldn’t like them…but there’s just something about them….Maybe it’s simply a subconscious comparison to the O’s because they are quite the “filler” Hmmm…now I’m headed to grocery, maybe pick up some sgetti o’s….LOL
May 19th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
This post cracked me up…. I don’t remember it having those little dots either. Thing is, there is a home for those wayward dots… babyfood! I see them all of the time in my daughter’s jar-o-spaghetti for babies stepping up the ladder from purees.
Funny thing is, the generic brand spaghetti-o’s (that’s what my kids eat all the time) only have rings. Seems sad that the real stuff has to cut costs when they charge more than double per can, but the cheap stuff doesn’t! Maybe the cheap stuff is cheap because they sell their extra dots to the baby food manufacturers.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:21 pm
They’ve always been in there for as long as I can remember. They’re just smaller o’s. I actually like spaghettio’s because my parents would add onions and burger and make a dinner out of it at our cabin. My sister and I love it.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Are you lactose intolerant? These canned pastas usually contain a lot of dry milk - might be what’s making you sick.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
@FunketyBucket - the thought did cross my mind that maybe I got a non-standard amount of mini-os in my particular can…
@Jennine - they have spaghetti-o’s for babies!!!?
@kylee - your onion and burger spaghettio meal sounds great! When am I coming over for dinner…
@amy - hmm.. actually, I do have a little bit of trouble with too much dairy. But not as bad as most lactose intolerant folks. The weird thing is that over the years, I’ve gotten better at taking in milk than worse. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t bother me as much any more.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I just stumbled upon your blog and have spent the last day reading all the past reviews (I have WAY too much time on my hands). Anyway, I personally love spaghettiO’s with meatballs! Must be a nostalgia thing. I also have love them with the cut up hots dogs in them. I was actually giddy when i saw them as an adult. Sick, I know, but hey–whatever works
Inormally doctor them up with some grated parmesan to counteract some of the sweetness. Yum… Keep up the great work, this is so entertaining (and informative!)
August 18th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
The meatballs actually contain no meat. In fact, the only thing that prevents vegetarians from eating spaghettios with meatballs is the beef flavoring.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:45 am
I grew up on Franco American Spaghettios. My parents always kept a month supply of the spaghettio and meatballs in the house. However, since they Campbells took over, my experience with the meatballs is nothing of nostalgic! any meat I can squish between my teeth, I will pass on. I’m VERY disappointed they messed with a good thing…it’s like that old saying, (and with so many products), why fix whats not broken? very disappointed, I wish they would go back to the old meatball recipe from the 1970’s!