If we search for the term ‘Dutch cream’ we will most likely come up with the recipe for Hollandaise sauce, a reasonable association of ideas for the limited intelligence of any web search engine. But in the fantastic world of ultra-processed foods we can find in selected stores an invention that is difficult to describe with that name, the so-called Cremtonaa vegetable spreadable fat cream that wants to connect with the child in all of us.
Remembering the past with nostalgia is something common to all human beings, and there are no nostalgic memories more intense than those of childhood. Those toys, cartoons, comics, movies and fashions that they marked us as a generation, where food and edible products hold a special place in our remembrance. But oh, how treacherous that memory is.
We all have certain flavors and aromas associated with somewhat confusing feelings, sensations and memories, to the point that they can generate true emotion just by smelling the smell of that stew or that cake that our grandmother made. And beyond family home cooking, there are the products that fed us, for better or worse, in our early childhood and adolescence.
Today we have more awareness of the harmful effects that ultra-processed foods and other unhealthy products, such as sweets, industrial pastries, breakfast cereals, chocolates or juices and soft drinks, have on health, especially in the little ones, and the industry itself It tries to adapt or camouflage its products in this line.
But there were several generations of boys and girls who grew up with products that encouraged them to grow strong with high-energy snacks and breakfasts, which basically meant full of sugars and fatslike the legendary sandwich with half a bar of milk chocolate inside.
What is Cremtona, the flavored Dutch cream
As required by legislation, the label must clearly indicate what it is, and there is no doubt about that: Cremtona is a 100% vegetable margarineas the packaging itself strives to highlight, insinuating that it is a positive aspect, although it can only be interesting for the vegan, allergic or intolerant consumer to dairy.
The reason why he has the last name of dutch It seems to make no sense, being a product manufactured in Catalonia, although we sense that it is pure marketing strategy. Margarine has long lost the fervor of the public due to the bad reputation – justified – of hydrogenated vegetable fats, but until recently she considered herself healthier than lard or even butter, and its low price and versatility.
Although it is a French invention, the patent for its development was acquired by the Dutch company Jurgens, today owned by Unilever, and still today there are numerous brands and companies in the Netherlands that market and distribute this vegetable fat on a large scale. In Spain it is still known as ‘Dutch margarine’, and you only have to take a look at any supermarket to see that they are still very present.
Cremtona, in short, is a margarine made with various vegetable fats, sweetened with sugars and flavored and flavored in three varieties: cocoa, strawberry and vanilla. Three flavors and three colors in the same container, like the old Tulicrem or some artisanal butters.
Ingredients and nutritional information
However, unlike artisanal dairy, Cremtona is a product purely industrial elaborated in which we only find the presence of natural ingredients in one of the flavors, cocoa, since strawberry and vanilla are limited to artificial aromas and colorings.
As we could suspect – no surprise here – it is an ultra-processed product very rich in low-quality fats (palm, soy, coconut, rapeseed, sunflower, we suspect refined), with a very high content in sugars. Its protein content is ridiculous compared to butter, and it does not have added vitamins or minerals either. We could say that this is an aspect in its favor, since they don’t want to deceive to nobody. If you want vitamins, eat fruit, this is a pure sweet treat. And it barely has salt, something is something.
Trying the flavored cream
Knowing what we were facing, the prospect of tasting this cream was tempting by curiosity and a certain nostalgia that still awakens. The presentation of the packaging, with a low-quality plastic tub – all the ones in the supermarket had some cracks in the lid – and a graphic design that moves between naive retro and the old, almost inspires tenderness. The mouse that presents the product to us generates more questions than it encourages us to open it, but in the end it is friendly.
After lifting the secondary plastic lid that protects the product and guarantees its safety, a strong aroma of sweetened cocoa invades the nasal passages. We also see perfectly well that the chocolate flavor takes up much more space than its brothers, with the poor supposed strawberry losing out. Whether it is a question of costs or whether the consumer prefers cocoa, we do not know.
Cocoa eats up the other flavors with an excessive sweetness that is cloying.
A few minutes after opening it at room temperature on a September afternoon, the solid texture of the refrigerator softens without difficulty, beginning to acquire very soft consistency on the edges and top, almost like an ice cream tub.
The knife slides easily, although showing a less honeyed texture when it is still cold than that usually shown by higher quality margins or a more tempered butter. Once on the crispy toast, the three flavors spread without problems, but when trying to combine the three in the mouth It only tastes like cocoa cream to us. Of bad quality. And extremely sweet.
Only by tasting the vanilla and strawberry separately do you sense their intended flavors in a very faint way, and with that aftertaste of artificiality that we can find in children’s medicines, and in this case loaded with industrial sugars, which never taste the same as the domestic sugar that we can use in home baking. In the end, by combining the three varieties, the cocoa exerts its power and colors the others, creating a less thick, almost white label Nocilla look. plasticous or polishing wax.
Worth?
The verdict of this three-flavored margarine will depend on personal taste, but it will certainly not be at all to the liking of palates less accustomed to such sweet products. It is also noted that cloying aftertaste of low-quality sweets, which excessively intoxicates all the senses, hiding the poor quality of the other ingredients. Like those bad ice creams that only taste sweet and you couldn’t guess the supposed original flavor.
Cocoa, as we have said, eats others, and if you are one of those who have learned to enjoy less sweet, more intense chocolates with an authentic well-crafted cocoa flavor, this cream will be a disappointment that exhausts the palate at the first small bite. It is tiring in its sweet excess. And the greasy texture, which after a while seems to separate the oils from the other components, does not help to offer an appetizing appearance.
It is only suitable for the very nostalgic with a high tolerance to sugar.
Now, whoever had industrial products like this in their childhood and youth, with snacks and lunches at school that would seem silly to us today, will probably enjoy the experience of going back to that time, even if it is because of that nostalgia and the memory of times past. If we made butter sandwiches with sugar and there were even those who mixed margarine with ColaCao, why wouldn’t we like the flavored Cremtona.
However, we are not responsible for the possible disappointment that generates facing products like these at a certain age. How many Bollycaos, Pink Panthers, Phoskitos and other buns today disappoint adults who refuse to completely abandon that childhood… And it is not only the ultra-processed ones that change their recipe, we do it too.
Kinder Chocolate and Cream Gift Basket 3 Flavors, Remember the 80s, Original Gift, Kinder Bueno, Kinder Chocolate Bars, Kinder Happy Hippo, 1 Strawberry Cream, Choco and Vanilla Cremtona, 1 Conguitos
*Some prices may have changed since the last review
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