Critique: Banquet Spaghetti & Meatballs

It was a Sunday and I was hungry and I figured that for a 'buck-a-meal deal', this offering from the folks at Banquet would be a safe bet. Now, while I could easily throw the pasta and sauce together all by myself from scratch, those meatballs would have proven a culinary challenge. Not the least of which would be all the work involved. Lucky for me, I was fresh out of hamburger, so the point was mute. Anyway, just look at them thar balls on the front cover! I’ll even bet ya they're spicy cuz us real men like our balls that way! (Uh, what)?

Another thing in Banquet's favor was the directions on the back of the box. (They're just the way I like my world – simple).  You open the box, extract the meal, shove it into a microwave and about four minutes later, it’s done! (Now somewhere in there, they also talk about slitting the film and stirring, but that was way too much for me to handle. I contented myself to listening to the microwave do its thing while I searched in the fridge for a cold one).

As you can plainly see at right, the finished meal looks a teensy bit different from the advertised product. But, us real men know how to handle disappointment (we get it often enough), so I sat down to eat.

Right off the bat, I’ll tell you there was this strange smell that wafted up to my nose when I removed the plastic film. Can’t say for sure if I could describe it other than to say ‘bad fridge smell’. But, seeing as how I was hungry and seeing as how I had a cold brewski close at hand to help anesthetize my innards, I decided to gave it a go. I’m happy to say that the meatballs (four of them like on the package) were fair to middling. They made up for the pasta which was not so fair.  Here’s the way I scored this Italian creation:

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Pkg Art:     9    Maybe I should have eaten the package instead?

Reality:      4    Best approached with your eyes closed. Just like sex!

Cost:          5    At $1 a shot, this is about as cheap as you can get! And, it shows.

Smell:        4    Ever stick your nose where it didn’t belong? It was like that, only worse!                    

Texture:     3    This pasta not only would stick on a wall, but it would congeal there too.

Taste:         5    Throw out the pasta and just eat the meatballs. You're better off.          

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Average:    5    Well, the box was kinda cute anyways!       

Rather than endure eating this again, I think I’ll switch to the canned spaghetti and meatballs next time. Better taste for about the same money!

Note: After the meal, you are left with only a cardboard container and a plastic tray which like the song 'War! What is it good for?" is 'good' for absolutely nothing! About 52 grams of paper and plastic that can be recycled – so do it!