Today, we’re pitting two grocery stores against each other. It’s Walmart versus Dollar Tree. ((Intro Music)) Today, we’re going to answer the question, does it actually matter where you buy your groceries? Because listen, times are tight. Some of us, not naming any names here, may have lost a lot of money trying to short RadioShack stock. Thanks, StockTok. So today, we’re making two identical dishes. We’re doing fettuccine alfredo and a veggie flatbread. On one side, we got groceries from Walmart. On the other side, we got groceries from Dollar Tree. The Mythical Kitcheneers are out shopping right now. Let’s see what they got. ((Music)) For the first part of the meal, we got fettuccine Alfredo, A.K.A. fettuccine Alfred. We have a rule in the kitchen, if it’s a polysyllabic Italian word, we do not pronounce the final syllable. That is canon. You may also be wondering, if this is supposed to be fettuccine, why do you have penne? There’s enough Americans that don’t know that fettuccine refers to the pasta and Alfredo refers to the sauce. And there are a lot of Italian Americans that don’t know that Alfredo is not an Italian American dish. It actually came from a restaurant called Alfredo. So, that’s what we’re making today. Here we have the groceries from Walmart. The total bill was about $43, over at Dollar Tree it was only $28. If you average that out. as a cost per dish. It’s $12.42 from Walmart and only 10.62 from Dollar Tree. This is probably the closest we’ve had, and there’s a very specific reason. When you go to Dollar Tree, all of the dairy is actually more expensive. It might be an economies of scale thing. Walmart’s moving a lot more dairy products. You gotta pay more to store them, and Walmart has more infrastructure. But either way, this is a very close battle when it comes to price. Now, when we look at quality, pasta for pasta, they’re both made from semolina and durum wheat flour. Those are probably gonna be pretty similar. I think it’s in these, like, high quality items that we’re gonna see some difference. If you look at the parmesan cheese, there was a big article that came out a while ago that was like, this has wood pulp in it. That’s the stuff termites eat. And I’m like, yum! I’m not better than no termite. It does. It has a product called cellulose, which is an anticaking agent. But if you look at the first ingredient, it’s still just parmesan cheese, which is milk, salt, and then rennet cultures. But, when you go over to the Dollar Tree, this is the only dairy product that was cheaper. The ingredients get a little bit wonky, but stick with me. Number one, dairy whey, two food starch, three rice flour. You eventually get to parmesan cheese at number twelve on the ingredients label. That said, I don’t really care what the ingredients label says, man. I’m gonna see how it actually tastes. Also, it’s probably gonna be a nice little thickener going in there. Then, we’re gonna move on to our veggie flatbread. Dollar Tree does not have a lot of fresh vegetables. We’ve talked about this. Write your congressman, get him to subsidize produce farming for the love of God. But, we have canned mushrooms, which canned mushrooms are really good. We’re gonna cook mushrooms anyway, throw them on a flatbread. Might as well use stuff from a can. We got some frozen stir fry pepper blend, really easy, convenient product to use. Little bit of Hunt’s traditional pasta sauce over here. And then some green olives, cause Dollar Tree had green olives, and I get down on green olives, man. Also, some days, for like, vegetables, I’ll just eat a bunch of pickles. Anybody else do that? Nicole? Yeah. And if it’s like, if it’s good enough for the pioneers, it’s good enough for me, you know. I think this is gonna be a pretty even battle. The pizza crust over at Great Value Walmart, I think, looks a little better. It’s at least got green flecks in there, and green flecks equal flavor. This one’s a little bit thin. But that said, Velveeta Mexican style shreds versus Great Value Fiesta Blend. These are Mexican people who are having a party. These are Mexican people who are just chilling I guess. I got no takes right now. I’m 50/50. I got a lot of money weighted on this. We’ve officially started the Mythical Kitchen sports betting line? All right, call in, place your bets. See who’s gonna win later. We got a big parlay on how many times Josh accidentally picks his nose in or doesn’t wash his hands. ((Music)) Well, we’re starting off with a veggie flatbread. This is a great way to, listen, sometimes in life you gotta trick people. Cooking is really all about lying to people. And if you’re trying to get people to eat vegetables, what a way to put them on. Again, I don’t really feel comfortable calling this pizza, but we’re calling it flatbread. Cause these are two pizza crusts that are sold premade. Some of the main differences, you see this one from Dollar Tree, it’s like really thin and crackery. Shout out to St. Louis, we all know I love your pizza and love the entire city of St. Louis. And the Rams never should have left to come to much greener pastures in Los Angeles, California. Anyways, so we’re gonna start making this. The sauces. So over on the Dollar Tree side, we got the Hunt’s canned tomato sauce. At first I was like, I mean, I like Hunt’s canned tomato sauce. And I was like, you’re paying for the jar over at Great Value. That was significantly more expensive. However, looking at the ingredients, the Hunt’s one is a majority just corn syrup, tomato paste, and water. With some spices in there, see how it tastes. Why did I dip the handle in? I’m dumb. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. My Italian roommates taught me to put sugar in tomato sauce to neutralize the acidity, which doesn’t really mean anything, but they were Italian and they were mean. So I do it. Not much of a difference. You do get more salt and more acidity in there, and I think that’s because the sugar is, God dang it, they were right. The sugar’s counteracting the acidity in that one. But that’s about a wash. Anyways, we are going to season up the sauce a little bit. Anytime you get a jar of sauce, you’re probably skimping on stuff like spices. So, we’re gonna take a whole lot of garlic powder. Listen, this is getting spread thin and just dumped all over a pizza thing. Pizza thing, crust. Crust is what it’s called. Food flew out of my mouth. What did I even eat that would’ve had chunks? That was old chunk is what, it was a granola bar, I think. We’re taking some jar-lic. A lot of people talk crap on jar-lic because it’s not as potent as fresh garlic, which is absolutely true. Jar-lic is, jar-lic is a portmanteau of jar and garlic, if people couldn’t tell. Jar-lic is actually heat treated and then packed, which means that you’re losing some of the flavors, but. It’s like roasted garlic, you just gotta use five times as much. And good news is, jar-lic is five times cheaper and creates five times less work. So, dump in a bunch of jar-lic, it’s gonna make your food taste good. We got some Italian seasonings and herbs right there, I’m gonna save some for the top. Dump some of that in there, and then we got parsley. This is interesting. You look at the Dollar Tree dried parsley over here, and it’s a little bit brown, which is to say, what happens to green, to chlorophyll, when you heat it and dry it. This Walmart one is suspiciously green. We checked the ingredients label. Look at that! That don’t look right. This looks like it’s, it’s color corrected. It almost looks like it has, if you ever question something that has green food dye in it, try and look for tinges of blue, because green food dye is actually just blue food dye mixed with yellow food dye. Wow, primary colors. Josh learned something in first grade. But you tend to see a little bit of blue in it. And I can’t tell if that’s food dye, but either way, I’m gonna dump a little bit of parsley in that sauce, save some for the top. Boom, go over to the Walmart side, and do that. A little bit of this. I feel like every homemade tomato sauce I’ve made has just been worse than the best stuff you can buy at the store. Does anyone, do you guys feel that? Oh, are you the people who are like, I can make a better red sauce than any jar can. What’s, what’s limiting you in the other times when you can’t? Hey, that’s like, that is a very valid reason to not make something from scratch is. I don’t wanna! Spread some sauce, get this here. What did I, I compared myself to both termites and pioneers? I kind of love that. You guys ever see the clip where they’re talking about, it’s like during the holidays, and they’re talking about towns that are named after, like reindeer? And they’ll be like, Vixentown, ha ha. And then there’s like Donnerville. And it’s like, that ain’t named after the reindeer, that’s named after the people who ate each other. In effigy. I always think that’s funny. Not, cannibalism’s not funny. Only sometimes. This is tough, cause here’s the thing. Most cooking shows, you’re making one thing. You gotta do two. That leaves me double the time to ramble, and you’re not gonna like where this goes. Santa should be a polar bear. Why is it a person? Don’t make no sense. Also, if you look at it, if you really look at it, this is an upsetting idea. Santa is a Christian demigod. Right? Sauce down. Some say cheese should be the next thing. I really want to try this Velveeta. This is the Mexican style blend, and this is the fiesta. If I don’t taste party in that cheese, so help me God, I’m writing the Walton family a strongly worded letter, and I already do that. The shreds on this one are a little thinner. It’s harder. There’s more cellulose in there, which means it’s not gonna melt as well. I’m tasting a little, I’m tasting a little party. ((Upbeat Music)) I’m tasting a little party. Alright, we gotta speed things up. I’m gonna go two hand technique. Try and spread this, oh God, I’m gonna throw up. I just got vertigo doing that. ((Laughing)) So, I’m a natural, I don’t know how to explain it. Listen, I’m a natural athlete. I get vertigo sprinkling cheese. You guys ever get that on a plane? Like you drink a little too much before takeoff and then you just get vertigo? Should I go to a doctor more often than I do? That makes sense. Alright, we’re saving a little cheese. I’m gonna eyeball this one a little bit. Cool, that’s a good amount of cheese. That’s a good amount of cheese. I don’t want to overload the cheese. Now we’re going vegetables. Green pepper, red, but not green. There’s many colored peppers. We got a pepper blend over here. This is the frozen stuff. We’re just going to be torching this on a flatbread. You don’t need like the freshest bell peppers in the world. Freezing things was a valuable way to learn how to preserve food. Use technology to your advantage. Fresh isn’t always synonymous with bad or unhealthy. It’s actually a great way to preserve nutrients. So, boom. Peppers on. I never know what to do with my off hand. It’s kinda just here. Cool. I will say, the cut on the Walmart pepper is over, this is Walmart! No! Cut on the Walmart pepper sucks! Eat it, Dollar Tree was cheaper. Now we’re going canned mushrooms over here. We’re gonna pop some of those bad boys on there. Perfect. Just, if, listen, if this is dragging, just play like the, like Italian, you know the Italian music? Big ol’ stems on these guys. ((Italian Music)) So why are we using a Mexican style cheese on an Italian style dish right here? I know, this is authentic Italian food. I grew up exclusively eating Mexican style cheese. The funny thing about it, absolutely nothing Mexican about it, and you can tell because the first one is cheddar, or in Spanish, cheddar, because that was a town in England, and so there ain’t nothing Mexican about Mexican style blend, that said, it’s just, listen, it’s cheese. The mozzarella you’re gonna get probably wouldn’t pass muster for real Italians being called mozzarella either, so like, whatever dude, it’s cheese, just put it on your pizza. We’re throwing olives on here, also like, so many different regional styles of pizza use different kinds of cheese, right? St. Louis, my favorite pizza style! They use a processed cheese called Provel. You go to Detroit, they’re using something called brick cheese that is most similar to cheddar. Not all pizza has to be Italian. Like, it’s a very Americanized thing. I remember my dad telling me a story when he went to Rome for the first time and he asked a cab driver where he could get the best pizza, he just said, New York! That was more Borat than Italian cabbie, but I’ll take it. Okay, one last thing to do. Parmesan cheese. This is going to be really interesting. This, the stuff from the shaker bottle, ain’t nothing wrong with it. Adds a lot of texture. And it is real parmesan cheese. Just going to pop that on there. Now this is interesting. This is fun for me because this looks like powdered laundry detergent. And I’m really curious to see what it tastes like. This is mostly whey and food starch. Whoa, it’s like popcorn seasoning. Okay, it, what does it taste like? It tastes nothing like parmesan cheese, which is fine, right? This is just, I don’t know, this is a little dust that’s gonna add some dairy flavor to your pizza. Wow! This is crazy. It really does taste like white cheddar popcorn seasoning. You guys know, what do they call them? They’re like sprinkleables or something? They added them to movie theaters sometime around like 2009, and it revolutionized the game, man. You can add like 19 different flavors to your popcorn. I have no idea how that’s gonna bake up, because again, it’s mostly rice flour, but. Put some herbs on there. We’re gonna get this in an oven right now. We’re just gonna get it and fill the bottoms nice and crispy. Cheese is melted, veggies are all hot. Boom, what a way to consume a fair amount of veggies. Now, let’s make some fettuccine. ((Music)) We gotta go fast. So, we got the fettuccine cooking over here, which is to say the penne pasta. I’m gonna take a fudge ton of butter. Oh God, this is actually margarine. Put the fettuccine, the fettuccine, I just gotta start calling it penne cause that’s what it is. The penne over here from Dollar Tree, has, for whatever reason, cooked like three times faster than any penne possibly should. I don’t know if it was parboiled or if it’s just, smaller and thinner. But either way, we’re gonna get some jar-lic sautéing with margarine. Margarine is just emulsified oils that they then put butter flavoring into. I grew up on margarine. I, it just tastes like movie theater popcorn to me. And so I don’t mind it. I know a lot of people balk at it from a culinary perspective, but for me it’s like whatevs. And so we’re pulling this pasta al dente while the Walmart one has another, like, five minutes to cook. That is neither an endorsement nor an indictment. Simply a thing that has happened, that I did not think would. So, great. I’m just sautéing in the butter. Anytime I’m building a cream sauce, cream, if you’re not using a starch thickener, has a tendency to separate. Because it’s dairy, protein, fat, those don’t emulsify, whatever. I like to get my pasta in there before. We’ll just cook that entirely separately because that’s still five minutes away from being done and I don’t know why we’re putting it at the same time. Alright, cool. So, we’re taking some half and half. We’re just vibing, we’re not measuring, because we’re working with so many different variables here. Like, we got this powdery parmesan cheese that you can’t really measure against that. So, we’re just gonna try and vibe this out. Get some parmesan, we’ll finish with parm as they would do. In classic Italian cookery. If your pasta looks super watery like this, that’s totally fine. We pulled this al dente so it’s actually gonna soak up a lot of that milk. And as you continue to agitate it, the pasta will naturally thicken. Garlic powder! Why would you put fresh garlic and dried garlic in there? They’re different! It’s like eating a steak versus beef jerky. You can eat one more easily in your car. My high school girlfriend wouldn’t get in my car because it smelled too much like beef jerky. ((Laughing)) I did love beef jerky more than her. Cream cheese. Great thing about cream cheese in pasta sauce. Again, it’s a little bit of a cheat some people would say, but it adds a nice thickness as opposed to really trying to get the starchy pasta water in there. So, we’re just gonna like let that sit, chill, let this sauté up, toss it around a little bit, give it a taste, see where we’re at. Let’s see about this pasta! All right. I’d be so good at working at a Waffle House. I’d just be screaming. Oh, but when one unruly customer comes in that Waffle House. Hey, speaking of me being a calming presence. If you go over to Sporked.com, you can check out which jarred pasta sauce you are based on your Zodiac sign. I’m a Taurus, so I would be Alfredo sauce, which is smooth, white, and thick, just like me. I had to say it. Alright, that’s cooking. See, see about this here pasta. Ow. No, this is still, it’s, if you, I don’t know if people know this, if you bite through pasta or pinch it, and you still see a solid white ring in there, Winnie, single! Got them. If you pinch pasta and you still see the like white ring inside, generally means it’s not done. It’s always a taste preference. I prefer my pasta a little bit more cooked than a lot of people. I just, I don’t think you’re cool for liking super al dente pasta. Like, get some pleasure in your life, you know. Eat mush. Mush is good. The world survived on mush. The Donner Party, they would have loved to have mush. All they had was people. It’s looking pretty solid. Oh, I did not finish with parmesan cheese. Let’s get a little more pasta water in there. ((Laughing)) I do understand how futile this is, but I also understand that I’m getting the amount of pasta water that I want, so y’all can just zap it. That’s not even a term, zap it. I’m tired. Pizza’s done. I gotta feed the damn kids. Pizza’s not done. All right, we’re gonna get some parmesan here. Alexa, can you chill? Can you effing chill for once? – [Alexa] Shut the F up, Josh. Can I do it? No. No. I shouldn’t do that. I shouldn’t do that. We should, we should teach people how to actually cook. ((Laughing)) The man realizes four years into hosting a cooking show on YouTube. All right. Water. Boom. Take the pasta off the heat when it’s a little looser than you want it on the plate. That way it’s gonna set up. You set that over here. See if this pasta’s done. Nope. Why did that happen? This pasta cooked, where’s the boxes? Bring five quarts of water to a rapid boil. Cook ten to twelve minutes? This cooked in four minutes. Maybe that’s why this was discounted at the Dollar Tree. They’re just like, oh, Giuseppe didn’t do math right in the factory. Is that racist, calling an Italian man Giuseppe? ((Laughing)) It’s just a common Italian word. Fine, uh, Alex. Pasta. Thing. I’m gonna do the same thing that I did to that. You’ll, here, I’ll put this back. You guys can see. I’m so sorry. Don’t do what I do. Well, yeah, do it. Have you guys ever deglazed a pan with hot dog water? No? Kind of works. And you just made like, you just made stock, you know. Alright, butter. Now this is also not butter, but I believe this is proper margarine from the Walmart, whereas this was Parkay, artificially flavored emulsified canola oil spread, which, again, I ain’t too mad about. The jar-lic at Walmart is a lot lighter color, which to me means less oxidization, which means less caramelization. Or at least Maillard browning, which means it’s probably gonna taste a little bit more pungent and fresher, but we shall see. Butter, garlic, going. Boom. Can’t cook left handed, so we’re switching. Toss that in there. If you ever get water in a pan, the good news is, it just comes out. And then you put more back in, and that’s cooking. God, I’m inspirational. Alright, butter, water, boom. Again, we’re kind of eyeballing this, because a lot of this is, is gonna be changed by the consistency of this parmesan cheese. Gonna add a fair amount of garlic powder. Get some black pep in there. I think white sauces and black pepper go really, really well together. I know in culinary school they teach you to use white pepper with a white sauce because no you cannot see a single speck of black. I got South African instead of French. If you’re in South African culinary school, they also probably tell you that. Oh, nice, thick, ground black pepper. South Africa’s a big hospitality industry, actually. I’m just saying, a lot of big resorts in Cape Town, and a lot of great, anywho. Get that nice and sloppy, we’re gonna bring this up to a little rapid simmer, and then we are going to toss, let’s, let it go. What do you want to talk about? Does anybody need advice in this room? How do you know you found the one? No. You never know if you found the one. There is no one. It’s, there’s 8 billion people in the world, it’s just, it’s all a game of proximity, convenience, and timing, right? If a butterfly flapped its wings, you probably wouldn’t have met your soulmate, you know? Especially on the app. Think about that. If you met your partner online dating, like, if you got distracted and scrolled through Instagram instead, you just probably never would have seen their profile. But that said, you could have ended up with somebody that you were terribly unhappy with. You could have also ended up with somebody else that you were happy with. Life is all random, and one day you die. But you find somebody that makes you happy every single day that you’re with them. And that’s enough, man. Don’t question your instincts. If you’re happy with someone, let yourself be happy and deserve it. Pasta’s done! All right, we’re getting the cream cheese in there. We’re gonna sauté this up. These are pretty much done. I’m gonna keep rehydrating this. Let me give it a little seasoning taste. Okay, found another spatula. Let’s see where we’re at. Let’s go Alfredo and pop the. Why not, man? Get some more of that. Get some more of that bad boy in there. It’s a little under salted because that does just taste like rice flour and buttermilk powder which is perfectly fine. We’re gonna season this up. We’re gonna pull our flatbreads which are absolutely burnt. Let’s taste this. They’re not burnt. I was doing a fib. ((Music)) Jordan Myrick from Sporked.com I’m so excited. Welcome to the Mythical Kitchen. Thanks. I just wanted to say that I really appreciate when you judge the food that I’ve made more than other people because you know what you’re talking about and it’s a very unique skill to provide, both exposition and expertise. That’s so sweet. Yeah, this is also coming off the backs of having Lucas judge our food, so. Oh, well. He is very handsome. Yeah. Not to dampen the compliment. Before you, we have a little bit of fettuccine Alfred, sorry, a little bit of fettuccin Alfred, breaking my own rules, and a vegetable flatbread from two different grocery stores. Your job is to, taste them and guess which one is from the more expensive grocery store and also tell us which one you like better. Okay. They both look very similar and they both look pretty good. The crust, did you make the crust? Are they, like, what’s the deal with the crust? That’s a great question. So the crust were both premade, precooked crusts. Okay. Neither Boboli. Okay, oh, okay. Both representative of the stores themselves. Okay. Oh, that’s nice. We did not hand roll the penne. I figured. It’s good. I love It’s kind of turned into one gelatinous blob. Yeah. It tastes very delicious. It’s extremely salty especially on the back end. My mouth is like continuing to salivate. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s peppery. It’s garlicky. I think it’s nice. I’m gonna taste it side by side. Oh, this one has stayed less gelatinous. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it is just an observation. Less salty, less flavorful. So the ingredients in both, butter, garlic, black pepper, we used cream cheese. But there’s an ingredient, I don’t want to give away the goose too much, but there’s a commonly added ingredient that generally costs a lot of money, that some places take weird little shortcuts on, that you would add to an Alfredo sauce, and it rhymes with Darmesan peas. Oh, okay. Let’s see the pizza. This pizza looks more expensive than that pizza. That’s what I’ll say. That’s a nice little crunch. Hate to, but, can I have a bite? Yeah, yeah. Thanks. I haven’t had any breakfast. That’s nice. I mean, I want to taste the sauce by itself. Okay, very acidic. It’s nice. One of the things though on this looks like a pickle. I’m assuming that’s not what it is, but I don’t know. I don’t know what that means. It’s a pepper? Green bell pepper. This pizza looks cheaper. The crust is thinner. But you know what I’ll tell you? Sometimes that could mean it’s more expensive. The mushrooms on this. Is there parmesan cheese on top of this? Why are some of these white? That is the parmesan cheese, yes. I will say another clue. One of these has Mexican blend cheese and the other has Fiesta blend. I didn’t want to put you on blast but I was wondering why both of these were made with, like shredded cheddar cheese and not any kind of shredded mozzarella. One of the stores did not have that. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think I’m ready. Both of these are pretty good. I’d eat either one of these again. For some reason, I’m like, the cheaper one might taste better with something like this. But, I’m gonna have to say this one is better, the vegetable quality seems better, so I’m gonna guess that this one is more expensive. Jordan, you are absolutely correct. Yay! Over here, coming in for a total of four portions, $12.42. This is from Walmart. Okay. Coming in at a total of $10.62 This is from Dollar Tree. Wow. Very, very similar costs overall. We found that dairy was super expensive at Dollar Tree. The main difference you’re tasting, the reason that’s a lot saltier, that’s the, the green parmesan cheese in the shaker bottle, which is a majority parmesan cheese. Sure. Dollar Tree’s version of parmesan cheese was a majority buttermilk powder and rice flour, other dairy ingredients that don’t have that salt. So that explains that. And then, like you said, the crust here, thicker. Crust here, thinner. Vegetables. Yeah, sauce more flavorful, but with the price difference not that big, I’m like, why would you not just go to Walmart? You know? This almost tasted, too, like the butter was nicer. The cream cheese in there, I see you got the Philadelphia cream cheese earrings. Shout out. You know, a lot of the rest of the world just calls cream cheese Philadelphia? I think that’s great. I love stuff like that. I love a Kleenex, I love a Tupperware. I love something where it’s just like the brand has become the product. It’s, I don’t know why, I think it’s funny. I think it’d be cool if people made dinner and they just call it making a Mythical Kitchen instead. I love that. I’ll start doing that. Jordan, thank you so much. And everybody out there, make sure you tell us what grocery stores you want to see on this show next. Tell us what dishes you want to see us make. Just give us compliments about ourselves. Please. We’ll see y’all next time. – [Josh] Pasta sauces are the new zodiac signs? Find out what pasta sauce you are at Sporked.com