Foods You Think Are Real… But Aren't

TL;DR

Two home cooks blindly taste four real-vs-fake food pairs to reveal how cheaper imposters differ in flavor, texture, and ingredients.

Key Points

• 1.Elmlea double cream is a processed blend, not real cream. It combines 61% buttermilk (leftover from butter-making) with vegetable oil and water, lasting over double the shelf life of real cream but coating the mouth with oil and carrying far less garlic flavor.
• 2.Greek-style salad cheese is a cow's milk imitation of PDO feta. Real Epiros feta must be made in Greece from sheep or sheep-goat milk, is brinier, saltier, and more crumbly, and costs roughly £26.25/kg vs £4.25/kg for the imitation.
• 3.Reformed ham contains 77% pork plus 13+ additives versus 107% raw pork for real ham. Premier Deli cooked ham includes dextrose, stabilizers, glucose syrup, paprika, and turmeric, making it taste sweet; M&S Wiltshire ham uses only pork leg and curing salt.
• 4.Real ham costs over four times more than reformed ham. M&S Wiltshire roast ham runs ~£33/kg while the reformed Premier Deli product is ~£8/kg; the key visual tell is visible muscle structure vs. homogenous, sweet-smelling texture.
• 5.Safflower petals are sold as a visual saffron substitute but cannot replicate saffron's flavor. Low Hill Valley safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) delivers a similar yellow-orange hue but none of saffron's floral, earthy, or metallic depth.
• 6.Real saffron costs 25 times more than safflower — £7.50/gram vs 30p/gram. Belazu category-one Spanish saffron requires handpicking the stigmas of 150+ crocus flowers per gram from Castillo La Mancha, making it one of the world's most labor-intensive spices.
• 7.Jamie correctly identified all four imposters while Barry missed the ham round. Both contestants agreed that cheaper substitutes have valid uses — in pastry fillings, adding color to tea, or budget-friendly salads — but fall short in dishes where flavor is the centerpiece.