Sésame Butter, Demi-Complète, puréed by La Vie Claire; reviewed by me.
Bonjour y’all, and welcome to another riveting review brought to you from Saintes, France. Today we’ll be tucking in to the world of gastronomy and French cuisine with a sinfully unsweet jar of La Vie Claire’s Purée de sésame demi-complète.
In a world where the white, middle-class man can live at large without fear of major, non-fiscal consequences for his actions, comes one big jar of repercussion.
It’s the original “slap-on-the-wrist” for your tongue;
it’s a Trojan horse filled with awful;
it’s La Vie Claire’s sesame butter, and it’s come to sucker punch you in your mouth.
Let’s really get into it, though. First off, I gotta say, it’s pretty bad. Eating this is definitely better than eating bark, but only because you don’t have to chew it first. That said, eating this butter is probably worse than taking a bath in it: it tastes like something that would be way better to rub on your skin, like soap or a good aftershave.
I originally bought this after deciding to go vegan and having no idea what to eat. I was lost, confused, and I didn’t know where to go or what to do… I’d traveled too far down the millennial rabbit hole without a lantern. I needed a light, a guide, and then there it was, in the back of the organic food co-op–my Virgil. Little did I know, Dante’s three part voyage to a more eco-friendly Paradise wasn’t all Musky space cars and community gardens, but it also involved the occasional unsuspecting bite of liquid mediocrity.
I do wonder, though, what did they actually have in mind for this product when they made it? Maybe it wasn’t made to be eaten, and this has all been one big misunderstanding. It’s all too possible that somebody simply moved this purée from the Health & Beauty section and misplaced it in the comestible section. Hmm, if we just have ourselves a look on the back of the jar… “Cette purée est préparée à partir de graines de sésame complet…” blah, blah, blah here’s a summary:
This is a purée composed of shelled and… well, I’d say de-shelled, but that’s not a word. The thing is, there’s already a word for de-shelled: it’s shelled. If you shell something, it no longer has a shell. Which means it’s shelled. But if something has a shell on it, then you can also call it shelled. I… I don’t know what to say anymore. The only word I want to use is shelled, a word now devoid of meaning, torn apart by the duality of its definition.
Anyway, it’s a purée made of half no shells and half shelly sesame seeds, mashed to bits, and thrown in a jar. Apparently, it’s the shelly seeds that give it its ~ strong ~ flavor, and I guess that means they really did intend for us to smear this in our mouth holes. Huh.
It’s not all bad news, though! If you swallow, or just hold it in your mouth for a long time, you’ll absorb a wide range of nutrients such as fiber, magnesium, and phosphorus (which I didn’t know I needed, but if it lights a match, I want it in my body!). Speaking of fire, this mash has never even heard of it: the only thing this purée has been subjected to is ritualistic grinding on the ol’ millstone. No heat, no pasteurization, no preservatives, no sterilization… I presume none of these precautions were taken because even fungi were like, “Oh, better not. I’ll stick with your unsealed bread loaves and warm milk.”
You know, it’s also possible this is all about food combinations or whatever. According to the back of the jar, you can use it in your vegetable pâtés or you can dilute it in water and… add it to your drinks? Seems a little out of left field, but alright, you can add it to your drinks. Actually, I’ve got some oat milk in the fridge—maybe their equal wave functions of awfulness will cancel out and I’ll be left with just, like, normal milk. One final suggestion is to simply spread it on toast, which is, in fact, the first thing I ever tried to do with it. What this does is effectively slow the chewing and consumption process down to increase time spent on your tongue, prolonging the contact between your wriggly taste worm and this wood paste. I would just not.
All in all, I give it nine snowflakes, because eating this product was a genuinely new and invigorating experience for me. Like being pinched in a dream or dunked with water mid-slumber, my eyes have been opened! For too long I’d lived coddled under the flanneled wing of Trader Joe and Whole Foods. Then, La Vie Claire came in to my life like a leather-clad Dom or The Contortionist and showed me what it truly meant to be metal.
I’m not saying this stuff is good; it isn’t. It’s definitely one of the worst things I’ve ever tasted and that’s including many inedible things I accidentally (or purposefully) put in my mouth as a kid. But I’m giving it nine snowflakes because it’s a new perspective for me and it’s just, I don’t know, authentic. It’s genuine—it’s got nothing but the raw ingredients. We, the consumer, asked for food that was untampered with, with no added sugars, no preservatives, no nothing, and only one champion of truth stepped out from the shadows and dared give us what we asked for. La Vie Claire was the only one who was able to not only call us out on our bullshit, but serve it right back to us with a giant ORGANIC sticker on it.
So, there you have it. Hope you enjoyed the review; feel free to drop a Comment, slap on a Like, or maybe even spread it around with a Share. Whatever’s in your practice today. Until next time, keep it viscous, y’all.
American Fables 