What do the chefs at some leading restaurants feel about national (mass-marketed) food products? Often, they rely on special ingredients; but, they also seem to like some popular brands as well.

According to Jeff Gordiner, writing in the New York Times: “Ask around, and it’s rare that you’ll find a leading light in the culinary world who doesn’t have a semi-secret fondness for at least one of these supermarket stalwarts, whether Hellmann’s mayonnaise or Skippy peanut butter, Premium saltines or Oreos or Cheerios, American cheese, or generic ice-cream sandwiches. ‘There is something to be said about all those things,’ said Dan Kluger, the chef at ABC Kitchen, whose Web site proclaims that the New York restaurant is ‘passionately committed to offering the freshest organic and local ingredients possible.’ A lot of grocery-store staples ‘may not be organic,’ he added. ‘They may not be the best products in terms of our environment and GMOs [genetically-modified organisms] and all those kinds of things, but we kind of grew up with them, and you can’t help but revert back to them in a pinch.”

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Photo illustration by the New York Times