Yo!

[cinghiale]

It's only coincidental that I'm from Philly and like Philadelphia Cream Cheese. I buy it here all the time, use it for schmearing on toasted pane sale with a bit of jam. It costs about € 2.50/tub (really not a bad import mark-up), and when I find it on sale, I stock up.

So it was that my eyes widened when at my local Standa this evening I checked the dairy case for Phill-Wee and found, replacing the standard item, the Yo!(.) There was an obvious insert beneath the plastic cover but over the foil wrap, so I figured it was a markeing gimmick. As I tossed two tubs into my basket, I thought "Thank you, Marketing Guy from Kraft Foods. That's a brilliant ad campaign." Yo, as anyone from Philly knows, is the (now fairly cross-cultural) standard greeting.

Get home, make myself a schmear, and -- lo and behold -- it's a "YO-gurt-fied" version of the perennial household favorite. "Scheit!", I thinks, "This is, like, sour cream cheese -- not bad, but not good either." Check the label, and sure enough, it's the Philly Cream Cheese version of yogurt. And it's sorely lacking.

I checked the Kraft Foods website, but "Yo!" gets only four unrelated hits, and three of those are recipes (from the Love to Hate city, undoubtedly).

Anyone out there tried it? If so, opinions?

[scase805]

I haven't tried it yet and based on your post, I don't know if I'm going to anytime soon!

I'm also from Philly - I've been in Balestrate, Sicily since September. I had no idea Philadelphia cream cheese was so popular here. Also, when I tell people where I'm from, they put out one hand, palm up, and make the spreading motion with their other hand. It never ceases to be hilarious!

Too bad that it doesn't really have anything to do with Philly anymore!