Ricotta Cheese is a PsyOp

I categorically refuse to believe anybody actually enjoys ricotta cheese. For those unfamiliar, this Italian cheese comes out of a mistaken way to boil milk in the Bronze age, and for some reason hundreds of years later, it’s still an ingredient people try to eat.

It’s tasteless, so all you really have to go off of is its texture, which is chewy, grainy, and offputting - it has the same consistency of curdled milk (because it is), except unlike curdled milk we’ve somehow been convinced we’re supposed to eat it.

Even worse, the food industry perpetuates the myth of ricotta’s supposed versatility, pushing it into every corner of the culinary world. They slip it into savory dishes, desserts, and even breakfast foods, pretending it’s some kind of magical ingredient that elevates the dish. In reality, it’s a parasite, latching onto truly delicious foods and dragging them down into its tasteless abyss. You’d think by now, we’d have collectively come to our senses, but no, the charade continues.

Here’s how you know ricotta is absolute garbage: no one ever eats it by itself. Go ahead, Google “Ricotta.” What do you find? Ricotta pancakes, Ricotta French toast, Ricotta pizza. We’re on par with zucchini here, folks—the only recipes using it are those that completely mask its “flavor.” There is no such thing as a “Ricotta-Forward” dish because ricotta is atrocious, and everyone knows it. I’m just the only one with the guts to say it out loud.

It’s not like we’re suffering from a global cheese shortage. There are thousands of varieties from every corner of the planet, all infinitely suprior, and yet - somehow - we’re still pushing this sludge onto unsuspecting consumers. How did we get here?

The truth is, Ricotta is an industrial byproduct from producing cheese people actually want to eat, and it’s been that way from the dawn of time. It’s a filler ingredient for the slop tray, and you are all lining up to eat it.

“Yum, I love lasagna!” you say, as you eat the cheese equivalent of swadust in dog food. “My favorite part is the white cheese that doesn’t absorb any of the flavor of the other ingredients, which manages to somehow float to the top of the worlds heaviest pasta and stay a perfect, pearlescent white”. You scorf down another mouthful and smile, blissfully unaware that ricotta is now a permanent resident in your cheeks, to be dug out with your tongue hours later.

I’m not convinced anyone even buys this stuff. It just materializes in your fridge, forcing you into a desperate Google search for recipes to get rid of it. “I’ll sneak it into the kids’ lunches,” you think, as you mix the cheese equivalent of plastic pellets into what would have otherwise been a perfectly good fruit salad.

Imagine, if you will, a world without ricotta. Envision lasagnas made with rich, flavorful cheeses that actually enhance the dish, instead of a pallid, grainy filler that ruins it. Picture desserts with textures that please the palate instead of making you question your life choices. Without ricotta, the culinary landscape would be brighter, richer, and far more satisfying.

It’s time to stop pretending. Let’s call a spade a spade: ricotta is the bottom-tier cheese that never should have seen the light of day. The food industry needs to stop forcing it on us, and we need to stop accepting it like culinary lemmings. The next time you see ricotta in a recipe, do yourself a favor and substitute it with something—anything—else. Ricotta is the bottom-tier cheese that never should have seen the light of day.