Supermarket Product Review: Curly’s Pulled Pork
I’m not sure about other cities and other radio stations, but on Boston’s WEEI Sports Radio, I’ve been hearing a lot of commercials for Curly’s pulled pork. The commercials first appeared a few months ago, when none other than Don Zimmer started by saying how much he loved the barbecue restaurants in Boston when he managed the Red Sox in the 1970s, and now you can get great barbecue by buying Curly’s products at the supermarket.
The Zimmer ads had a short shelf life, more recently replaced by new copy with a new, slicker-sounding announcer, who warns us not to be fooled by those other “shredded” barbecue products. He notes that Curly’s is always pulled, never shredded, implying that there’s some sort of quality advantage here.
A few nights ago I decided to give Curly’s a try, more out of curiosity than out of any belief that—pulled, shredded or otherwise—it would be any good.
The first thing I noticed on the label was that the pulled pork received second billing to the barbecue sauce. This wasn’t pulled pork, it was “barbecue sauce with hickory smoked pulled pork.” So my expectation dropped a few notches.
The second thing I noticed was that the picture of the pork on the package looked a lot better than the pork—no, make that barbecue sauce with pulled pork—inside the container.
I do give the product points for the sturdy plastic tub and the easy-to-follow instructions for both stove top and microwave reheating. Getting it cooked was a breeze.
The finished product was disappointing, even with my low expectation level. I did spot one piece of bark, which had a little chew to it, but the rest of the pork was as limp as Chef Boyardee spaghetti. And the sauce was just as mild. I didn’t taste any smoke.
The third thing I noticed was the nutritional information: 110 calories per serving, approximately nine servings in the 18-ounce tub. While the bowl might be more than enough for one person, I can’t see getting nine servings out of it. At 1,000 calories for the bowl, I decided it wasn’t worth it. After four bites, I was done.
[…] Gary Goldblatt wrote a fantastic post today on “Supermarket Product Review: Curly’s Pulled Pork”Here’s ONLY a quick extractThe commercials first appeared a few months ago, when none other than Don Zimmer started by saying how much he loved the barbecue restaurants in Boston when he managed the Red Sox in the 1970s, and now you can get great barbecue by … […]