product: Castleton Beef Enchilada & Tamale Meal

Castleton Beef Enchilada & Tamale Meal
purchased at: aldi's
price: 89 cents
net weight: 11 oz
calories: 390
daily price: $4.56


story: let me start out by saying that i love mexican food. let me also add that i know almost nothing about mexican food. most of my knowledge comes from taco bell, and that isn't necessarily even "mexican food". i mention this because this meal is called "beef enchilada & tamale meal". please note the description in the picture. i see three things in this picture: beans, rice, and two other things that function as the third part of the meal. i'll be up front and say that i have no idea what these things are. however, the remainder of the meal (excluding the rice and beans) is described as "chili sauce with beef, beef enchilada and tamale". first, the chili sauce contains zero visible beef. second, from what i can discern, the two oblong things are called two different things. i don't know what an "enchilada" or a "tamale" is, but according to this box and the good people at castleton foods, they're the exact same thing. i'm not mexican, but i'm assuming that this is somewhat offensive. it's probably tantamount to a frozen dinner containing two calzones being called "calzone & pizza meal with savory meat sauce (with zero visible meat)". but whatever, i'm ignorant here, and neither dictionary.com nor wikipedia cleared anything up. so fine, they're both tamales.

judgement: the first thing you should know about me is that my palette is not very discriminating. basically, if it's cheap and somewhat filling, i'll like it.
anyway, i started with the rice. even though i could physically see and touch the little pieces of flavoring that make this rice indeed "mexican style", if you were to feed me solid, rice-shaped and somehow warm pellets of water, i'm not sure that if blindfolded, i'd be able to tell the difference between them and this rice.
on to the beans. i generally do not like my refried beans to have the consistency of a non-creamed soup, but taste-wise, the beans weren't bad.
after the beans, i moved on to the main course: the enchales (i'm so clever). there was absolutely no difference in taste between the two things, further supporting my theory that castleton foods knows about as much of mexican cuisine as i do. further, they're pretty sure that america knows nothing about it, either. and i'm assuming they're right; after tacos and nachos, everything kind of blends together for us. enchiladas? tamales? enchritos? burritos? as far as castleton and most of america is concerned, they're all the same thing. and when covered with a bounty of meat-heavy "chili sauce", they're sure as hell going to all taste the same: OK. i was not floored with these things, but they weren't off-putting.

bottom line: considering the price, i'm willing to overlook the gritty sand-like substance that was left in my mouth after eating the tamaladas and give this meal my seal of approval.

next time: Asia Specialities Chicken Potstickers