The Frinklin and Fred Show

Review: Wendy's Vanilla Frosty

Today, I renew a long-dormant Mediocre Fred tradition, and offer my thoughts on the latest, greatest thing in fast food. Critics may sneer at my taste for fast food; truly, culinary culture has gone to the dogs, they think.

Well, I say pish tosh to the critics. No less a food expert than the late, great Julia Child publicly proclaimed her love of fast-food hamburgers. And Julia was right; I'd rather nosh on a $2 Quarter Pounder from Mickey D's than some $10 bleu-cheese-studded venison burger topped with apples and havarti. Certain things are best when they're basic. Hamburgers are one exmple. Reuben sandwiches are another. (I've never had a decent Rueben at any place with tablecloths.)

Or how about the root beer float? You can get one for about three bucks at A&W, and it's a slice of heaven. And making it with fancy micro-brewed root beer, or hand-churned vanilla-bean premium ice cream, doesn't make it better, just more expensive.

People who insist on upscale burgers, fries, and floats are the same kind of people who always use extra-virgin olive oil, whether they can taste it or not. (Real chefs use the lower-grade olive oils in things like pesto, where you can't taste it.) They might as well just pile their money in the middle of the kitchen and set it on fire.

So take that, food snobs. Hey, if we're talking steak, I'm willing to shell out to get quality goods. But if it's burger time, I'm pointing my car toward the nearest Golden Arches.

Now, with that out of the way, let's discuss the product.

I've always been frustrated with the Frosty. I always felt it was fairly snooty of Wendy's to insist that the Frosty was a breed apart from the pedestrian milkshakes and ice creams offered by other fast-food joints. To me, insisting that a Frosty is "above" shakes and ice creams is like slipping a Rolls Royce grille and a landau roof on a VW Beetle. But, true to their word, the Frosty has always maintained that nether-region of consistency between the two, neatly combining the worst of both worlds: runnier than soft-serve, so you can't scoop it onto a cone, and thicker than a milkshake, so you can't suck it through a straw.

Also, the Frosty was invented in 1969, and soldiered on for decades as Wendy's only dessert offering, with no attempts to expand or build on the line. If you go to Wendy's, and you want a dessert, you'll have a Frosty, or you'll get nothing and like it. This indicates one of two things: Either the Frosty is the pinnacle of the dessert universe and no improvements are possible, or Wendy's is a lazy and hidebound company that is afraid to venture even slightly beyond its comfort zone. For a fast-food chain that used to advertise with pride the fact that you could customize your burger, this Stalinist approach to dessert was particularly disheartening.

It's only in the last couple of years that Wendy's has bothered to tinker with the Frosty. Last year brought us the Fix n' Mix Frosty, a blatant rip-off of the McFlurry, which allowed Wendy's to charge their customers more for less Frosty, along with a little package of crushed Oreos or mini M&Ms. At least McDonald's mixes it for you, and gives you a larger dessert. (The F&M Frosty is, admittedly, pretty tasty, but did not compel me to rush back to Wendy's to get another.) Now, after 37 years, Wendy's has finally discovered a ground-shaking new frontier in the Frosty universe: vanilla.

That's right, all these years, you could get any Frosty flavor you wanted, as long as it was chocolate. Actually, that's overstating it. The standard Frosty flavor resembles real chocolate in the same way the vinyl seats in my parents' old '75 Nova resembled real leather. It might be better described as "Unconvincingly Chocolate," or "Quasi-Malt." It's worth noting that when the Top Secret Recipes guy was trying to duplicate the Frosty, he made it more like the real thing by making it less chocolatey. Even Wendy's admits it: the signs for the new product tell us that the Frosty is now available in vanilla or "original." I'm assuming they did this because chocolate threatened to sue for libel.

Now, it's hardly to Wendy's credit that it took them almost four decades to think of vanilla. Maybe we'll see strawberry by 2040. But, all things considered, I prefer vanilla to chocolate, so better late than never, I say.

My first bite of the new Vanilla Frosty melted on the tongue, in that inimitable Frosty style, and I tasted... nothing. Being an inveterate vanilla fan, I've long since grown tired of lazy flavor-makers who equate "vanilla" with "complete absence of flavor." I think it's the white color that throws them off. So I was all prepared to rip Wendy's a new one... but, wait, I started to taste the faint stirrings of a flavor. A rather weak flavor, sure, but a flavor. And a familiar one. But familiar how? I couldn't quite place it.

I took another bite. A McDonald's close? No, Wendy's vanilla is distinctly different from McDonald's vanilla. I still couldn't place the flavor, but I was sure I'd tasted it before. Another bite. Certainly it didn't resemble actual vanilla, but somehow... perhaps something from my childhood? I swished the virgin-white Frosty around my tongue and thought about days of yore.

It took a few more bite before I finally remembered. It tasted like the calcium supplements Mom gave me in grade school. They claimed to be "vanilla" too, and they were so much like the new Frosty that I wonder if the same fellow was responsible for both.

And here's the kicker: I liked those supplements. A lot. Even better than the Flintstones chewable vitamins that are the bedrock of the childhood experience. And I like the Vanilla Frosty, too. It's a pleasant little trip down Memory Lane for me. And even if it wasn't, I'd still prefer Wendy's kinda-vanilla to their kinda-chocolate. I think the vanilla would respond especially well to Fix 'n' Mix treatment, too. (A little more tinkering and bigger cups, and it will basically be a McFlurry, and there is no shame in that.) So it's thumbs up from this reviewer.

Now, if I could just convince them to make the Smokey Bacon Cheeseburger a permanent menu item...

Posted by Mediocre Fred at August 23, 2006 10:48 AM | TrackBack