Fun Midwestern Facts: Miracle Whip =/= Cool Whip
I’m showing off my old-school forum stylin’ today, with the three-character rendition of the “does not equal” sign. Or “unequal” sign, or whatever it is.
The point here being that the commercial products Miracle Whip and Cool Whip are not the same thing.
This doesn’t come up too often in most people’s lives, I suspect, but out here in the Midwest it is not unheard of for a “salad” to include either of those ingredients, especially at potlucks. (Some day I expect to see both at once.)
That said, they are not interchangeable, despite being virtually-imperishable, highly-artificial white spreads sold at places like Walmart and Target:
- Cool Whip is a sweetened imitation whipped cream. It used to be dairy-free, but they started adding actual cream and milk in 2010.
- Miracle Whip is a sweetened mayonnaise-like spread. It’s cheaper, lighter, and surprisingly actually healthier than actual mayonnaise.
So when your Jell-O salad recipe calls for Cool Whip, don’t substitute Miracle Whip.
I was actually a little touched when someone told me she’d done this. There’s a charming, naive logic to it — “Oh God, here I am, shopping for Cool Whip in a Wisconsin grocery store. I’ve gone native. I’ve never even seen a container of Cool Whip before. Miracle Whip, that’s the same stuff, right? Creamy, white, in the spreads aisle, stupid name with “Whip” in it. Off I go. Two more years until I can move back to the coast…”
It’s an easy mistake to make, I guess.
But please don’t.
May I propose a simple solution to my fellow coastie transplants? Just don’t eat that stuff. In my 9 years in the Midwest I have figured out that there are issues worth going native on (for instance pork products, politeness, biking everywhere because there is never a hill in your way, and an obsessive interest in the weather) and things (like creamy white processed spreads) it’s better to avoid. 6 more months…
I have never purchased either of these fine products , not would I ever confuse them, but I am toying with the idea of writing an erotic short story using both. Or maybe just Cool Whip. Yes, I can picture it now. a Cool Whip eating contest at the county fair. A menage a trois. And a Camaro.
That is, in fact, another situation where I would really not want Cool Whip confused with Miracle Whip. Ugh.