Epicurean cats!

February 28, 2007 4:58 AM

What a menu: White meat chicken florentine in a delicate sauce with garden greens. Shredded white meat chicken in a savory broth with garden greens. White meat chicken and whipped egg soufflé with garden greens. Sound tasty? It's the new "Elegant Medleys" line of cat food from Fancy Feast, being pimped by none other than Mr. Restaurant himself, Rocco DiSpirito. So: a new way to show those kids in fur coats how much you love them, or just a bunch of overpriced hooey?
posted by shiu mai baby (70 comments total)

Ridiculous. My three cats thrive/d on Costco dry cat food. this wet food will make their shit stink worse than it already does. No thanks.
posted by pmbuko at 5:03 AM on February 28, 2007

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you capitalism!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:15 AM on February 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

This thread is nothing without IMG tags, 'cause everyone knows chicken with garden greens helps kitty grow BIG & STRONG.
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:16 AM on February 28, 2007

My three cats enjoy a balanced diet of certified-organic non-growth-hormoned-additive-and-range-free MICE.
From the neighborhood woodpile.
And pure rainwater.
posted by Dizzy at 5:17 AM on February 28, 2007

1) Kibble
2) For the screaming tabby, a little turkey or yoghurt once a day (I blame the vet who made us switch her to a different kibble, resulting in a hunger strike and subsequent bribery for that)
3) In the summer, they damn well hunt and kill their own grass and heave it up on the floor at their leisure. No Rocco required.
posted by maudlin at 5:28 AM on February 28, 2007

How much chicken has to be in a "chicken florentine" for cats? I see poultry (not specifically chicken) broth, liver (from what animal? maybe people?), meat by-products, and turkey listed as ingredients.
posted by pracowity at 5:31 AM on February 28, 2007

Hearing about this from Purina is like hearing about a "delicate cheese sauce served over pasta" from Kraft. Don't buy cat food that sounds yummy. Buy cat food that your vet recommends. We get Iams, dry and in a 20 lb bag. They seem to like it and they are all still alive after N years.
posted by DU at 5:32 AM on February 28, 2007

Our cats, unfortunately, LOVE this shit. They yell and scream for it every morning.
posted by ghastlyfop at 5:44 AM on February 28, 2007

no, your cat really wants a can of tuna ... not that she should have one all the time, but ...
posted by pyramid termite at 5:51 AM on February 28, 2007

If only these guys marketed to cats, instead of thier owners. You'd be seeing stuff like Live, slightly stunned, Hummingbird in a Jar!
Deliciously terrified Mouse in a Paper Sack!
Adrenelin-crazed Lizard trapped in a Small Box!
posted by maryh at 5:58 AM on February 28, 2007 [29 favorites]

Killing chickens to feed to cats.

Why not kill cats to feed to chickens?
posted by three blind mice at 6:00 AM on February 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

DiSpirito's career must be on the skids, really. I don't care if he had a TV show and several famous NYC restaurants, and is premiering this stuff at the Aspen Wine and Food Festival at an art gallery... it's effing CAT FOOD. It makes him look ridiculous.

Guess that whole "feeding humans" gig wasn't working out for him...
posted by pineapple at 6:00 AM on February 28, 2007

Why not kill cats to feed to chickens?

Why kill at all? If you examine the physiology of a cat, it is clearly designed to eat only carrots and chickpeas. Feed your cat hummus and tofu.
posted by DU at 6:03 AM on February 28, 2007

You don't need this crazy shit, but it's not a bad idea to avoid the cheaper foods that are full of bone ash and grain filler, you know.
posted by mkb at 6:07 AM on February 28, 2007

"delicate cheese sauce served over pasta" from Kraft.

Heh. Wouldn't that be "cheese food sauce" though?
posted by R. Mutt at 6:08 AM on February 28, 2007

Metafilter: With Garden Greens
posted by p3on at 6:10 AM on February 28, 2007

My cat enjoys a mineral-balanced prescription cat food that costs $4/ lb -- that's like getting a cup full of decent steak every night. Loves it. Won't eat table food, won't eat the other cat's food, nothing else but these expensive little pellets. Rocco's Shame brand catfood would a step down.
posted by boo_radley at 6:21 AM on February 28, 2007

If only these guys marketed to cats, instead of thier owners. You'd be seeing stuff like Live, slightly stunned, Hummingbird in a Jar!posted by maryh at 8:58 AM EST on February 28

At our house the old guy, Eustace, is teaching the new guy, Vasco de Gama, how to hunt by bringing stuff in the house. Yesterday Vasco was in the kitchen playing with a tiny baby lizard. The day before he was rolling around with a black bird that was bigger than himself in the laundry room. The day before that a sweet baby mouse that escaped and hid in our bathroom. Also on the menu: grasshoppers, moths, voles, snakes, frogs, rats, and squirrels. Our boys eat a well balanced diet, all the major food groups are represented: The Small, Helpless Rodent nutritional group, The Amphibian food group, The Feathered Snack, and The Fun-to-play-with Reptile group. Also, some kibble.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:21 AM on February 28, 2007

It seems that Rocco DiSpirito's old "Rocco's" buddy, financier/restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow has been busy too. The New Yorker has an article about how Chodrow spent $40,000 on a full page add attacking Frank Bruni, the NYTimes critic, after Chodrow's new restaruant Kobe Club received a zero star review .... be it a rubbery roasted pork chop, perhaps left too long in its brine; limp iceberg lettuce, propped up insufficiently by blue cheese; those mashed potatoes, gluey; or a crème brûlée in dire need of a crunchier hood.
posted by R. Mutt at 6:33 AM on February 28, 2007

I'm gonna go with overpriced hooey on this one.
posted by leapfrog at 6:43 AM on February 28, 2007

At our house the old guy, Eustace, is teaching the new guy, Vasco de Gama

Those are some great kitty names, Secret Life of Gravy.

As much as I loved my puss Saco I never truly missed her until the rodent population reasserted itself after her passing. Even her little gifts of mauled hummingbirds seemed forgivable once I understood how efficiently she'd been battling the mouse hordes. *sob*
posted by maryh at 6:44 AM on February 28, 2007

My cats seem to like whatever I`m eating. And I sure as hell ain`t eating Rocco diSpirito`s Chicken Florentine for Cats.
posted by noble_rot at 6:47 AM on February 28, 2007

No matter how much you spend and how good it sounds, I bet it still smells like a meaty fart when you open the can.
posted by rhymer at 6:49 AM on February 28, 2007 [3 favorites]

My three cats enjoy a balanced diet of certified-organic non-growth-hormoned-additive-and-range-free MICE.

Well, Dizzy, don't be so sure of that. People are always leaving poisons out to kill mice.

Seriously, I don't get the whole pet fetish thing. Why is it that some animals are considered as furry "children" and others it's perfectly OK to slaughter without remorse? They gas stray cats and dogs at the pound and pet owners go apeshit, but slaughtering chickens to make gourmet pet food seems perfectly OK with pet owners.
posted by three blind mice at 6:53 AM on February 28, 2007

Do Elegant Menus smell better while cooking than regular kibbles? I lived a half-mile from a Purina factory, and a change in the wind would fill the house with charnel house stench.

We would sit on the porch watching truck traffic and drinking hard liquor from paper bags, trying to identify the flavor of the night, as they changed their production line every couple days. The smell of cooking dog food, even from a distance, gets in your hair and leaves your skin feeling greasy. Cat food varies; lamb and chicken aren't so bad, but the fish smell still haunts my dreams.
posted by breezeway at 6:58 AM on February 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

I gave my cat a bowl of this stuff and she GOBBLED it up. So the next day I bought ten cans. She never took another bite. Just sniffed it and walked away. My cat's a dick.

Another weird thing about this food is that the next morning when I tried to clean it out of her bowl, it was GLUED to the bottom. I had to get a chisel to remove it. That can't be good for kitty's digestive track can it?
posted by vronsky at 7:03 AM on February 28, 2007

DiSpirito's career must be on the skids, really.

It is.
posted by bardic at 7:06 AM on February 28, 2007

My older cat, Chet, had a bad reaction to some medicine about a month ago and stopped eating entirely for almost 4 days. After trying to tempt him with everything in the house, at about 4 AM, I remembered that I had some free samples of this stuff that came in the giant kitty litter tubs. I figured what the hell, it was either that or he was probably going to die, and he went for it. It kick-started him to eating again and he's since back to normal.

I suppose it was like offering him tasty junk food. So now I keep a couple cans around... just in case. (Conveniently, Tidy Cat keeps giving them out free in the kitty litter.)
posted by idigress at 7:06 AM on February 28, 2007

My cat won't eat wet food. It is perfectly content with dry Costco cat food.

It also won't eat real food either (such as offering it a bit of salmon from my plate or chicken); except for popcorn, it likes popcorn.
posted by obfusciatrist at 7:09 AM on February 28, 2007

I sometimes wish metafilter had specific comment mods. "1 Favorite" doesn't do a comment proper justice sometimes. For example, this comment would get a +1 funny, and this one deserves something more like +10 fucking brilliant.
posted by tehloki at 7:12 AM on February 28, 2007

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you capitalism!"
posted by Brandon Blatcher

True.
But it's also capitalism heading for a correction.

My shallow personal theory is that a noticeable eruption of platinum pet food on the market comes just before a crash.

And I would have been prescient about this two days ago!
posted by Jody Tresidder at 7:17 AM on February 28, 2007

Our three cats eat only the cheapest store-brand dry food (and the occasional lizard) and they are happy and healthy according to their vet. They have never been allowed table-scraps or canned tuna, and now at 2 1/2 years old they are not even tempted by these things.

Is there any chance we could get the img tag back for cat threads only?
kthxbye
posted by Cookiebastard at 7:26 AM on February 28, 2007

My cat consistently vomits when I feed it wet food and turns its nose up at all but the cheapest (meow mix) grocery store kibble.
posted by smackwich at 7:38 AM on February 28, 2007

Why kill at all? If you examine the physiology of a cat, it is clearly designed to eat only carrots and chickpeas. Feed your cat hummus and tofu.

Admittedly, I'm terrible at recognizing sarcasm on MetaFilter, but just in case this was sincere: cats are carnivores and their systems are actually better suited to processing meat proteins.
posted by pineapple at 7:39 AM on February 28, 2007

Brandon Blatcher wrote "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you capitalism!"

A brief rant: Talking about how stupid and/or wasteful and/or pointless something is is bloody part of capitalism. Capitalism doesn't involve people offering to sell stuff in a frickin' vacuum. No one is proposing that the government outlaw "gourmet" cat food, no one is suggesting that we nationalize the cat food industry, no one is saying anything that is in any way, shape, or form anti-capitalistic.

The idea that its necessary to defend capitalism in a thread griping about a product is bloody annoying. Read Adam Smith, he doesn't say a single thing about how horrible it is to mock a product. Read Marx, he doesn't once recommend that the cause of Communism can be advanced by people mocking a product.

People discussing products, whether in a positive or negative way, not only is not anti-capitalist but it is an integral part of capitalism. Sheesh.
posted by sotonohito at 7:39 AM on February 28, 2007 [3 favorites]

I had a cat who liked brocolli. Prefered it to anything, including tuna -- I did a side-by-side once. So..., there is that.


I almost forgot...

Metafilter: Smells like a meaty fart when you open the can.

(And I second the img tag req for cat threads! Caturday is coming!!!)
posted by LordSludge at 7:41 AM on February 28, 2007

We got our two cats a can or two of this when it came out just to see how they responded. Unfortunately it gave them the worst smelly poops we had ever endured. Whatever is in this stuff is horrid and should be banned. No cats poop should smell that putrid.
posted by rubyeyo at 7:44 AM on February 28, 2007

The truly unfortunate thing is that it markets itself as "gourmet" when it's still made out of the same slightly-animal-related products as any grocery store cat food. By all means spend the extra money to get your animals food that's actually good for them! It won't come from Fancy Feast.
posted by Jeanne at 7:46 AM on February 28, 2007

Killing chickens to feed to cats.

Why not kill cats to feed to chickens?

When chickens learn how to use the litterbox and will snuggle my neck and purr in my ear in pure post-coital bliss, then you will have a point.
posted by vronsky at 8:10 AM on February 28, 2007

Wait a second. You mentioned the litterbox and your neck and your ear, but I'm not sure where the post-coital bit comes in.

On second thought, no explanation is necessary, especially if we get the IMG tags back.
posted by maudlin at 8:17 AM on February 28, 2007

My cats ate each others' vomit.

They are not, shall we say, connoisseurs.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 8:18 AM on February 28, 2007

So, the lesson here is: cats, apparently, are finicky creatures. Who knew.
posted by ninjew at 8:19 AM on February 28, 2007

Sign of the apocalypse #722 as far as I'm concerned.
posted by lalochezia at 8:27 AM on February 28, 2007

Mabeline and Amelie live on a diet of hairball busting Eukanuba. Mabeline will only eat cat food, full stop. Amelie would eat roast beef sandwiches with earwax as a condiment if we let her, but we don't.

Mostly I wanted to post a pic of my cats. Is that so wrong?
posted by sugarfish at 8:32 AM on February 28, 2007

I think I read somewhere that this is a sign that we're officially in the future. Who knew.
posted by tehloki at 8:44 AM on February 28, 2007

Seriously, I don't get the whole pet fetish thing. Why is it that some animals are considered as furry "children" and others it's perfectly OK to slaughter without remorse? They gas stray cats and dogs at the pound and pet owners go apeshit, but slaughtering chickens to make gourmet pet food seems perfectly OK with pet owners.

Oh. Jeez. Knock it off. If you don't get it you haven't been paying attention to the last 3000 years of western culture. Or you're an idiot.

Next time why not post your observations about airline food or Olvaltine.
posted by tkchrist at 8:53 AM on February 28, 2007

When chickens learn how to use the litterbox and will snuggle my neck and purr in my ear in pure post-coital bliss, then you will have a point.

OMFG! Vronsky FUCKS HIS CATS!!!!

Why not kill cats to feed to chickens?

I tried it. Turned my chickens in to real pussies.
posted by tkchrist at 8:56 AM on February 28, 2007

couch cat

ps - I'd hit it
posted by vronsky at 9:01 AM on February 28, 2007

Couch cat.

Ok. That really mad me laugh. Well done sir.
posted by tkchrist at 9:12 AM on February 28, 2007

I kinda thought everyone knew that Fancy Feast was basically kitty McDonald's: you feed it to the kids to shut them up, not because it's good or good for them. Why a "celebrity chef" (even one like Rocco) would be promoting cat food, though, is beyond me.

Apollo and Reese's Pieces only eat dry Science Diet, mostly because that's what the shelter had been feeding Apollo. Although Reesie is very interested in everything I eat and, in fact, once stole a piece of cheese off a cracker, her big brother won't so much as sniff "people food," or even canned cat food.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:13 AM on February 28, 2007

Our spoiled cats get one can of soft food per week. They split it. I figure if we eat pizza on Fridays, they can have a treat too. They go apeshit for the canned stuff. I don't feel bad giving it to them - they normally eat 1/2 cup each per day of Science Diet light formula, and their weekly treat is half a can of Science Diet light or adult soft food. No especially wet or stinky poos in the litterbox that we have noticed. Plus, they're both thinner and much more active on this diet than they were several years ago eating Purina Indoor.

We love our boys (they're littermates), so we treat them like we treat ourselves: Regular medical checkups, good food, the occasional treat, and lots of attention.

They in turn reward us with demands for tastes of our ice cream, Grape Nuts (for some reason they eat it like it's crack!), and lunchmeat. We occasionally give in with the understanding that a pea-sized dab of low-fat vanilla once or twice a week isn't going to make our kitties into fat blobs, but regularly allowing table scraps ad-lib will definitely do so.

Of course they are both obnoxious little shits until we give them their morning and evening food allotment. 5 AM - time to start scratching stuff until the people get up and feed us! Oh, boy - dry kibble again!
posted by caution live frogs at 9:19 AM on February 28, 2007

Last time I stayed at the Bel Age Hotel in LA, I couldn't stop laughing at the room service pet menu. The $16 "Bow Wow Sirloin of Beef" sounded quite tasty.

Slightly off topic, I'm curious to hear your opinions something. See, the weather's very cold in the Bay area right now and I feel surrounded by people who are putting these fancy coats and sweaters (AND SHOES!) on their small dogs. At the dog park, they're EVERYWHERE! Meanwhile, my puppy is shivering but I'm sorry I JUST CANNOT BUY DOG CLOTHES.

Am I being stubborn or are they being silly? I'm losing all sense of perspective on this dog clothing thing because I'm seeing it so much now. Up until now, I've always firmly thought that dog outfits were for the insane. The world is turning upside down, I'm so confused.

Must. Keep. My. Dog. Naked. Must. Keep. My. Dog. Naked.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:23 AM on February 28, 2007

miss lynster, vronsky. vronsky, miss lynster.
posted by maudlin at 9:40 AM on February 28, 2007

My fat greedy cats won't touch this shit. IN YOUR FACE ROCCO.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 9:46 AM on February 28, 2007

I won't feed our cats anything that has "meat by-products" listed as an ingredient. I'm not convinced that the horror stories I've read about it are true, but I'm not going to chance it.

Our cats get Avo or Dick Van Patten's canned food, which we refer to affectionately as "Dickmeat." This sometimes gets raised eyebrows at the pet store, as we tend to forget it's a private joke.
posted by malocchio at 10:31 AM on February 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

The thing that doubly kills me about the Fancy Feast crap is that the suggested daily ration is one can per three pounds of cat. So my cat is just shy of 15 pounds, which means, by their calculations, I should be feeding him nearly five -- FIVE! -- cans per day. They've got to be kidding.
posted by shiu mai baby at 11:26 AM on February 28, 2007

Spike and Giles eat dry food with the occasional, shared can of Trader Joe's pet tuna. They've tried to convince us to give them a can a day but we are Bad Parents and don't give in to their "5:00 means TUNA TIME!" routine. Spike also steals salad off unattended plates. My mom brought a can of this over and they wouldn't go near it.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 1:02 PM on February 28, 2007

My cat was just snarfing down some spinach linguine with red sauce the other evening. He came up and did that "I'ma sniff your plate" thing, and I called his bluff, and he called my bluff, and ate several noodles.

Also, the hell with Rocco.
posted by everichon at 1:04 PM on February 28, 2007

I'd just like to ask, what the hell is up with calling your pets "fur kids?" They aren't little humans! It's all a symptom of something-or-other. Honestly.
posted by lekvar at 1:42 PM on February 28, 2007

Elegant Medleys: It's got what cats need.
posted by electroboy at 1:48 PM on February 28, 2007

I don't call my cats fur-kids, but that's pretty much what it amounts to. My sense of the MeFi demographic is that this is, if not the norm, at least not unusal. So: *raspberry*
posted by everichon at 1:53 PM on February 28, 2007

It's What Cats Crave!
posted by lekvar at 1:53 PM on February 28, 2007

We call them "The Children" in a 110% sarcastic tone of voice, because they run the house much as human children tend to do... but the other term usually employed is "the furbeasts" or "the beasts."
posted by bitter-girl.com at 2:35 PM on February 28, 2007

miss lynster: call me insane, but I make dog sweaters for my pit bull. She's got short hair, sparse to the point of near-naked patches on her tummy, no undercoat, and very low body fat. When she's inside, she's in a constant competition with the cat to find the warmest places to snooze. And when the weather gets even slightly nippy, she's miserable going outside...while my other dog, a well-insulated double-coated furbomb of a Norwegian Elkhound, is thrilled by the cold and wants her to frolic in the snow with him for hours and hours. Putting her in a sweater makes her much less whiny about going out in cold weather; and when she's more comfortable, she's more willing to go outside and potty, and maybe romp with the other dog for a bit instead of sitting by the door looking mournful...so everybody's happier.

If your dog's shivering visibly...he's cold. And if he's a mostly indoor dog with a short, sparse coat, no wonder he's cold -- he's out in the biting wind naked. Some dogs are built for that sort of weather, but it doesn't sound like your little guy is one of them -- in which case a simple dog sweater would be perfectly functional, not a sign of owner insanity. Get something inexpensive and sturdy and see how he reacts -- if you sew, there are even some good dog coat patterns available that can be whipped up quite quickly and inexpensively. (Miss Bikkit's wardrobe all comes from a couple of different Kwik-Sew patterns...but I have to make her stuff cheaply enough to be semi-disposable as they eventually get ripped up from roughhousing with the other dog.)
posted by Smilla's Sense of Snark at 2:43 PM on February 28, 2007

What's next? Vegan Cats?
posted by queenofthegeeks at 5:19 PM on February 28, 2007

And for the small dog / cold kitten owners out there, I present this sweater pattern from RedLipstick. I knit one for my friend's bald chihuahua and tested it out on my cat (who's asthmatic and should probably have one of his own, poor thing).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:06 AM on March 1, 2007

Now I have some gour-met eatin' to look forward to when I'm collecting Social Security.

Thank you, FancyFeast.
posted by jason's_planet at 9:15 AM on March 1, 2007

queenofthegeeks: is this what you were looking for?
posted by FlyingMonkey at 11:12 AM on March 1, 2007

My cat had Fancy Feast once ... and promptly threw up on the carpet.
posted by exactfare at 4:25 PM on March 1, 2007

What's next? Vegan Cats?

Yes.
posted by pracowity at 10:56 PM on March 1, 2007