To be more specific, this column is about locally-available celebrity chef-endorsed products. Even more specific: edible items. I’m not talking about Giada‘s saucepans or Rachael Ray‘s cutlery. I don’t care what Alton Brown‘s favorite grape juice is, and nobody takes Guy Fieri seriously. I’m referring to when a well-known chef puts his or her stamp of approval on a culinary item, or better yet, his or her name and face.

I’ve been disappointed with some promotions in the past, but not since Rick Bayless shilled for Burger King have I been as disappointed as I was last week when I saw Marco Pierre White selling Knorr on TV.

For those not familiar with Knorr, it’s a shortcut product. Don’t want to whisk tempered egg yolks and lemon juice while drizzling in clarified butter for your Hollandaise sauce? Buy a packet of Knorr mix and just add water. Same goes for gravies, soups, demi-glace, etc. For those not familiar with Marco Pierre White, he trained Gordon Ramsay and made him cry. He was the youngest chef ever (at the time) to win three Michelin stars. He co-owned a restaurant with Michael Caine. One could regularly find Oliver Reed drunkenly holding court to the amusement of patrons at White’s restaurant, Harvey’s. He’s even been called the first celebrity chef. I highly recommend his memoir, “The Devil in the Kitchen,” and cookbook, “White Heat.”

But things went downhill as he tried to expand west; his old charge Ramsay had beat him to it. With two successful shows in the U.K., Ramsay came across the pond and became an even bigger hit here (though the quality was there, and the sensationalism here), and the mentor was eclipsed by the protege. White tried his own show here, “The Chopping Block” on NBC in 2008, but it was canceled after just three episodes.

The camera doesn’t like White anymore. Add in his sullen attitude and constant glower, and mainstream America, which doesn’t know him, has no reason to bite. So why would one of the once most highly-respected chefs in the world sell a product no self-respecting chef would ever use? Because he’s been selling Knorr overseas for years and no American chef would touch it.

In the commercial, he talks about the high pressure of his kitchen and the discerning clientele as he plops a lump of the jellied “Homestyle Stock” into the saucepan. Then he reveals that the “tough critics” are his kids. The line that had me giving him the benefit of the doubt was: “Tastes like stock made from scratch.”

So was Marco right? Here’s how it stood up next to two competing higher-end products (meaning a step up from canned or cubes):

We tasted three of these concentrates in recommended diluted-to-broth form, hot from demitasse cups.

Knorr Homestyle Stock $3.99 for four cups equaling 14 servings

Swanson Flavor Boost $3.99 for eight packets equaling eight servings

Better Than Bouillon $5.99 for an 8-ounce jar of paste containing 38 servings

We also did a blind taste test with two uneducated subjects after we tallied our scores. The results:

Knorr got the lowest scores all around. The jiggly gel melted slowly into the water, releasing green flecks of herb. The broth was more than anything described as “tinny,” “metallic,” “bitter” and was accused of a strong aftertaste. The consensus found the flavor in no way resembled a “scratch stock.”

Swanson, though certainly the worst value of the bunch, fared much better. The honey-like substance that drizzled from the mustard-packet-like pouch was darker in color, and indeed carried a richer, roasted chicken flavor. One taster commented: “Tastes like chicken.” Hardy har har, but true. Still not like real stock, but the metallic notes were more muted, less pronounced, less “Campbell’s-chicken-noodle-soupy.”

Better Than Bouillon exceeded everybody’s expectations. The dense teaspoon of dark paste needed to be agitated with a mini whisk to properly incorporate into the water, but it was the lasting sediment at the bottom of our cups that made it more true. Any aftertaste was soft, and one commenter likened its flavor to that of a thin gravy. The salt was there, but not as powerfully as the previous two. And in addition to being far superior tasting, it was by far the best value of the three.

We looked to the ingredients to see if there was a correlation, and of course there was.

Better than Bouillon’s first four ingredients go like this: Chicken meat and natural juices, salt, organic cane juice solids. Flavor Boost’s are: Chicken stock, chicken fat, salt, maltodextrin. Knorr’s: Water, salt, modified palm oil, autolyzed yeast extract. And it also includes the following scary ingredients, none of which are found in the previous bases: locust bean gum, thiamin hydrochloride, disodium phosphate; plus the ingredients I hold responsible for the bitter metallic edge: lactic acid, malic acid, ascorbic acid and succinic acid.

Why? I think Knorr’s wants their product while telling you it’s homestyle to taste canned, because it’s familiar. I don’t know that many consumers who frequently make their own stocks. Stocks generally have mirepoix involved, not just meat trimmings and bones.

I really wanted to trust Marco. I commend Better Than Bouillon (which contains onion) on being the best and most affordable in its category.

Check in next month to read about Wolfgang Puck vs. comparable soups, and why Mario Batali‘s marinara is truly worthy of his name.