Fake meat

Cafe Society
1

I like eating dead animals (and occasionally live ones), but I’ve no problem with vegetarian fare. (Well, other than it often has more calories than meat.) The last time I went to Trader Joe’s I picked up some Sausage-less links and a soy chorizo.

The Sausage-less links reminded me of some cheap bangers I had in London, which were more bread than pig. They weren’t bad, actually. A bit dry, but maybe I can use more oil to cook them in. I much prefer deadpig sausages (or lamb corpse, for merguez), but I’ll have these again. Not for a while though. I’ve a pound each of Thüringer Rostbratwurst, merguez, and bangers in the freezer. And some bison patties and a couple of pounds of ground cow.

I’ve just had a soy chorizo and egg taco. (Soft corn tortillas.) As usual, the chorizo wasn’t spicy enough; but it was as spicy as the meat chorizo I can get at the local supermarket. The texture was fairly chorizo-like. As I discovered with my ground beef and soy pulp experiment, the more spices the better. I like chorizo, but I’m a little turned off by all of the fat; so I don’t eat it regularly. This is why I’m disappointed at the chorizo I can get up here. Chorizo is a ‘treat’, and I want it as good as what I had in L.A. Given that the local sausage isn’t all that great, and that the soy chorizo tastes pretty close, I’ll probably have the vegetarian version again. But as a meat-eater, I’ll probably eat real meat ones more often. A vegetarian friend found TJ’s soy chorizo ‘pretty good’.

I like Boca Burgers. I haven’t noticed them in stores up here, though. No way do they taste like cowburgers, but they taste good in a sandwich anyway. Gardenburgers are farther away from beefburgers; but again, they make tasty sandwiches.

Tofurkey Italian Sausages are pretty good. Usually I’m lazy and just heat them up and eat them in a bun. A better way to eat them is to slice them into rounds and cook them with some olive oil, onions, and bell peppers. Add spaghetti sauce and eat on a toasted French roll with a slice of provolone cheese. I saw other Tofurkey sausages once. I don’t remember if they were bratwurst or andouille. I think the latter. Since I was in Seattle I didn’t buy any, and I haven’t found them up here. I’d like to try them though.

I’ve tried ‘beef-less tips’ by Gardein and Trader Joe’s. I sauté some onions and add Litehouse Thai Peanut Sauce and eat them in a bowl. They’re tasty and filling, but I wish the texture was a little more firm. The texture is closer to chopped-and-formed chicken than to chunks of beef. Like the other things in this post, I’ll have them again. Maybe next time I’ll try them in s stroganoff.

Things I avoid are anything by Morningstar Farms. I’ve had their sausages and bacon, and I don’t like them.

When it comes to meatless ‘meat’ (or other meat-free recipe, for that matter), if I like it I’ll have no worries serving it to my vegetarian friends.

2

It’s funny how everyone has different tastes in such matters, as I like Morningstar Farms products overall the best, although Boca Burgers are a close second…

I LOATHE anything I have ever tried by Gardenburger, but I am pretty sure that they are still the leader in the market.

I havent tried Tofurkey brand anything before, but if you say they are worth checking out I will have to give them a shot one of these days.

3

The thing to remember about Gardenburgers is that they are not supposed to taste anything like meat. They’re more of a ‘fritter’ akin to a crab cake, only without the crab.

4

Same here. Morningstar would be my first go-to.

The only tofurkey product I’ve ever tried was the tofurkey. It was a big, wet, tasteless sponge and the vegetarian who served it threw it in the trash and vowed “never again.”

5

I don’t mind the Tofurkey so much, but it’s definitely got a “processed turkey roll” taste to it. The little dumplings that came with it are yummier.

The Boca brats are really good, and I say that as an expatriate Wisconsinite.

6

I have no need for meat substitutes that are designed to taste like meat. Morningstar chicken nuggets are fine and the sausages are OK. The burgers are worthless. The way to go for veggie burgers is Nature Burger. It’s not a fake meat patty, it’s just a patty. Fry it in oil and it makes a great burger.

7

I’m cool with Boca Burgers. The (Morningstar, I think) loose “ground” stuff is ok in sloppy Joes or a casserole.

I’ve been known to hydrate bulgar wheat with a bit of veggie (or if no vegetarians are coming to dinner, beef) broth and use it in casseroles or tacos.

My favorite, though, is to take a portabella mushroom cap, grill it and eat it on a bread like a burger. No pretenses of being meat, yet low carb and yummy.

Personally, I usually go for lean meat or tofu (not tried much Tofurkey anything) to avoid the carbs that are inheritant in most fake stuff. But, as a diabetic, I have to watch those more than most folks.

8

What dishes are you referring to? An alfredo, maybe? Whole fruits and vegetables are pretty much never going to have more calories than meat by volume, as far as I know, except maybe something like avocado (and I’m not sure about that and people don’t tend to plan meals around avocado anyway.) Also, it’s not as if calories are inherently bad.

On the meat substitute thing . . . I guess I just don’t get it. I don’t know why so many vegetarians are so fixated on making non-meat things resemble meat in look and taste. There’s a vegan restaurant around here that everyone has been raving about lately, and I was intrigued so I looked at their menu online, and pretty much every dish is centered around a faux-meat. It’s very WTF. If I’m going to eat vegetarian (which I tend to do for probably more than half my meals these days), I’m inherently OK with not having meat, or anything that resembles meat, on my plate. In fact, the substitutes often freak me out in the “uncanny valley” way.

Boca burgers are decent sometimes. They’re probably the best meat substitute I’ve had. One time I had these things . . . I think they were called Smart Dogs-- meatless hot dogs . . . I have never in my life had a more violent or immediate GETTHISOUTOFMYMOUTHIT’SNOTFOODIT’SNOTFOOD!!! reaction to anything I’ve eaten. Not even Bertie Botts. Not even Dave’s Insanity Sauce. Not even cilantro. It was almost a traumatic experience.

9

I don’t happen to have real chorizo today; but yeah, alfredo would be a vegetarian dish with more calories than a burger. The soy chorizo contains 140 kilocalories per 70 grams. The Hebrew National fat-free franks I have in the fridge are 40 kilocalories per 45 grams. So 2 Kc/g for the vegetarian vs. .8(repeating)/Kc for the beef. 85% lean ground beef has about 2 Kc/g. I tend not to buy direct vegetarian versions of meats I eat. The chorizo is an exception. The Sausage-less links are not vegetarian versions of the sausages I’d normally have for breakfast. They, and such things as Boca Burgers, Gardenburgers, etc. are supplements rather than replacements.

While a nice plate of steamed broccoli or asparagus will not have the calorie count of a rib-eye steak, many vegetarian dishes contain rice or noodles. A cup of rice has about 240 Calories. As much as I like rice, if I want to count intake I’d opt for a couple of H-N fat-free dogs.

I agree about the Smart Dogs.

10

The world’s leading diet problem is calorie deficiency, also known as starvation. We should all think of that once in a while, for some perspective.

A lot of people make the decision to go veg, or semi-veg, without really knowing how to cook (anything else). The same weakness, of course, is precisely what deters a lot of others from making the leap. (“What would I eat??”)

11

Oh, the Quorn stuff is pretty good, too.

I’m not squeamish about cooking with/eating animals. I just don’t like the amount of suffering involved and have some ethical issues with it. My husband is an omnivore. So for our family, meat-resembling products are fine. I do love the vegetable patties made by other companies, as well.

12

I hope this doesn’t turn into a Diet Thread or a But Animals Are So Much More Tasty Thread.

Just looking for opinions on fake meats.

13

Gotta recommend the Quorn chicken breasts then, and their patties too.

Oh, and when I would go camping, I’d always bring the Morningstar sausage links. Having sausage links for breakfast was part of camping when I was a kid, and these are decent replacements, though without the expected dose of grease.

14

How do you like the Field Roast products?

15

I remember long ago, maybe1970 or so, eating fairly often at a little vegetarian restaurant on Fourth Avenue in Vancouver. They served a great “burger” with a patty full of grains and nuts and things, and the usual burger toppings available.

I think I’ll have to start looking for some of these products and see what I can do. (Now to convince Zyada. She says that the patty above would be fine with a burger on top of it. ;-> )

16

There’s really no mystery why many vegetarians like eating meat analogs. There are three reasons I can think of off the top of my head:

  1. Culture. Food is intimately tied into our cultural identity and can recall deep feelings of love and caring from childhood. If you have wonderful memories, even subconscious, of grilling hamburgers out back with dad in the summers, then it’s no wonder that you want hamburgers as an adult.
  2. Nutrients. Meat is an excellent source of protein and iron and other nutrients, and if your body craves those nutrients and has traditionally gotten them via meat, it might interpret that as a craving for meat itself.
  3. Umami. Umami, or savory, is one of the five tastes along with sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, and it’s almost omnipresent in meat but somewhat rare in the plant kingdom. (Fungi are pretty loaded with umami, which is why brewer’s yeast and portobellos make good meaty flavors). Most people love a good dose of umami flavor, and the best meat substitutes have it in spades.

Okay, that said, here are my favorites:
-Ninth Street Bakery soysage. This one unfortunately no longer exists, but in the early nineties, I worked in Durham, NC, at the Ninth Street Bakery, and they made their own soysage there, loaded with sage and cayenne and other spices. It was freakin’ delicious; nearly every day my lunch was soysage with ground mustard, purple onions, and lettuce on a whole-wheat bun. God, I miss that flavor; it’s one of the only meat analogs that’s better than the real thing, IMO.
-Quorn chick’n nuggets. These are made from some freaky-ass fungus from the UK, and they improve on McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets by not having revolting threads of gristle running through them. Cook them in a toaster, dip them in a mix of mayonnaise and Sriracha, and they’re a perfect snack food. They’re the other better-than-the-real-thing analog IMO.
-Gimme Lean sausage. It’s got a great texture, but suffers from being bland and fat-free. I solve this by mixing in a lot of spices and olive oil, and it results in something reasonably tasty.
-Portobello caps, grilled. Not exactly a meat analog, but it’s so proteinaceous and umami that it almost counts. While I’m super-happy with my decision to go back to eating meat, and while I freakin’ love a rare hamburger cooked on a grill, I still love me a grillled portobello cap burger on occasion.

I’ve never found a bacon substitute worth the name (although pan-fried strips of marinated tempeh are pretty delicous): the commercial varieties are like wood pulp.

17

I will second Gimme Lean—It is VERY good after you punch it up a bit with some cajun dust, a dash of worcestershire and a bit of garlic powder.

My parents, who are in their 80’s and are the very definition of “meat and potatoes” people actually thought it was just regular pork sausage, and were very suprised to find out it was some of that weirdo fake-meat stuff…