Surimi is a no-no because it’s not vegan. It’s made from fish. Mr. Crab may rejoice using it, but Mr. Pollack is not so happy.
Both of my daughters turned into ethical vegans in their early teens. They read ingredient lists like hawks and give me grief if I mess up.
Examples: I’m not vegan, but I’ve been making breakfast sausage biscuits with Morning Star Farms Veggie Breakfast Sausage Patties since before the girls were born because I like the taste of the patties (introduced to me by a former vegetarian girlfriend). So, I innocently made these tasty biscuits for my daughters…and the shit hit the fan. * “Dad, these patties have egg and milk in them, how dare you serve them to us!”*
The Brits are rather silly and didn’t do so well in the Revolutionary War, but they do make excellent gravy granules in the form of Bisto. I read the ingredient list of their beef gravy granules—vegan! Yay, I serve it to my kids and they love it. Another day, I wanted to make gravy for some godawful veggie-chick nuggets I fabricated, so I whipped up some Bisto Chicken Granule gravy. “*Hell’s bells, dad, this gravy has chicken in it! You can forget about us visiting you when we put you in the old folks home next year!” *Who knew? Bisto beef gravy is vegan; Bisto chicken gravy is not.
My youngest kid is particularly hard to cook for. Not only is she hard-core vegan (no meat, no dairy, no honey…), but she can’t stand 99% of vegetables!
Tofu and seitan (made from wheat) are good vegan products to work with, but lately I’ve been experimenting with tempeh (fermented soy). It has a nice firm texture and nutty flavor. It spices up well.
Tibby, for future gravy and other culinary delights, check out a product called “Better than Buillon.” They offer several versions which are Vegan!
I got so excited when I discovered this stuff, I gave it as Christmas presents to my friends! Honestly, a spoonful can make spaghetti sauce or chilimtaste like you cooked it all day!
~VOW
You have to watch out for this - Bisto, Bovril (not the same company though) and other products kept switching back between including vs excluding animal products in their formulations - they dropped the animal ingredients during the BSE scare, for example, but later reintroduced them when people complained. I had to stop buying Bovril chicken because they suddenly introduced dairy products into the recipe (my daughter is lactose intolerant) - check the label every time you buy.
I don’t know why, but “Tuno” strikes me as the funniest product name ever.
It’s understandable that those switching to vegan diets might look for things to fill certain “niches.” I’m a meat-eater myself, but I often get the black bean burger for lunch from a vegan place near my work. It fills the same niche as a regular burger - it’s savory and satisfying and a little messy. It doesn’t taste like beef, but provides the same sort of satisfaction. Most of their customers aren’t even vegan.* It’s just good food, and healthy too.
I can definitely see how a vegan would want something that fills the same niche as a tuna sandwich. If I became a vegan, I know I would because I sure do love tuna sandwiches. But trying to replicate an actual tuna sandwich seems like a fool’s errand. Maybe the mashed chickpea salad mentioned above could work. Maybe I’ll try it out.
*ETA - testing on meat-eaters is a good idea, even if it might seem unethical to some. The vegan place I go to judges recipes largely on whether non-vegans like the item. (Which is good business sense anyway. They couldn’t survive only on vegan customers. There aren’t enough of them.)
