faking it

One of my most traumatic eating moments ever came a few years ago, when a vegan friend lured me to a vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown by saying something like, "You have to try the fake kung pao chicken! It tastes just like the real thing!"

I'll spare you the unpleasant details, but let's just say that since then I've become exceedingly wary of meat substitutes—tofu is great but when it's tofu, not dressed up trying to be something else. (And don't even get me started on the abomination that is seitan, may it never cross my lips or the lips of anyone I care about again.)

Anyway, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick did a fake meat roundup way back in 2001, subjecting herself and her friends to all sorts of pork, beef and turkey substitutes. Some products did well (Lightlife's Steak Style Strips had testers saying things like "close to steak," "beefy," "wow I'm converted."), while others tested the limits of friendship (Worthington's Savory Slices was the worst of show, with comments like "tastes like eating suede," "something removed in a doctor show," "oh, my God," and "you've got to be kidding."). Lithwick closes her piece with this:

"One hates to be a reactionary, but sometimes absolute relativism is an evil unto itself. Plunging neck deep into the world of meat alternatives made it clear that the good Lord may have put cows and soybeans on different ends of his great classification system for good reason. Pigs rarely aspire to be asparagus. And wheat should not strive to be meat. With enough sauces, and marinades, and spices, a filament of gluten can pass for a strip of steak. But no one should be forced to eat three full courses of products that are all, as one of the artists among us observed, shaped either in circles or blobs. And no one should have to choke down stringy, tasteless, or chewy morsels just because they are coated in a sauce that might once have coated something at McDonald's. Call me a food fundamentalist, but the land in which meat and tofus collide is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

It's been four years since she wrote that, people. Four years! Has food science advanced any since then? Are there any new fake meat products that won't make dedicated carnivores like myself ill? Tell me about them, or share your tales of bad fake meat experiences in the comments.

Comments

[ginevra]

When I was vegan, I thought Vegetarian Paradise 2 in NYC was the greatest restaurant, like, ever! And now that I'm a full-fledged carnivore again, I wouldn't darken their doors if you paid me. Of course, when you haven't easten meat in a couple of years, it's easier to ignore the shoe-leather-in-soy-sauce aspect of fake meats.

I like my tofu, still, but especially with pork. ;)

[Pearl]

Nuts, seeds, lentils, grains, eggs and cheese and one doesn't need tofu, right? Although if it stands on its own, like silken tofu in a soup, it's beautiful, not masquerading to be anything but what it is.

[mipmup]

try the good ground by yves veggie: http://www.yvesveggie.com/products_details.php?product_id=12&pIdName=Ground%20Round .

[drooly]

i never pretend "its just like meat". i know better. though i do use the fake deli slices so i have somehting other than cheese and lettuce when i make a sandwich.

[kfan]

I really like the Morningstar Farms Steak Strips. It's been over a decade since I ate real meat so I can't tell you how realistic it is, but the flavor is interesting and not all rubbery and weird.

But it's definitely best to not think of fake meat as a substitute. It's not. It's something completely different, and coming to terms with that goes a long way towards acceptance.

[David]

"You have to try the fake kung pao chicken! It tastes just like the real thing!"

This was me! And VP2 was the restaurant (ginevra). But it's gone now.

[Pob]

"When I was vegan..."
How do you become un-vegan?
Suddenly it seems OK the way animals are treated for food?

Fake meats by Frys (particularly burgers, spicy burgers, schnitzels, sausages) are awesome. I feed them to all the non-vegans I know, and they love them, too.

In the UK, Redwoods do some lovely stuff, too - Fishless fingers are disturbingly realistic.