Mr S. will try anything. And depending on the look on his face I might try it too. I wouldn't say that I'm an adventurous eater - but I did try cow balls so I'm in sort of this no mans land of being able to reject stuff now.
My favorite hamburger joint (The Counter) is selling the Impossible burgers and I was hoping that Mr S. would say he was in to try it and he did.
I wouldn't say it exactly tastes like meat. It does kinda look like meat. But it has a textural back end that gives it away. It wasn't bad, but I like meat. So I don't really understand the need to make things taste "like" meat when presumably this is geared towards vegetarians. Because I don't understand why you would pay 3 bucks more for it. But, if you are curious - hunt down a Counter restaurant and you can try it too.
If you like this sort of thing on occasion, there's a place called Veggie Grill that got its start in El Lay.
ReplyDeleteThe mock chicken "winglets" give me insane indigestion, but the burgers were pretty good.
This stuff gets sold because many vegetarians used to eat meat, and many vegetarians still miss something with the protein and general mouth feel of meat. Vegans and raw foodie absurdists think this stuff is even more evil than meat itself, so it's definitely for a specific market segment.
I went vegetarian for a while in my late twenties and early thirties because I had a problem with incredibly high testosterone. After a few incidents in which some mouthy people wound up getting head-butted by me in various picturesque drinking establishments (from which I am still banned as far as I know), I figured I needed to chill out a bit. :-)
So here's a capsule review then.
The worst of it is Boca Burgers, followed by Garden Burgers. These are for masochists.
The best of it comes from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Every halfway decent vegetarian Chinese restaurant uses this stuff. TW/HK mock chicken nuggets are often indistinguishable from the real meat thing.
The stuff made from mycobacterium may be very bad for you. That's the stuff that gives me the most insane indigestion and even worse.
I don't know if Linda McCartney-branded stuff is still around, but if it is, it takes a considerable amount of skill to cook it so it isn't awful. That said, I could at least make the sausages into something that would fool people at breakfast, but the burgers were better left to broil to a slightly burnt crisp.
A lot of the stuff made with egg whites probably will leave you deficient in biotin if you eat it frequently enough.
I missed barbecue enough to switch back when I was older and my testosterone started to drop back into normal levels (for a twenty-five year old), but what actually forced the issue was curry wursts in Germany. Curry wursts and Turkish kebabs were my Euro junk food of choice, and they still are. :-)
huh. you are kinda an interesting guy. If BBQ can't bring you back nothing will.
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