Plant based food

[Amyw Profile]

The people having issues with fake meat products wasn’t particularly aimed at anyone here , it’s just something I’ve seen a lot from omnivores about how you almost can’t be a real vegetarian if you like meat substitutes.

Each to their own I think , I wouldn’t preach to anyone about eating meat unless they were genuinely interested and I feel sorry for especially vegans who get the “so what do you eat then , air?” Or similar vein of comments a lot from people

[Pepper Pig Profile]

How about this?

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/d ... -vegan-ham

[jeral Profile]

Pepper Pig, the vegan ham will get better. Heck, there's no profit to be made from items no-one likes. New innovations with mixed proteins have changed the landscape even in the last year.

The reasons for not eating animals and by-products are many. Suffice to say that people will, won't, have to (medical) or don't care either way whether they eat fakes.

A drawback of fakes for omnivores is that there is a built-in expectation of failure being not the original and best, though will be "gotten used to" as a norm over time.

I reckon veggie/vegan needs a whole different way of thinking that isn't just the proverbial meat and two veg without the meat and that's rarely achieved overnight, so fake meat has a transitional place for those who want it and might become mainstream for all as arable land becomes scarcer.

[scullion Profile]

guardian quote -

I receive permission to make a vegan dish for family Christmas, but only if I don’t attempt to make any part of it in any way resemble meat.

hmm - the 'loaf' that i usually make for christmas dinner is traditionally baked in a rabbit jelly mould - there's often a fight for the head - or bum. does that count?

[karadekoolaid Profile]

"how you almost can’t be a real vegetarian if you like meat substitutes.."
My personal issue is almost what is stated above, but not quite. If you are a vegetarian, and you prepare a dish of lentils which LOOK LIKE sausages, but the dish is vegetarian...why on earth would you want to call it a sausage? A sausage is ground meat and perhaps spices/herbs, pumped into a tube of sheep intestines. Why does a red bean patty have to be called a "Veggie Burger"? what´s wrong with calling it a patty, or a croquette? Why does TVP need to be called "Fake Meat"?
The Guardian article fell into the same trap. Vegan "HAM"? Why on earth describe it as "ham", when it is obviously not?
If vegetarians and vegans want to share their diets with others, that´s wonderfl. Personally, as a 97.5% vegetarian, i´d be delighted.
But please; come up with some "appetizing" names for your products, and then learn to sell them without using the crutch of the carnivores.

[Rainbow Profile]

Completely agree with you, KK.
As a vegetarian for over 40 years I don't understand the 'veggie burger', 'vegetarian sausages' thing either!!

[scullion Profile]

interesting - i take the names 'burger' and 'sausage' as descriptions of the shape rather than necessitating that they be made of meat, in the same way that a fish finger isn't a finger, a sausage dog - isn't, hot dogs, corn dogs etc, hopefully, don't contain dogs and fruit (and meat) cheeses don't contain cheese.

what´s wrong with calling it a patty, or a croquette?

but those are usually used for meat based things, too - i don't really understand the problem. when people read 'veggie burger' they know it's not made of meat and they know what shape it's going to be.
(and aren't croquettes usually coated in breadcrumbs?)

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I’m glad that a vegetarian has said that first, I agree that a burger is mainly a shape (the patty) but also, when you order one you expect it served in a certain way, it’s just a shorthand so you know what you are ordering

Burgers, sausages, croquette, kebabs are just ways of shaping and cooking food, you always have to specify which food.

[Amyw Profile]

It doesn’t really bother me what things are called . As Sue says it often refers to the shape rather than the product ,

I agree things like vegetarian ham are a bit of an oxymoron, but i think it’s more about the quality of the product rather than what it’s called

[MagicMarmite Profile]

I quite like that things are called burgers/sausages etc, it means I know what to expect.
I'm assuming vegan ham refers to the flavour?
As the years go by and veggie/vegan foods become more mainstream and popular I can see this changing, but for now I think it works.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

(KK´s twisted mind begins to work overtime)

So if we have Vegan ham, sausages and burgers...when can we expect Chicken carrots, Fish lettuce, Pork shoulder potatoes and Lamb broccoli?

[scullion Profile]

any time you want, what you call food in your own home is nothing to be ashamed of!
but somehow, i don't think those will catch on - they've tried to morph some veg to get kids to eat their greens but i don't think that's caught on either.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

Fish lettuce

I've mentioned somewhere else that there's a sachet of 'Chongqing fish sauerkraut' in the cupboard...

Is there not a long tradition of this sort of thing though?

Mock turtle, mock duck, nut cutlets, vegetable marrow?

I did try to make some sausagemeat balls look like sprouts for the nieces one Christmas, but the dye wasn't heat stable, so they looked like sausagemeat.

[Pepper Pig Profile]

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/d ... party-food

[Amyw Profile]

Interesting read . I think vegan desserts are a pretty good area nowadays as a lot of ingredients are pretty easy to sub .

I’m still pondering what exactly to have XmasDay so a Review if the mains was a good read . I had the vegan breakfast at Wetherspoon the other day . Really good , just Quorn sausages and minus the bacon and egg , but with all the other bits

[karadekoolaid Profile]

Cutting through all the hype of Vegan this, Vegan that, and the Grauniad´s love of anything which could vaguely be considered a minority flagship theme... I think it´s great that supermarkets are finally getting round to offering non-meat meals for the general public which are actually edible.(well, in most cases).
40 years ago I was a vegetarian in London and the supermarkets offered NOTHING for the days when I didn´t want to cook.
I blithely pronounce that the nut roasts, vegan cheesey stuff and other delights will only get better from now on.
I mean, for goodness sake, you should think yourselves lucky you don´t live in South America, where a veggie dinner might well include ham "because that´s not really meat".

[scullion Profile]

there must have been quite a few of us, from here, 'up the smoke' at the same time.
a friend and i made an activity of visiting every vegetarian restaurant, that we could find, on wednesday lunchtimes/afternoons. i think that lasted for less than a term. - there were tival sausages if you could find them - a kosher shop in golders green had them - which didn't make for a cheap, student meal when you added in the bus fare.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Tivalli sausages are still around and still horrible, they are used by those who keep kosher so very popular in Stamford Hill

I remember some relative of my ex visiting in 1976 and the only suitable vegetarian restaurant we could find to take her to was Indian (good), in the slightly faded dining room of a hotel on Great Russell Street. There were more informal, hippyish places of course but she wasn’t that sort of an aunt.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

To be fair, there are some pretty poor meat-based products too. Some burgers and sausages are a tribute to the food technologists' art if made down to a cost. One of the main reasons for me eating veggie breakfast options in hotels is that the bacon and sausages often aren't worth the calories, fat and processed meat intake.

[Amyw Profile]

Just signed up for Veganuary today . Will be interesting to see how I fare and will keep you all posted