From: mad4@ellis.uchicago.edu (Bill Maddex)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Meat analogues vs. Meat replacements, a gourmet perspective
Date: 27 Jan 93 01:49:25 GMT
Reply-To: mad4@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Pranksters for Peace

Sorry about the immodest subject line, but we all got feel good about ourselves
for something.  [I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonnit people like
me]  Anyway, I've spent a fair amount of time probing me wee little brain on
this matter, and here's what I came up with:


I stopped eating meat when my family was living in Takoma Pk, MD, the center
of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.  About half of all Adventists are vegs,
according to surveys, but, not surprisingly, in Takoma it's a lot more than
that.  Although their dietary restrictions derive from health concerns, SDAs
eat a lot of stuff like Vegalona and so on, which if you've ever stopped to
read the label, are loaded w/what look to be nasty industrial byproducts or
something.  Anyway, my mother, worried that her progeny would waste away or
something, bought tons of TVP turkey, sausage, etc, and worked it into all
kinds of stuff.  My mother's a good cook, though close minded-she lived in
fear of my becoming vegan, and in since I did has babbled about the shitty
quality of vegan desserts and told me I don't eat enough fat-but the TVP stuff
she made all tasted the same--rotten.  When we got back to Oregon things got
a lot better, though she made damn sure I was getting plenty of complete
protein--she still does this, and refuses to read the enormous volume of
literature I've given her on the subject.  GRRRR--beans in too many places
and all that.  It got a little better w/time, but she still would occasionally
buy some new brand of vege burger.  They all seemed a lot alike to me--boring.
For a while I worked @our big local soy foods plant, which gave me a new
perspective.  Having got past their hippie stage of soybeans in everything,
the people there actually new how to use tofu and tempeh in ways that weren't
just proteinizing stuff, and I got to appreciate their textures and flavors.
The I discovered seitan.  This happened one day while I was reading a cookbook
while smoking dope and listening to Ornette Coleman records backwards:-) :-)
:-) :-) :-)  Seriously though, at that time I'd completely given up on straight
meat replacements, w/the odd exception of throwing a White Wave burger on the
grill @barbeques.  Seitan really impressed me.  It'd been about ten years since
I'd had meat, so I can't say how close the analogy is, but I've seen people 
fooled by seitan steaks cooked in a shiitake intensive broth.  At the time I
was heavily into Indian cooking and didn't do much else, but I loved the whole
new set of dishes seitan was useful for.  

Wow, this has become another rambling Bill screed.  How does Ted stay focused?
Anyway, here's my feeling on the subject:  I _never_ use TVP, Worthington's,
Loma Linda, etc.  I have no desire to.  I love vegetables, and I don't feel
in any danger of running out of new ways to make them interesting.  I don't
use a hell of a lot of protein stuff, but I think seitan, tofu and tempeh can
all be used creatively to produce morally improved and, in the hands of a
great cook, gastronomically phenomenal analogues of haute cuisine and other
critter intensive food.  

For new vegs out there, and those of you worried about feeding your kids, my
advice is just be adventurous.  If you don't cook anything but Not Dogs for
six months after giving up flesh, get a cookbook.  There are more edible
plants than animals, so why the hell try to turn the former into the latter?

Billy Magic

"So little of what might happen does happen."
				Salvador Dali