Hitting the Fake Meat Hard
February 20, 2005 – 12:23 amFriday night, Ariele and I had Mike and Paul over to my place for dinner. Ariele made a stir fry with both tofu and fake beef. The fake beef was made by a company called Lightlife, and I have now had three of their products. In addition to the fake beef in the stir fry, I have had their pastrami and ham on sandwiches. I must admit that all three have resoundingly met with my seal of approval.
The fake beef in the stir fry did a very good job of mimicking the size and texture of steak strips in similar dishes. I pulled one such strip aside and had it independent of the vegetables, and it tasted just fine (quite good, in fact). Granted, the strips were by then immersed in the stir fry sauce, so I was not tasting the strip by itself. I would rank the sandwich fake meats slightly below the fake beef, only because of a slight after-taste each had. I put the fake meat between two slices of bread, with mustard and a pickle, and I had myself quite a lunch those two days. These are the meals that make going vegetarian very easy.
7 Responses to “Hitting the Fake Meat Hard”
Fake bacon came into the conversation today. In fact, they apparently have a full range of breakfast meat. YUM!
By UALboy on Feb 20, 2005 at 1:08 am
Well, once upon a time, I bought this ‘turkey bacon’. It was truly the suckiest thing I’ve ever eaten (that’s including the infamous Ram’s testicles). Talk about fake carnal pleasure.
By Kristján on Feb 20, 2005 at 2:57 am
Well, I must say I enjoyed the dinner greatly — thanks to you and to Ariele!
We’ve been seeing quite a lot of you guys lately, it’s been good!
By paul.za on Feb 20, 2005 at 4:10 am
The fake meat (or in the case of turkey bacon, unexpected meat) can definitely be disorienting, and I’ve had a couple of bad experiences that made me hesitant to try the Lightlife stuff. But, after a week and a half of no meat, I was getting desperate to reproduce the texture and taste of meat, and my standards might not be quite as high as they would be if I had tried this stuff in the middle of my normal diet. I think I still would have enjoyed them, but during Lent, they’ve saved me.
By jjk on Feb 20, 2005 at 11:59 am
BTW, your headline is rich in comedic material…must…resist
By Kristján on Feb 21, 2005 at 10:41 am
jeff, y’all should check out tvp(texturized vegetable protein). it is a great substitute for gound beef. you can use it in spaghetti sauce or chili, veggie chorizo, or sloppy jo’s. the texture is right on and the flavoring is up to you. let me know if you need any vegan recipes to blow your mind. -matthew
By Matthew on Feb 22, 2005 at 7:25 am
Hey Matt! Glad to see you around here. TVP, eh? Ariele and I bought some fake ground meat from Morningstar Farms, but we’ve not used it yet. I’m not sure if it’s TVP or not. I will definitely have to look into it. If I could find a good substitute like that to use in tacos, chili, lasagna, etc., I would be in really good shape. Thanks for the info. And yes, I’m always on the hunt for recipes, vegan or otherwise. Lay ‘em on me when you get a chance. I’ll have to post about them after I try them.
By jjk on Feb 22, 2005 at 7:14 pm