[Sca-cooks] meat "substitutes"

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> As I recall, the alternatives were generally not much better than the
> regular meat versions.  A hamburger may be high in fat and calories, but
> at least it had some nutritional value.  The fake-meat burgers were
> often also high in calorie, sometimes high in fat, and were generally
> nutritional voids.  That, fortunately, has also gotten *much* better.
> Ironically, the newer nothing-like-meat veggie burgers are now also
> taking off among the omnivore population - my relatives, even the
> borderline-rednecks, love them.  When they tasted like a bad attempt to
> simulate meat, they wouldn't think about touching them.

One problem I've had with recipes marketed as 'vegetarian main dishes' is
that they generally are something heavy but don't have the kick of
richness provided by animal fat, so they turn out to be poor imitations.
For instance, main dishes that rely on squash, tofu or legumes. You have
to be a little more creative to make these appetizing without the fat. A
collection of vegetable 'side dishes', some of them with egg, milk, butter
or cheese, goes over better.

Vegetarians also seem to go for food combinations that omnivores look at
askance-- I guess it is that factor of creative desperation. (It's like
low-fat cooking: you throw out half the possible ingredients and then
start shuffling together until you find something you can stand, or you
adapt conventional recipes and people KNOW there's something missing.) As
a result modern vegetarian cuisine is a distinct cuisine from modern
omnivore cuisine, and for many people it takes getting used to.

People are also turned off vegetarian dishes by being told that the reason
they don't like vegetarian (low-fat, low-salt, whatever) food is because
everything they eat is crap. :)

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net OR jenne at tulgey.browser.net OR jahb at lehigh.edu
"Are you finished? If you're finished, you'll have to put down the spoon."