[Sca-cooks] meat "substitutes"- Rant

[Philippa Alderton]

--- Deb <Deb at chicagojo.com> wrote:

> Those who are vegetarians, can and do eat vegetables
> and fruits and grains.
> However sometimes its nice to have your black beans
> mixed with starch and
> pressed into a patty and served on a toasted bun.
> (heaven forbid, a veggie
> burger. )

OK, that's cool. Personally, though, I like my beans
and rice- and for reasons we won't go into, I've eaten
a lot of non or minimal meat foods lately.

> They dont have have to have a meat substitute. Some
> newer vegetarians do
> appreciate having something  similar. I personally
> love VEggi
> Beceause Vegetarian means something different to a
> lot of people. Some
> people have been known to serve a vegetarian fish,
> or chicken, Some
> vegetarians wont eat honey or dairy. These terms
> describe what they have
> chosen to eat.

Yeah, I know- it's a personal choice, but the whole
gig sounds to me rather like the Protestant
revolution- "I'm a Christian-Lutheran-Methodist-
Baptist- Southern Baptist" as opposed to I'm a
Vegetarian- lacto-vegetarian - ovo-lacto vegetarian"
etc. I suppose by the same token, I'm an anti-
bellpepperian omnivorian. I guess I'm getting turned
off by the utter silliness of the self-important
labeling.

> Sounds like your friends lacked imagination. Kind of
> like the people who
> invite you over and feed you ground beef for 4 days
> straight.

Well, actually, it was summertime, and they were doing
the vegetarian gig before it was so popular- early
seventies. And, since I wouldn't eat ground beef
several days in a row (normally- sometime I might just
have a taste for it), I certainly wouldn't try to feed
it to someone else for several days in a row- or pork,
or chicken, or anything else.

> >OK, so a strict diet of salad is not my personal
> >choice, and can become very old very quickly, but
> if
> >YOU choose not to eat meat, why not respect your
> own
> >choice, and NOT EAT MEAT?

> And they are eating meat how? By eating protien
> thats formed in the shape of
> meat? By eating vegetable protien thats been spiced
> with mexican spices  and
> slipped into a cornmeal shell with veggies? (gasp! a
> veggie taco)

No- by eating imitation meat. I was watching that one
guy on Food Network, East Meets West, I think the show
was called, with interest, until he came up with what
he called, "Coq au Vin". which was tofu/bean curd
shaped and cooked like coq au vin. But why couldn't he
just have called it "Tofu (or better yet) Bean Curd au
Vin"? What is this necessity to pretend veggie protein
is meat? I like bean curd, and I'd certainly try it
cooked any possible way (minus, perhaps, either bell
peppers, or cow manure, no matter how fresh).

And, a veggie taco sounds good- I like veggies- I just
dislike "imitation meat".

> >And why must vegetabletarians try to "convert" the
> >rest of us, particularly by trying to tell us that
> "it
> >tastes just like (whatever)"?
>
> Absolutly, it never tastes like the meat product
> would, but some items are
> good enough to stand on their own as good food.
> (veggie burgers for example,
> that i still eat as a non vegetarian. )

Why call it a veggie burger? Why not just a veggie
patty?

> >Now, here in the US, it's unlawful to try to use
> the
> >laws to force a particular set of religious beliefs
> on
> >someone else- furthermore, it's "politically
> >incorrect" (Gadd, how I hate that phrase).
> >Why can't the vegetabletarians just eat what they
> want
> >to eat (or not eat) and leave the rest of us alone
> to
> >enjoy our own dinners,

> It sounds like you have some obviously rude friends
> who force their meals
> down your throat. I'm very sorry for you, maybe you
> need some new friends.

Well, no, it's more like they want me to "see the
light"- their light, their way.

> On the other hand, I've seen numereous times where a
> vegetarians been
> slipped a non veg item  "because they wont notice"
> "because it tastes
> better" or "because they need the protien"
> No my rice doesnt need to be cooked in chicken
> broth,  Thankyouverymuch.

And I certainly wouldn't do that to someone, at least
not deliberately (hate margerine, and would tend to
use butter, so I hafta watch that).

But, I choose to eat meat, and I can enjoy not eating
meat or other animal products just for the flavors of
the vegetable foods themselves. What I'm saying is
that the imitation meats are a self-defeating error of
good sense. In short, if you want to be a
vegetabletarian, enjoy your veggies and call a carrot
a carrot, or a bean curd a bean curd, not an imitation
chicken patty.

Phlip

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