I also love meat. For said barbecue we made burgers with jerk sauce and home-made orange-chipotle mayo, and wrapped asparagus in prosciutto with fontina. I think there are a lot of good reasons to give up eating meat, but the comments posted above to the effect that vegetarians aren’t really missing anything and that omnivores can’t really taste how good fruits and vegetables actually are pretty silly. No, meat and dairy aren’t “better” than other foods, and I sure as hell don’t eat burgers and prosciutto-wrapped asparagus every day, but cutting entire food groups out of your diet doesn’t render you uniquely capable of experiencing the ~50% of what’s out there that you actually do cook with.

I’m with you for the most part, Mnemosyne. I enjoy things for what they are- I don’t want soy or whatever to try to pretend to be meat, because it isn’t. Give me a good blackbean burger that tastes like a blackbean burger, and I’m quite happy.

Not to mention that when omnivores tell you that something tastes “like chicken,” it inevitably means they’re trying to get you to taste something you would normally find repulsive, like rattlesnake or alligator. So “tastes just like” is wedded to “gross” in my mind.

I’ve never understood the claim that gater tastes like chicken. Chicken tastes like chicken. Gater and snake taste like gater and snake. Although, repulsive? I think not. I looove gater. Mmmmm.

I think vegans and vegetarians are finally starting to figure out that you need to tell people that what you want them to eat tastes good, not that it tastes “just like” meat, but you’re fighting against 20 years of vegetarians claiming that they can’t tell the difference between seitan and beef, which makes the rest of us wonder if they cauterized their taste buds or something.

Ha! Too right. A friend of mine kept trying to tell me that his fake meat products were just like meat, and that his fake cheese was just as good. I’m sorry, but no. Neither claim was true. Which isn’t to say that they’re *bad*, but if I’m going into it expecting it to be like something that it distinctly isn’t? I’m going to be put off. Just tell me what it *actually* is, and let me enjoy it or not.

Sepra, would you mind sharing this recipe? It sounds DIVINE.

Well, yeah. Nibbling on a raw block of tofu is like eating gelatinous glue. It just doesn’t taste all the much like anything worth eating until you cook it and add it to stuff.

Mmmm that’s actually the best way to enjoy tofu if you ask me. Cold and raw and sitting on plate by itself, preferably some high-quality untextured silken tofu. Maybe with a little tiny bit of soy sauce. But then, I was raised on the stuff, like a whole lot of other people in some parts of the world. Everyone has their own tastes of course, but it’s not like tofu is inherently nasty. I tend to think most reactions to tofu have to do with it being unfamiliar — not just the “this looks weird and I’m not sure” first-time thing, but it’s pretty different if you grew up with it as an ordinary staple. Of course, some people who did don’t like it either, but that’s a rather different way to arrive at a taste.

The trouble is, many people don’t like vegetables because they were forced to eat canned or factory-farmed, overcooked, underseasoned ones as children. Barbara and Camille Kingsolver point out that the reason so many kids hate vegetables is that the ones they eat taste bad. It’s worth it, if you can afford it, to spend a little more for locally-grown or at least organic fruits and veggies, and free-range chicken, grass-fed beef, etc.

BTW, Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” is FABULOUS and will make you think of food in a whole new way.

And diabetes is no joke. It’s a major cause of disability. Skinny people can get it too (I know a couple!). Mr “Diabetes is overdiagnosed” ought to visit a dialysis center some time.

Mnemosyne, have you tried inari? Nice briny flavor and no SOYSOYSOY texture at all.

I don’t think so, but Google was telling me that Inari is a Japanese goddess, so I couldn’t quite figure out if I’d had it or not. From the pictures, it looked sort of cutlet-y? I can deal with soy when it’s chopped up fine and mixed with other stuff, but I can’t eat it as a chunk.

My complaint about the Soy Pushers (and I live in Los Angeles, where we have some really militant vegans) is when they try to convince you to try it by saying it tastes “just like” something else, or that you won’t be able to tell the difference. I can tell the difference between sweeteners (Splenda, Nutrasweet, saccharine, HFCS, real sugar and stevia all have distinct tastes) so, trust me, I’m going to be able to tell the difference between a piece of chicken and a piece of soy.

Not to mention that when omnivores tell you that something tastes “like chicken,” it inevitably means they’re trying to get you to taste something you would normally find repulsive, like rattlesnake or alligator. So “tastes just like” is wedded to “gross” in my mind.

I’m an omnivore, but I eat veggie burgers sometimes. Not because they “taste like” a beef or turkey burger, but because I like the taste. (Especially black bean burgers with a sliced green chile on top — yum!) Morningstar Farms makes a really good Parmesan ranch fake chicken patty. It doesn’t taste like a chicken patty, but it tastes pretty good and is easy to cook, so I’ll have it for lunch.

I think vegans and vegetarians are finally starting to figure out that you need to tell people that what you want them to eat tastes good, not that it tastes “just like” meat, but you’re fighting against 20 years of vegetarians claiming that they can’t tell the difference between seitan and beef, which makes the rest of us wonder if they cauterized their taste buds or something.

Mnemosyne, have you tried inari? Nice briny flavor and no SOYSOYSOY texture at all.

My dog, FWIW, likes tofu. And tomatoes, and red peppers, and edamame. Odd little beast, but then, I’ve allowed her to beg, so she digs just about anything that I’m eating.

And I hate shellfish. But I don’t go around telling people who like oysters that shellfish represent the death of the pleasure principle in food, the way some of the guys in this article (and a lot of people like them) talk about meat v. tofu. I don’t know why it makes them feel so righteous to talk about other people’s diets that way. It gets tiresome.

(Not that you were doing this, denelian, but that statement reminded me of all the people who have.)

The only soy milk I’ve ever liked is the cappuccino-flavored Soy Slender, and I think that’s because the coffee flavor balances out the “chalky”. It also helps to think of it as a “soy beverage” rather than “soy milk”.