This morning, I was watching a show on the Food Network about (surprise!) food. Specifically, it was a showcase of Southern restaurants, each offering a signature meat dish. During one restaurant's profile, a chef explained that their meat comes from a local farm where the animals are raised humanely and treated with respect. In reality, of course they are. While those cows and little lammies are alive, they may very well be allowed to scamper through a sun-dabbled meadow. They may be fed the highest quality corn and other vitamin-rich nutrients, but — when it comes down to it — they are still bashed between the eyes with a sledgehammer or have their jugular slit and eventually their flanks will wind up breaded, fired or seared on a plate alongside some house made mac and cheese and some chichi sauce. "Humanely-raised" is a euphemistic term that carnivores uses to make themselves feel better about eating domesticated animals.
That said, I have been a vegetarian for almost twenty years. Before I decided to eliminate meat from my diet, I ate a lot of meat. Especially hamburgers. I loved hamburgers. I ate hamburgers my mom made. I ate hamburgers in diners (gingerly picking off the tomatoes and slipping them on to my mom's plate). I ate hamburgers in fast-food restaurants (always careful to ensure that my burger was tomato-free. Why didn't I exercise the same precautions in diners? I don't know. Perhaps I was intimidated by the stone-faced waitresses that called me "hon."). To be honest, there were some kinds of meat I did not like. I didn't care for steak or roast beef, but boy! did I like hamburgers. In 2006, in a decision formed as a testament to my own integrity, I decided to — once and for all — cut meat out of my diet. (The stupid story about how and, more importantly, why I became a vegetarian can be found HERE.)
In full disclosure, I am not a vegan. Actually, in the eyes of some vegetarians, I'm not even a true vegetarian. I am a pescatarian, because I will eat fish. But, in keeping with the ultra-contradictory Josh Pincus brand, I don't eat all kinds of fish. I eat tuna and salmon and....that's about it. I like sushi, but only certain kinds of sushi. And I will not eat shellfish. I eat dairy products and eggs, so vegans still look at me with judgmental scorn (but so do a lot of people). As far as I'm concerned, I'm a vegetarian. So there.
Over the years, the folks who process food have been working diligently to create meatless versions of meat. These products are — inexplicably — directed at vegetarians. The food "powers that be" think that vegetarians secretly want to eat meat but, for ethical beliefs, they do not. Do all vegetarians harbor a dirty little secret about their desire to consume meat? Probably not. Do I? Maybe a little. My wife still eats meat and sometimes our dinners consist of two completely different meals. When we decide on "cold cuts" for dinner, Mrs P will purchase a package of turkey or corned beef from the kosher section of our local supermarket, while I opt for a vacuumed-sealed slab of slightly tan soy-based pseudo-turkey slices that don't taste anything remotely like turkey. They are good and I will eat them, but turkey aficionados (if that's a thing) would not be fooled... or amused.
Fake meat food technology experienced major advancements within the past several years. It seems a special gene or molecule or some other science-y thing has been isolated. This gene — if you will — is the element that makes meat taste like meat. It's been processed and synthesized and if I actually understood the procedure, I'd be a food researcher instead of a mediocre blogger. The result, after countless trial-and-error experimentation, is a plant-based, meatless burger that actually looks, cooks and tastes like meat. When Mrs. P and I were first married, she made dinner for my parents — her new in-laws. She made spaghetti and "meatballs." The "meatballs" were actually a tofu-based concoction so as to allow cheese and butter to be served in our kosher-observant home. (Google the laws of kashrut, for a wild read.) At the conclusion of the meal, my father — a butcher by trade — complemented my wife and pushed his plate away. The five or six "meatballs were neatly lined up around the edge of his sauce-stained, otherwise empty, plate. Today, however, I would defy any meat eater (even my father) to tell the difference between the new crop of "burgers" from Beyond Meat® and Impossible® and the Real McCow... er... McCoy.
The first time I tried Beyond Burgers® was at my brother-in-law's house (not that brother-in-law, the other one). My brother-in-law, a vegetarian for as long as I can remember, invited us for dinner and, when we arrived, he was frying up some very suspicious looking burgers in his kitchen. I asked him if he finally abandoned the vegetarian lifestyle for "the dark side." He laughed and handed me the opened package of Beyond Burgers®. Seeing those thick, juicy patties sizzling in the pan made me very leery. Biting into one on a Kaiser roll and accented with ketchup, mustard, pickles and such... well, I wasn't convinced that this wasn't meat. As a matter of fact, every time my wife makes Beyond Burgers®, I stare at those patties sizzling away and I say: "Those are soooooo meat."
We have purchased and eaten Beyond Burgers®. They are good. They are very good. They have introduced other plant-based, meat-free, meat-mimicking products, including breakfast sausages, meatballs and little cut-up nuggets that my wife has prepared in a version of the renowned Philly cheesesteak. Recently, after seeing this option on a few different cooking shows, I have requested a fried egg to be added as the crowning glory of my Beyond Burger®. I know people have been doing this for years on their hamburgers. It seemed interesting and I have always been an adventurous eater. In my meat-eating days, I have sampled alligator, conch and buffalo. I have eaten eggs in many forms, so why not add one to a burger. Oh my gosh! It was sloppily delicious, adding a new flavor combination to a tried and true favorite. (I have to stop watching the Food Network. I'm beginning to sound like them!) Now, I can't imagine having a burger without a fried egg.
As long as Beyond Burgers® exist and fried eggs are plentiful, I don't see myself lapsing back into the ranks of carnivores any time soon.
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