There are two schools of thought when it comes to transitioning from a highly carniverous lifestyle to vegetarianism. When you're craving the foods you love but can't eat - is it better to try and "re-create" them with vegetarian subsitutes, or just to try eating new foods entirely?
Creating vegetarian and vegan alternatives to meat and dairy products is a multi-billion dollar business. Even Walmart grocery stores carry a large stock of soy based meat subsitutes like Boca burgers, Tofurkey, etc. I've asked various people for advice on vegan eating and most of them have pushed me toward stuff like this.
My opinion is that the tastiness of the food varies but it will never satisfy any particular craving I might have for a food I would normally eat. I can easily pass a blind fast-food hamburger taste test, and to me burgers from McDonald's, Burger King, Jack in the Box, Carl's Jr, Wendys and so forth are unique in their own ways and anything but interchangable. If I'm craving a Ciabatta burger from JITB, a Whopper isn't going to satisfy me, so what hope hath a Boca Burger? I tend to judge vegan meat on its own merits - if it's tasty, great, but I don't expect it to make me stop hungering for Red Robin.
That said, for the sake of scientific discovery I set out to make the best damn vegan cheese burger I could.
Buying the patty is harder than you might think. First of all, the majority of vegetarian hamburger patties on the market are not vegan, and also not clearly labeled. Take this Morningstar farms product - you'd have to squint at the back of the box pretty hard to figure out that it contains egg and milk ingredients:
Luckily the Boca burger company is much better about labeling and also makes some vegan-burgers:
The patties themselves weren't too bad. I ate one by itself and could definitely tell it wasn't meat, but I think in a burger with lots of toppings and condiments, I could easily mistake it for a frozen beef patty from the store. I'd be interested to try their "Chik'n" products at some point, but that will have to wait since none of them are vegan.
I have to say that almost every fake meat product I've tried has tasted pretty decent. The one exception was a "Soyrizo" sausage that tasted like my elementary school's Sloppy Joes (not a good thing). I think I might be at fault there, because the cooking instructions on the packaging said to "remove casing and quick fry" and I just threw it in the microwave instead. I thought vegan meat would be a lot worse than it turned out to be - I ate some meatballs one night that easily could have passed for real meatballs in the right pasta dish. Therefore I was completely unprepared for the abysmal horror that is vegan cheese.
The packaging should have tipped me off that this was a product not fit for human consumption. Any product using the enticing slogan "It Melts!" should be treated with the utmost caution:
Zoë tells me that the primary qualifier of good vegan cheese is whether or not it melts. I'm OK with non-melting cheese, after trying this product I have a different standard of good vegan cheese: whether it needs to be handled by a HazMat team. Opening the package I was assaulted by a smell that reminded me of rotting animal carcasses. The smell alone should have prevented me from trying to eat the cheese, but I'm nothing if not intrepid when it comes to new food. I figured, hey, it can't taste worse than it smells. God, was I wrong.
Approximately 0.1 seconds after putting a piece of this cheese in my mouth I was dry heaving into the garbage disposal. Seconds later I was alternating rinses of peppermint schnapps and Listerine trying to get the taste out of my mouth. If I had a piece of steel wool handy I probably would have tried to scrub off my own taste buds. This was easily the foulest thing I've ever eaten, the taste of distilled human sorrow. In the world of vegan food, this cheese is Darfur. I can't believe they are allowed to put "Cheese Alternative" on the packaging, that's like selling a land mine and labeling it "Trampoline Alternative".
I wrapped my hands in garbage bags and threw the rest of the cheese away, along with anything that had touched it, including the refrigerator. The cheese is made by the Follow Your Heart company, based in Canoga Park, California, a city which I will never set food in again. I say that if your heart is telling you to make a product that unspeakably vile, maybe you shouldn't follow it. Maybe you should follow your head and make a product that doesn't make people pour bleach in their mouths to get rid of the taste.
Follow Your Heart, I have a message for you. Cheese was one of my favorite foods, and now I'm not sure I can ever eat it again, just on the off-chance that it might be your vegan cheese subsitute waiting in disguise. Thanks to your mad science, I can't even use the "melt test" to find out. You have ruined all cheese for me, and for that you are my eternal enemy. I will make you pay until my dying breath. Although, I have to say, your "Vegenaise" mayo subsitute was pretty damn good, and ended up really helping out my Boca Burger:
Overall Grades
Boca Burger: B
Vegan Gourmet Cheese: F---
Vegenaise: A-