The widely predicted January vegan NPD explosion left all the major supermarkets with extensive ranges of chilled vegan and vegetarian products. Which for a life-long vegetarian such as me (albeit one with a massive cheese habit) must be a good thing, yes?
Well, not so far.
Very few of these new products have hit the spot, as far as I am concerned. I don’t understand meat analogues – you want to avoid meat but you want to eat something that tastes like meat ? The vegetable/bean/grain based burgers and meal centres seem much of a muchness with too-soft textures and not enough flavour. Honourable exception here are the venerable Dragonfly burgers which have been around almost as long as me. The ready meals I have tried share the same weaknesses as most mainstream ready meals – overcooked pasta, over-stabilised sauces and un-differentiated textures. We did try a Dairy Free Mac & “Cheese” from our local M&S which was extraordinarily convincing but I only managed to find it once so suspect it was either uneconomic or too fiddly to produce. And I can’t find marinated / pre-cooked tofu that gets anywhere near my own, very unsophisticated home-made version.
Maybe this myriad of processed vegan / plant-based convenience food will act as a gateway drug and bring in meat-eaters who then go on to eat something a bit more interesting. Or if other people have the same reaction as me it might send them back to steaks and burgers. My favourite vegan snack remains baked beans on toast, particularly if you pimp the beans with Chipotle paste or similar.
The nicest thing I ate last week was some unexpected Golden Beetroot from our Abel & Cole box which I parboiled before roasting in olive oil together with sliced courgettes, red peppers and chestnut mushrooms. It was easy to do and looked and tasted sensational. Which reinforces my belief that the best thing to do with vegetables is to cook them carefully and sympathetically in order to bring out their taste, texture and colour.
As Joanna Blythman has repeatedly reminded us in her columns for The Grocer you will eat a healthier diet if you cook food from scratch. Admittedly some skill and time is required, but you save money and don’t have to keep popping into supermarkets for short shelf-life vegan fripperies.
The new vegan lines I have tried appear to have aped the worst aspects of mainstream processed food rather than bring a plant-based vitality to the chiller. Maybe I have missed some really good things, and if so I would be most grateful for recommendations sent to simon@ofplus.com
So let’s forget about “The Vegan Food Revolution” and concentrate on cooking and eating more great vegetables!