For me, palatability is about texture at least as much as taste. What I’ve found, unfortunately, is that even the best imitation meats, like beyond burgers, certain vegan sausages, and chick’n, are in the uncanny valley of meatlike textures. I agree with you that chicken is rather bland on its own, and if an imitation chicken could nail the texture, I would probably be fine crossing over. Red meat supplies much of its own flavor, and beyond burger and its similars have yet to really approach either the texture or flavor.
I think vegan sausage might be approachable, and have the added benefit that, AFAIK, vegan sausage has no need to contain carcinogenic nitrates. Also, since a lot of sausage is either chicken or pig based, which I believe have the worst factory farming, it would be nice to eliminate meat based sausage and replace it with a vegetarian/vegan alternative. I haven’t put much effort into locating the best vegan sausage, or heard much hype about it.
Surprised. Maybe worth giving it another try, looking longer for good imitations—given today’s wealth of really good ones (besides admittedly a ton of bad, assuming you really need them to imitate the original so much): I’ve made friends taste veg* burgers and chicken nuggets and they were rather surprised when I told them post-hoc that these had not been meat. I once had to double-check with the counter at the restaurant as I could not believe what I had in my plate was really not chicken. Maybe that speaks against the fine taste of me and some, but I really find it’s rather easily possible to find truly great textures too if one really cares.
Then, I personally don’t know any “uncanny valley” in that domain; make it a bit more or less fake feeling, it doesn’t really matter much to me, so maybe you really experience that very differently.
*I don’t know/remember whether vegan or vegetarian.
For me, palatability is about texture at least as much as taste. What I’ve found, unfortunately, is that even the best imitation meats, like beyond burgers, certain vegan sausages, and chick’n, are in the uncanny valley of meatlike textures. I agree with you that chicken is rather bland on its own, and if an imitation chicken could nail the texture, I would probably be fine crossing over. Red meat supplies much of its own flavor, and beyond burger and its similars have yet to really approach either the texture or flavor.
I think vegan sausage might be approachable, and have the added benefit that, AFAIK, vegan sausage has no need to contain carcinogenic nitrates. Also, since a lot of sausage is either chicken or pig based, which I believe have the worst factory farming, it would be nice to eliminate meat based sausage and replace it with a vegetarian/vegan alternative. I haven’t put much effort into locating the best vegan sausage, or heard much hype about it.
Surprised. Maybe worth giving it another try, looking longer for good imitations—given today’s wealth of really good ones (besides admittedly a ton of bad, assuming you really need them to imitate the original so much): I’ve made friends taste veg* burgers and chicken nuggets and they were rather surprised when I told them post-hoc that these had not been meat. I once had to double-check with the counter at the restaurant as I could not believe what I had in my plate was really not chicken. Maybe that speaks against the fine taste of me and some, but I really find it’s rather easily possible to find truly great textures too if one really cares.
Then, I personally don’t know any “uncanny valley” in that domain; make it a bit more or less fake feeling, it doesn’t really matter much to me, so maybe you really experience that very differently.
*I don’t know/remember whether vegan or vegetarian.