Congratulations George! After my recent visit to China (my first since I went vegan) I was truly blown away by how convincing a lot of the tofu meat substitutes are. Even my meat-eating brother was surprised. I’m glad that you’re trying to bring this to Western audiences!
I will note that the UK e-book is not free, but I coughed up the £1.63 for it anyway ;)
Perhaps this isn’t the place to discuss this, but despite the excellent fake meats in China, they really haven’t taken off and meat consumption and production are at an all-time high. How much better do meat substitutes have to be for people to choose them over animal meat?
Thanks Jessica! I’m so with you on the Chinese alt protein scene… would love to see more folks promoting these foods abroad!
Ooh, thanks for catching the international e-book pricing—just messaged Amazon and they’ll correct that today or tomorrow.
I think this is a pretty open question. I’m more skeptical of plant-based meats than a lot of folks, largely because I think “narratives” matter more than “taste” for food selection. Narratives scale, whereas taste is extremely individualized. But dominant food narratives in China (and in the US!) ascribe a lot more value to things like local, natural, farm-to-table, cultural than the things that PBM are good at.
Huh. When I was in singapore I felt like I was getting a deeper view of chinese cuisine than any knowledge I had acquired in the states, but I still didn’t get into like game-changingly new ways of viewing tofu in particular.
That’s interesting. I wonder how Singapore compares to China for tofu?
My impression is that Singaporean food overlaps most with Southeastern (Fujian and Cantonese) Chinese cooking, but those two cuisines use fewer varieties than other regions of China. Granted, I’ve never been, so this could be very wrong! Does anyone have a better sense?
Congratulations George! After my recent visit to China (my first since I went vegan) I was truly blown away by how convincing a lot of the tofu meat substitutes are. Even my meat-eating brother was surprised. I’m glad that you’re trying to bring this to Western audiences!
I will note that the UK e-book is not free, but I coughed up the £1.63 for it anyway ;)
Perhaps this isn’t the place to discuss this, but despite the excellent fake meats in China, they really haven’t taken off and meat consumption and production are at an all-time high. How much better do meat substitutes have to be for people to choose them over animal meat?
Thanks Jessica! I’m so with you on the Chinese alt protein scene… would love to see more folks promoting these foods abroad!
Ooh, thanks for catching the international e-book pricing—just messaged Amazon and they’ll correct that today or tomorrow.
I think this is a pretty open question. I’m more skeptical of plant-based meats than a lot of folks, largely because I think “narratives” matter more than “taste” for food selection. Narratives scale, whereas taste is extremely individualized. But dominant food narratives in China (and in the US!) ascribe a lot more value to things like local, natural, farm-to-table, cultural than the things that PBM are good at.
Huh. When I was in singapore I felt like I was getting a deeper view of chinese cuisine than any knowledge I had acquired in the states, but I still didn’t get into like game-changingly new ways of viewing tofu in particular.
That’s interesting. I wonder how Singapore compares to China for tofu?
My impression is that Singaporean food overlaps most with Southeastern (Fujian and Cantonese) Chinese cooking, but those two cuisines use fewer varieties than other regions of China. Granted, I’ve never been, so this could be very wrong! Does anyone have a better sense?