Mock Meat

“Mock meat” is a catch-all and, I admit, not terribly attractive name for a variety of products made variously from wheat gluten and soybeans that are flavored and fashioned to resemble meat. I came to know them well when I was living in Taiwan for about nine months as a very emotional vegetarian and would be regularly taken to Buddhist vegetarian restaurants by Chinese friends who didn’t know how else to feed me. What I ate there was simply wonderful, a world away from the heavy, poorly flavored gluten and soybean products one often finds sold in whole food stores (which are becoming increasingly better, however).