Why pretend it's meat?
A recipe for mushroom, fingerlings and goat's cheese melt
People who believe meat eating is a right - a rite, even - nevertheless tend to accept the evidence, even if they don’t follow it, that if we want a sustainable future we need to eat fewer beasts and more plants.
So, if we are expected to cut back on meat consumption, why is it that the food industry is engaged in providing us with replicas that do their level best to mimic it? Doing so keeps meat and its duplicates at the centre of the meal.
Despite our knowledge of the appalling methods used in certain countries to bring a steak to our plates, we will only begin to reduce our meat consumption if we reduce the importance of its role as the supposedly indisputable key to a satisfying meal.
We’re far more likely to cut down on animal meat if we stop trying with its plant-based alternatives to imitate its texture and colour and shape. And don’t name it after a known meat cut or dish then call it ‘Meatless’. Lose all meat links. A plant-based sausage isn’t a sausage. It is a new food product. It needs a new name. Call it a fryfull, a garsley, a slooce - whatever. Get your people onto imaginative branding.
Personally, if I can’t have a genuine burger, I don’t want a burger made of yellow pea pulp and ubiquitous meat-replacement-wheat-gluten seitan, everything flavoured with soy. I’d much rather have an honest yellow pea dhal. Heresy Alert: If you want my loyalty, I want the option of giving myself a rare special treat of a real burger and fries if once in a blue moon I crave it - which I absolutely will, possibly more often, if I’m not allowed one at all. Childish, eh?
Total elimination is part of the problem. Once something becomes banned, or even socially frowned upon, we develop a deep desire for it, whether it’s cigarettes or chocolate or one more cocktail or another bet on another horse.
Aside from the climate argument, there’s the farming question. Just in a British context, it is clear that eliminating cattle and dairy farming is going to increase our current food security challenge. A move away from all industrial animal farming, unsustainable fishing, intensively-grown plant monocultures and processed foods towards a more sustainable and equitable food system, will benefit the climate, the soil, wildlife, farmers, food security, and our own health and wellbeing.
As to the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from cattle on climate, it varies between countries. Measurements don’t just involve the farming process but include emissions from processing, packaging and transportation.
The UN estimates global greenhouse gas emissions from cattle make up more than 14% of all man-made greenhouse gases. Much depends on how the cows are raised. The impact on the environment of deforestation in Amazonia in aid of beef production is devastating. Equally, the negative impact on the environment of beef raised on grain in American feedlots is not comparable, asserts the UK’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, to gas emissions from British beef. The latter is fed predominantly on grass it crops freely in pastures, not chained to US troughs filled with grain and other feeds with high carbon footprints.
But if you don’t buy into the gas emissions debate, have you read that the world is running out of water? The shortage of it in Yemen, Lebanon, Iran, Bahrain, India, Bangladesh and more (yes) you probably know about. But Beijing? The pride of the super-proud People's Republic of China has run out of it. The Chinese Communist Party knows it should relocate the capital, closer to the water that currently is channelled from far distant sources, away from communities and farms that also desperately need it. So, reflect on the fact that to sustain one 2 year-old beef cow (the general age they are slaughtered) takes 24-36 litres/50-76 US pints of water. Every Single Day Of Its Life. A dairy cow in milk, three times the amount.
(Oh, and would you like a beer with that burger? To produce one litre/2 pints of beer takes on average 36 litres/76 pints of water. Hmmm. Tankard of IPA or barbecued pattie? Sigh. But let’s just focus on our appetite for beef before we’re obliged by increasingly regular droughts to consider how, who or what we elect to hydrate…)
We all know we can eat fabulously well without meat. A vast swathe of the globe traditionally has. Yotam Ottolenghi has demonstrated this over the course of eight cookbooks of recipes from different areas of the Middle East. Far Eastern nations have long taken a spare attitude towards meat. Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries use, in wok-cooked recipes, a mere 30g/1oz of meat, to provide flavour not bulk. Hindus who are vegetarian manage perfectly happily and healthily without meat. China and India are both countries where highly refined skills in cooking vegetables make meat an unnecessary ingredient.
None of those are nations striving to turn their vegetables into replica meat.
Still, across Europe, eaters are progressively understanding that meat as a treat is a healthier approach for animals, for us, for the planet. In 2021, European plant-based meat sales rose 19 percent to €2.4 billion. But the UK struggles to break 2 percent of the protein market share and the United States lags way behind with sales staying flat at $1.4 billion. Americans still consume enormous quantities of meat, almost as a civic duty as potent as the Constitution-endorsed pursuit of happiness: 65kg/144lbs per head per annum in 2017, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
Mushrooms are a familiar stand-in for meat. This recipe is best made with porcini or Portobello but I’ve become seduced by chestnut mushrooms which I had always believed to be no more than brown versions of the boring Paris button mushrooms but now discover have discernible personality, texture and flavour.
Serves 4
250 grams/8¾ ounces fingerling, Ratte, Yukon, or other waxy potatoes, scrubbed or peeled, quartered
500g/1lb porcini, Portobello or chestnut mushrooms
60ml/2 fl oz extra virgin oil, plus, for flavour, 2 tablespoons duck fat or extra-virgin olive oil
1 small shallot, peeled, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fine breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
½ lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 rounds of goat cheese, such as Crottin or Rocamadour
In a large pot, boil the potatoes till just cooked. Drain and reserve them.
Wipe the mushrooms clean with a damp paper towel. Remove their stems, slice off their bases, roughly chop those, and set them aside. Thickly slice each mushroom cap.
Heat the oil and the duck fat, if using, or the extra 2 tablespoons of oil, in a large pan, add the mushrooms and potatoes, and sauté them over medium heat for about 8 to 10 minutes, tossing frequently.
Add the chopped stems, shallot, and garlic, and toss continuously for another 2 to 3 minutes. Lower the heat, cover, and continue to cook, another 5 minutes. Remove the lid, and spoon off any remaining oil.
Add the breadcrumbs and two-thirds of the chopped parsley. Stir everything, and leave it over low heat so the breadcrumbs absorb the remaining juices. Squeeze the lemon juice over it, season, and stir.
Slice the goat cheese into 3 cm/1¼ in-thick rounds, lay these over the top of the mushrooms, and cover the pan with the lid. Continue to heat this for 2 to 3 minutes to allow the cheese to slump, melting just enough so it retains its shape. Sprinkle the remaining parsley over everything, and serve directly from the pan with warm crusty bread to mop up the juices and a green salad.
Animals have always been a significant factor in human agriculture.The practice of Regenerative Farming, which includes ruminants like cows, sheep, goats, and/or pigs actually captures carbon in the soil and encourages the growth of grass, which increases oxygen emission. Joel Salatin and Michael Pollan have written books about this. Farming requires fertilizer. If sources of manure from animals are eliminated, it encourages the use of chemical fertilizers (and pesticides), which have had devastating effects on water quality, or requires human waste be used, which, unless carefully composted first, can have significant public health implications. Any meatless diet that includes dairy products like cheese ignores the reality that in order to produce milk, female animals must be bred and give birth. Half of the newborns will be males. Only one male is needed to fertilize an entire herd, and increasingly the use of artificial insemination means that farmers can impregnate their animals by way of a sperm bank rather than keep an ill-tempered bull or boar. But the male babies born to the herd or flock are superfluous. The economy of animal husbandry requires that after a reasonable amount of growth, the males need to be culled. A friend of mine who raises goats and a few pigs every year, calls the process "going off to freezer camp." And finally, a fully "plant-based" or vegan diet is completely deficient in Vitamin B12, only available in dietary form in animal products like meat, dairy, and eggs. B12 deficiency can have devastating effects on the nervous system unless avoided by careful supplementation by injection or a type of pill that dissolves under the tongue. To me, the answer is not that everyone should become a vegan, but become a more conscious omnivore, eating less meat, and supporting the growth of Regenerative agriculture by eating meat from animals raised using that type of farming. There are many such options where I live now, and I can completely avoid the meat section at the supermarket.
Hi Julia, great piece, and totally agree about pretend meat (although depressing news to me that making beer uses so much water - yet another pleasure blunted by ethical concerns!). I think there is a mistake in the quantities or conversion re the amount of water used to make beer, as 36 litres is not 190 pints. Fond regards. Adam