'Veggie' meat dishes

[Polar Bear]

I am puzzled as to why veggies are served up with substitute meat dishes with names so unimaginative as veggie cottage pie, veggie lasagne, veggie sausages, etc.   

It is really so difficult to find a proper name for these or what?    If I was a veggie I'd want my food not to have any association to meat at all even if it's only a name.

[hellymedic]

I suspect they are 'menu choices' by the unimaginative, who just substitute 'shepherdess pie' for shepherd's pie.
Decent veggie food doesn't work this way, as you'd see in any veggie restaurant.

[HeltorChasca]

There's also the patronising that goes on. Quorn Chicken Pieces. What's that about? When you are veggie, you don't even want the name associated with your grub. My 14 year old daughter is in her 3rd week and the bulldust that even she sees is mifftifieing...b

[fuaran]

Lasagne refers to the layers of pasta. You can put whatever you like in between them. A cottage pie is just a pie with mashed potato on top. It doesn't have to contain any meat.

If I was a veggie I'd want my food not to have any association to meat at all even if it's only a name.

Whereas most vegetarians don't really care what its called. Unless you are just trying to take offence for the sake of it.

[Kim]

People are vegetarian for all sorts of reasons.  Finding meat repulsive is only one of them.

[Andrij]

Pork sausages contain ... pork.
Venison sausages contain ... venison.
Vegetarian sausages contain ... 

Other items are just as bad, e.g. oils.  You have olive, sunflower, peanut, vegetable, and baby.


I'll eat just about anything, but one must draw the line somewhere!

[Kim]

Pork sausages contain ... pork.
Venison sausages contain ... venison.
Vegetarian sausages contain ... 

Linda McCartney, obviously.

[Andrij]

Pork sausages contain ... pork.
Venison sausages contain ... venison.
Vegetarian sausages contain ... 

Linda McCartney, obviously.

Good enough reason to never touch the things.

[Mr Larrington]

A chum was once at some formal industry bash, whereat the schedule stated "Vegetarians will be served separately".  She waited for hours, but her vegetarians never did appear.

[hellymedic]

The vegetarian option at many Big Dinners is frequently rather second rate, at best.
IANAV...

[Hot Flatus]

In most of India, vegetarian food is just called 'food'.

[hellymedic]

In most of India, vegetarian food is just called 'food'.

Exactly!

Apologetic food makes poor apologies.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I am puzzled as to why veggies are served up with substitute meat dishes with names so unimaginative as veggie cottage pie, veggie lasagne, veggie sausages, etc.   

It is really so difficult to find a proper name for these or what?    If I was a veggie I'd want my food not to have any association to meat at all even if it's only a name.

There's also the patronising that goes on. Quorn Chicken Pieces. What's that about? When you are veggie, you don't even want the name associated with your grub. My 14 year old daughter is in her 3rd week and the bulldust that even she sees is mifftifieing...b

I've been vegetarian for over 20 years. I don't eat quorn chicken pieces because I don't like them. I do really like quorn ham slices but they give me dodgy tummy. I sometimes make a veggie shepherd's pie using pulses instead of meat (which bobb will confirm is delicious). Some veggie sausages I like, some I don't. It doesn't bother me that they're called sausages. Does it bother meat eaters that Glamorgan sausages are called sausages even though they have no eyeballs or gristle in them?

[barakta]

Most vegetarians I know will eat anything as long as it is vegetarian and they don't otherwise dislike it. Sometimes food offered is boring or insufficient but that beats being fed meat by mistake or worse bullied for not being a meateater.

I know a few vegetarians who do not like the taste or texture of "fake meat" products, but in the last few years products have got a LOT more varied so some are less meat-like and some are more convincingly meat-like which meets a range of needs.

I was veggie for 10 years between 1993 and around 2003, I saw products improve hugely during that time. Some veggie fake-meats are quite nice and I'll eat them now if it doesn't deprive veggies of a meal.

[Martin]

I googled this thread just as my Quorn quarter pounder is heating up,

I'm very much a "failed" veggie as a lot of my diet now consists of Quorn versions of what I used to eat 30 years ago as meat. It's brought home to me that a lot of the appeal of meat based dishes was not the meat but what went with it; stir fries, curries, sarnies with mustard, burgers with blue cheese, chilli, proper sauce with meatballs, carrots broccoli and gravy; etc

IIRC the Dead Animal Pushers wanted to force the makers of Quorn to relabel it as Slime Mould and have it displayed on the packet as that's apparently what it is!

I do eat fish which is fortunate as it means I don't have to try fishless fingers....

[Jurek]

Totally!
My current abstention from red meat means that I miss mustard TO DEATH.
I have taken to putting it on my salad potatoes.
Dijon on Anya spuds.
Yum!

[Pingu]

We make a veggie pasta dish christened Spag Unbol.

[Mrs Pingu]

Totally!
My current abstention from red meat means that I miss mustard TO DEATH.
I have taken to putting it on my salad potatoes.
Dijon on Anya spuds.
Yum!

I gave up on Dijon on my spuds a couple of weeks ago and started back on the English mustard. Just this evening I thought it wasn't enough and maybe I need to find some good horseradish.  Or wasabi. 
Any sensible (ie potentially available) suggestions gratefully received...

[Clare]

We make a veggie pasta dish christened Spag Unbol.

Similarly we have chilli sin carne.

[ian]

Quorn isn't slime mould, it's a mycoprotein grown in vats. Sounds horrible, but hey, that's how we make beer. Of course, mycoprotein doesn't sound as nice. Before I fell off the veggie wagon, I found it useful, sometimes I liked a kind of meaty texture in chili and things. Yeah, yeah, proper vegetarians and all that.

For the record, slime moulds are cool. Look 'em up.

I like the veggie sausages partly because I avoid pigs as part of my not-eating-cute-animals policy and partly because they taste nice.

[Wombat]

Pigs, cute?    you haven't seen one lately, have you?  Ickle baby piglets may be cute, but an adult pig is quite likely to be a vicious evil bastard.

This is totally unconnected with the fact that I like eating them.

[ian]

Nope, all pigs is ace.

The only meat I eat these days is chicken. But you know, they're kind of like feathery kittens.

Mind you, I'm often inclined to put Bad Cat in the slow cooker. Though she's a bit of a duck-filled fattypus, so probably not good eating.

[Mr Larrington]

The Chinese apparently reckon that older cats make for the best eating, while the reverse is true for dog meat.

[ian]

I have a China Chicken Mime for those restaurants in China where no one speaks English and I fear any menu-derived ambiguity. It's got foot scratching and everything.

Despite all this, the last time I still managed to get bullfrog. Frogs do not have wings, not even in China.

[Mr Larrington]

Something tells me the Fiendish Communist Hordes of Beijing are not yet on wavelength to have their Thoughts Led, or at least not in that direction.