September 1, 2023
- DEEP FAKE DINING
Our culinary highlight this summer was our Faux of July: grilling Impossible Burgers, swilling non-alcoholic beer and inhaling strawberry shortcake, the biscuits made with cultured vegan butter, piled high with plant-based “heavy whipping cream,” sweetened with erythritol instead of cane sugar. All enjoyed on the deck of our ersatz Tuscan condo.
I haven’t always been this keen on imitation foods. I was once a passionate, admittedly privileged, omnivore, seeking authenticity in a range of earthly delights: Philippe’s French dip sandwiches and Rori’s organic ice cream in Los Angeles, panforte and Brunello di Montalcino in Italy, Peking duck in Beijing, cassoulet and Sancerre in France, paella in Spain. But that was when I loved to travel and lived to eat. Now, I hate getting on an airplane, if I can even afford it, and I eat to live. Now I’m equally concerned with my health and food chain ethics. Now my entertainment is the hunt for “real” food replacements. Instead of fake it ‘til you make it, my new mantra is make it ‘til you fake it.
I’m a faux foodie and this is a golden era for imposter foods. Following are some of my biggest changes and best finds.
- MEAT
When asked, my husband identifies us as cis-gender pescatarians. Meaning we’re attracted to each other and like to eat fish. Except for octopus. Too smart—tell any you know they’re safe with us.
The first time I tried to stop eating meat I was a sullen, sensitive teenager ordering lunch at San Francisco’s legendary Hippopotamus Hamburger joint. It was huge, circus themed, and overseen by a smiling cartoon hippo wagging a humongous, pink bowed behind. They served French, Mexican, Italian and Tahitian burgers, even a Sundae burger topped with ice cream, hot fudge, nuts, a cherry and a pickle. Suddenly repulsed by the thought of killing and consuming animals, I asked for a cheese burger, hold the burger. Next up, an angry “chef” came flying out of his kitchen threatening our waiter with a meat cleaver. Who dare ask him to hold the burger? It was my first and last meat free day for a good long while.
Fast forward decades. I’m a sullen, sensitive, middle-aged adult blithely consuming all kinds of meat until I’ve heard one horror story too many about Big Agriculture’s abuse of animals, and smelled one too many times those fetid feedlots along Interstate 5. When asked, I say I no longer eat “industrial raised protein.” I eat fish, wild caught. I roast salmon for Thanksgiving and call it Fish-giving. I made friends with tofu, turned it into a crumbled, neutral stuff that could pass for ground beef in chili, tacos and Bolognese sauce.
In 2013 I tested meat recipes like my mother’s barbecue spare ribs and osso bucco for a memoir. I sought humanely raised meat, replaced veal shanks in the osso bucco with buffalo shanks. The buffalo were raised by a lovely Northern California couple who sold at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market. I sensed they’d thanked each animal for its service before killing it. The shanks were good, but also huge, kind of tough and, ultimately, buffalo needed their shanks more than I did.
Then came my increasing awareness of global warming. Nearly 20 % of the greenhouse gases threatening the planet are said to come from some 90 billion domestic food animals. And here I’d been worrying about the 7 billion people! Eating a plant based diet was one way I could make a difference.
Then came Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger to satisfy any lingering cooked flesh longings. I thought it a mistake when I bit into my first plant-based Impossible Burger at a fast-food grill. It wasn’t. That convincing pink on the inside patty was made mostly of pea protein and delicious. It’s now our go to for beef.
- DAIRY
I avoided meat but enthusiastically indulged in dairy until my animal activist neighbor shared a video of a dairy calf freed from its farm and gamboling as playful as a puppy. Add to that the stories of confinement, cows kept in a constant state of pregnancy to produce milk, and fed growth hormones to maximize milk production. American milk from cows given Monsanto’s FDA approved growth hormones, rBGH and rBST, is banned in Europe. I switched to plant-based milks like oat, coconut, almond and soy. But I was loath to give up my beloved Reggiano Parmesano, rationalizing cows were treated better in Italy.
Then came news of plant-based cheeses made with an innovative new “library” of bacteria cultures for fermenting. Fermentation was key, as prior fake cheeses tried to achieve their flavors with additives. Top among the new cheese mongers is Miyoko’s Creamery, based in Petaluma. Advising “Milk plants, hug cows,” their convincing cultured butter and tangy cheeses are sold in stores like Erewhon and Whole Foods. Even Trader Joe’s now carries alternative cheeses, including a passable grated “parmesan,” but their sliced cheddar is very meh.
The greatest discovery, though, was plant based heavy whipping cream, generally available at major supermarkets. A favorite dessert was piling real whipped cream on strawberries. Now I indulge my favorite brand Silk, labeled as a Whipping Cream Alternative, for guilt free fun.
- SUGAR
When I was a child, C & H pure cane sugar from Hawaii meant love. Mad housewives like my mother offered it instead of real affection. I became addicted to sweets and started baking for myself, ramping it up for those challenging December holidays. By age 9, I was surviving the month on an army of ginger bread men, and as an adult, my ritual became an annual fruitcake blitz. Testing those sugary recipes for my memoir made me morose. Had all that pure cane love as a kid contributed to my misery back then? Thanks C & H.
Then December, 2019, I was diagnosed with a medical condition that was treated, in part, with a hospital nutritionist’s advice to cut out sugar. Entirely. I’d long heard how sugar caused inflammatory diseases like arthritis and cancer, but forgot all that as soon as the next cake or cookie came along. If it meant beating my condition, though, it was good bye sugar, hello sugar alcohols!
I celebrated my new diet with a box of See’s Candies nut clusters robed in sugar free “chocolate.” Sweetened with maltitol, they were good, but came with the warning it can cause gas, bloating, or even diarrhea, if enjoyed in excess. Trader Joe’s used to have well-priced maltitol sweetened chocolate bars, but unfortunately have stopped carrying them, while supermarkets now commonly sell bags of granular white erythritol, another sugar alcohol, to replace cane sugar in baking. I used it for a batch of my ancestral sugar cookies and they came out fine. My pioneer grandparents would have been proud.
But the fruitcake factory is closed. While my recipe was half dried and half candied fruits, the candied were soaked in high fructose corn syrup and deathly sweet. And while I know there must be a YouTube video on DIY fruit candying, I won’t be googling that any time soon.
The gastro intestinal concerns caused by sugar alcohols made me wonder about their long term health effects, even though there was no literature warning against them. Still, I started using plant derived Stevia instead. No gas! I carried packets in my purse to sweeten the world when out and about. Then, just recently, the World Health Organization, while warning against such alternative artificial sweeteners as sucralose and aspartame, also called out the heavily processed Stevia as a possible carcinogen. Sugar alcohols, it concluded, were preferable.
My new bestie for baking and other sweet needs is date sugar made from nutrient packed ground dates. Finally, there’s always fruit. Simple, delicious, fabulous fruit. Nectarines can be an anti-depressant. “It’s a helluva fruit,” as Mel Brooks’ 2,000 year old man would say.
- ALCOHOL
My hospital nutritionist pal also advised kicking alcohol to the curb. Plenty of recent literature now warns against even mild drinking, especially for women.
I once loved celebrating summer with sparkling French Rose, cozying up in winter with bold Italian reds, and sipping prosecco with my popcorn when they began selling it in movie theaters. It made even the worst Hollywood formula flick endurable.
But I said goodbye to all that. Mostly. My doctors assured an occasional glass was okay. Problem is, and this could be an aging concern, a single glass of wine with dinner can have me up for hours in the middle of the night, not to mention feeling hungover in the morning. I now treasure those mornings too much to sacrifice them to alcohol and look forward to my first cup of coffee the way I used to anticipate that evening glass of wine.
As with cheese, there’s a whole new crop of innovative non-alcoholic wines on the market, some fairly decent. Until you look at the sugar content. For those trying to avoid sugar, it’s alarming. But the winemakers say added sugar is how they achieve the delicious and real wine taste.
My current favorite non-alcoholic drink is German Bitburger beer, a refreshing, dry adult beverage with only 70 calories and no sugar in a bottle. It goes great with popcorn!
- CLEVER CONCLUSION
My make it until you fake it credo serves me well. Without sugar or alcohol, my emotions are on a more even keel; without meat and dairy, my ethical mind is at ease. Now when I go to Eataly, where I once haunted the wine department and drooled over the pastries and gelato, I take the money I’m saving to splurge on $30 a bottle vinegars. They lend a transcendent note to salads, roasted vegetables and tofu chili, adding plenty of real fun and flavor to my happily faux life.
