The Thousands

A chicken is a chicken. There is no doubt. A pig is a pig, a fish a fish. For all you folk who study animal biology, I think you could probably verify this for the rest of us.

Sometimes, things pose as other things. I know about those owls that pose as branches, or fish that pose as stones. Clever. (Not to mention those humans that pose. That’s really genius.) But recently, I discovered a very large and full freezer in a local asian supermarket, full of edible posers: soy and mushroom based foods posing as meat and meat products. I am a vegetarian and not new to fake meats. But this freezer opened up my world of pretend-meatism and now I can’t shop without hitting this one in particular. There are ‘prawns,’ ‘chicken nuggets,’ ‘steaks,’ and ‘satay sticks,’ amongst others.

So is this weird? Why eat something a bit like meat if you’ve given up meat, you ask? Well, meat was pretty damn tasty once. It’s just that I don’t want to eat a chemical chicken who can hardly breathe its whole life and furthermore, can’t yell out, ‘farmer could you help me please, I’m sitting in my own shit, plus I feel nauseous.’

Secondly, pretending is fun, like pretending you’re a pirate when really you’re an arts student.

Finally, meat-posers are great because one can pretend one can afford meat again, and trick one’s ravenous-meat-eating housemates, just for kicks, while still getting one’s daily protein intake. Food that is in the shape of prawns but really isn’t and miraculously tastes like it but is half the price per bag? Amazing! Hit up your local asian grocers for the weirdest meat-poser you can find. Plus you can weird out your friends, and that’s what life is all about, right?