There I was, darting through the aisles of Trader Joes, picking up grocery staples. I’m a bit behind in my pledge to enjoy (at least) 50 Treats during my fiftieth year, so I find a suitably stinky cheese and some gorgeous pea shoots.
As I head to the cashier, a green box catches my eye. It reads “Tofurky Roast & Gravy”. I pick up the product and examine it.
I am not a fan of Tofurky. Or roast. Or gravy. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was twelve. I ceased eating “anything with a face” thirty-eight years ago because I didn’t like it and it didn’t like me. I’m not a zealot. I simply prefer to prepare and eat tasty food that doesn’t happen to contain meat or fish.
“Don’t you crave bacon or steak or [fill in the blank]?” ask well-meaning friends.
No. I don’t. I’m not tempted by meat because I don’t find it palatable. Similarly, I’m not tempted by faux meats like ‘tofurky’ because, really, if I wanted to eat something that tasted like turkey, why wouldn’t I eat the real thing rather than some super-processed, manufactured facsimile?
You understand, then, my surprise.
“Why on earth am I standing in the middle of Trader Joes, holding a box of “Tofurky Roast & Gravy”?” I ask myself.
The picture on the box depicts coins of ‘tofurky’ wrapped around a rice mixture and coated in what appeared to be spoonfuls of phlegm.
“This looks disgusting.”
As if to prove my point, the description on the box reveals that it “includes a Tender, Juicy Stuffed Tofu Roast and Rich ‘Giblet’ Gravy”. I mean, really. Yuck.
The kicker? The jaunty blue logo that announced “Serves 5!”
I buy the box.
Hey, as part of my initiative to try (at least) 50 New Recipes during my fiftieth year, it makes sense. It is *new*. I haven’t tried anything like it before. Heck, I can’t imagine anything stranger.
At home, it is with a certain ghoulish delight that I slit the seal and open the box. It contains two objects -- a margarine-tub sized container of faux gravy plus the ‘tofurky’ -- a plastic wrapped, dense, flesh-coloured ovoid about five inches in diameter.
According to the instructions on the box, you take the faux roast out of its plastic casing, put it in a casserole dish, surround it with cut vegetables, douse it in a little sage baste and bake it. The gravy is to be warmed and served alongside the finished product. Easy peasy.
I remove the plastic casing from the ‘roast’. It resembles a fermented ostrich egg. Or a super-sized squeeze ball.
For the veg, I opt for a yam, a potato, a parnip, a carrot, a leek and a red onion. They looks attractive and colourful, nestled around the beige, plasticky orb at the center of the pan.
The “Tofurky Baste” is three tablespoons olive oil, one tablespoon soy sauce and one and a half teaspoons of ground sage. Simple and tasty and something I’d definitely make again.
As instructed, I pour half of the baste over the tofurky, cover it in foil and pop it in the oven.
An hour and fifteen minutes later, I remove the foil and pour the remainder of the baste on the ‘roast’.
It bakes for another fifteen minutes.
I check it. I can’t discern whether or not the faux roast is done. The vegetables are soft but not roasted.
I return the pan to the oven and bake it for five more minutes.
When the timer goes, I examine the elements of the dish. They look no different. I have no idea if these are the results intended by the manufacturer.
“Close enough,” I decide and turn my attention to the plastic container of faux gravy provided in the box.
I microwave it for a minute as instructed. When I try to stir it, I find it’s the consistency of mushroom soup concentrate, straight out of the can. It is, in a word, gelatinous.
“This can’t be right,” I think.
I nuke it for another minute and try stirring it again. Now it’s gelatinous AND lumpy.
“Well I’ve heard stories about gravy being lumpy -- that that’s always the challenge come holiday time -- so this must be on the right track,” I figure.
I stir and stir and stir. It looks the same: more like a contemporary art installation than something you’d actually want to ingest.
I taste it. It coats my palate in a creamy/chewy wallpaper paste flavour. Is this what gravy’s supposed to taste like? I have no idea.
I turn my attention back to the tofurky. The box instructs me to “use a serrated bread knife and shave off 1/8” to 1/4” thick pieces of the roast”, adding that “If you have leftovers, you’re all set for sandwiches, too!”
I do my best but, really, the tofurky is hot and squishy and round and stuffed with a mushy wild rice mixture. Not the easiest thing to carve with precision. I contemplate asking my intrepid spouse to do the honours momentarily -- but really, I don’t want to be touching this alien foodstuff so it would be unkind and unfair to make him do so.
It seems wrong to cut up the whole thing into slices -- won’t it dry out? But the box tells me to carve the whole thing, so I do.
When sliced, surrounded by the colourful veg, it actually looks rather appetizing. Homey and somewhat seasonal.
I plate a few slices and an assortment of vegetables. I start with the later -- familiar territory. They are in desperate need of seasoning. I season them, wondering why the box didn’t (a) call for, say, salt and pepper on the veg, or (b) double the baste recipe so the vegetables would have a bit more oomph. Were I to do this again, I’d do the latter, add pepper and also double the amount of vegetables in the pan.
Moment of truth: I try a small piece of the faux roast. The texture is a little rubbery. The flavour is ‘interesting’ in that it doesn’t really taste like anything. I’m hampered in my review in that I have no clue what it’s supposed to taste like -- what flavour the manufacturer was trying to replicate.
It doesn’t taste ‘bad’. It just takes like ‘something’. I can tell there is ‘something’ in my mouth -- I just don’t know what it is. The wild rice concoction in the interior is mushy but it tastes nice and, thankfully, is a flavour that is reminiscent of rice.
I try another half teaspoon of the godawful faux gravy. The flavour has not improved in the minutes it’s been out of the microwave.
Maybe it’s one of those things that is better in combination with other foods? I try a smidge on the faux roast. The combo is ‘better’ but it’s still repulsive. I toss the entire container and don’t even think of asking my husband to taste i.
Instead, I quiz him: what’s in gravy, typically? How is it made? What is it supposed to taste like?
He answers me, but now he’s curious about the alternative.
“What did they use?”
To my horror, he retrieves the box and starts reading, aloud, the ingredients in the faux gravy.
“Stop! Don’t say it out loud,” I plead him. “I don’t want to know what I just ingested.”
Instead, I whip up my own version of faux gravy. I fry up a few mushrooms and shallots, deglaze with marsala, add a roux and vegetable stock plus seasonings and reduce it down to ‘gravy’ consistency. Or at least, I aim for the consistency I’ve seen depicted in films and television as ‘gravy’. I adjust the seasonings et voila! In minutes, I have a savoury, earthy, sage-flecked sauce created out of actual food.
I try it on the faux roast and vegetables and it does a lovely job of harmonizing the flavours.
Good thing, too. When I go to refrigerate the sliced tofurky, I can see it’s already drying out. The instructions to slice up the whole thing were wrong. Thankfully, with my homemade gravy, I can repair the damage done by the erroneous directions.
So what’s my overall verdict? Would I make ‘tofurky roast’ again? Possibly. I could see preparing a modified version as a seasonal offering, if ever I need to feed four fellow vegetarians. The faux roast is harmless enough -- and it does look attractive when sliced up and surrounded by roasted vegetables. But I’d jazz up the veg, double the baste, make my own gravy and pair it with appropriate salads and side dishes. And a killer dessert.
It’s somewhat moot, however. I made this experimental meal as a way of exploring new foods -- of satisfying my goal to prepare (at least) 50 New Recipes during my fiftieth year. “Tofurky Roast & Gravy” was certainly novel from anything I’ve ever made before. Mission Accomplished.
What about you? What bizarre food products have you tried? How did they turn out for you?
