Last year, I finally made these vegetarian burgers and there was no looking back. They taste fantastic, every ingredient is recognizable and I can pronounce it (unlike the jibberish on those packages of soy-based ground ‘beef’), and I’ve found the mixture freezes well and makes a meatball that tricked a picky 6-year-old I know. One time while in my care last spring, I actually fed them to her as an experiment to see if she would notice. She didn’t. And I smiled to myself smugly.
The context was likely what made these seem like the real deal. I made sure there was lots of tomato sauce and cheese to cover the meatballs and the spaghetti. Context is everything, right? I used to eat these tofu hot dogs from street vendors in Toronto, and they really didn’t taste much different when they were smothered in about 7 toppings (Toronto hot dog vendors all easily have about 20 to choose from, including this corn relish I could never bring myself to taste.) Then again, texture can blow your cover, no matter how good the context. Those tofu dogs weren’t entirely convincing because they were sort of putty-ish. Maybe there’s a better description out there…I don’t know. Anyway, vegetarian meatballs from the store tend to have this spongey kind of texture, right? I can’t remember because it’s been a while. Thankfully these meatballs have a nice texture that’s slightly varied, thanks to the ground mixture of grains, vegetables, seeds, and nuts.
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