Mr. Speaker

It makes me sad every time, but summer is drawing to a close around these parts. Not that the cold days ahead won’t be filled with merriment and valid excuses not to do anything on the weekend, but winter does put a stop to festive times of the summer staple: a good old barbecue.

Of course, the communal nature of a BBQ means your not-products can be in danger of being infected by the fats and flavours of the not-so-not-products that surround them. This means you can enjoy the taste sensations enjoyed by the normal person, yet still take the moral high-ground of the vegetarian! Win-win!

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Imagine, just imagine, you discovered the most awesomely best thing in the known universe. And then, on that very same day, in that very same shop, you discovered the equally most awesome thing in the known universe. And THEN, imagine realising that if you combined those two most best things together, that the blinding goodness of mixed elements would multiply together to create a result of such intense and astonishing goodness as to render all other things in the known universe to be pretty crappy in comparison.

Well, I did that.

Life Imitates Meat. The second article in an in-depth series that looks at the fascinating world of meat, created in it’s own image.

Part Two: “Bake” - High Foods

I can’t help but to compare and contrast “Bake” with the first not-product review of the series Squid Chews. Both are chewy and cardboard-y meat-snack substitutes. Both have after-tastes of diet coke mixed with drain cleaner, and both leave you with a sense of disbelief that such a product could make it to market.

“Bake” however, really takes the concept of chewy fake meat products to a whole new level. It is a product in itself that refuses to tip its hat to any animal product before it. It carries a meat free moniker and makes no claim to be squid, pork, elephant, or “other” - In its own words it is simply a “series food for leisure time”.

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Life Imitates Meat. The first in an in-depth series that looks into the fascinating world of meat, created in it’s own image.

Part One: “Flavouring Rolled Squid”

Commodity: Flavouring Rolled Squid
Ingredients: texturized soy protein products
Additives: Sauce, Sugar, Flavour, Spice, less than 0.2% of sorbic acid.

That’s what the packaging proclaims, but I can assure you it delivers oh-so-much more. Flavouring Rolled Squid, or “Squid Chews” as they will be called here, presented themselves on the shelves of a local grocery shop next to the Panadol and flu tablets. As the Panadol were locked in an apparently unopenable cabinet, the Squid Chews were purchased in the hope that their textured soy protein powers might prove a suitable substitute for 500mg of Paracetamol.

And indeed, though the headache has long since subsided the Squid Chew’s unusual after-taste is still present. And I hazard to guess, won’t be going away anytime soon.

Summary
Taste : -7- Very sweet - Similar to the outside bits of Inari sushi, or cardboard with sugar.
Texture : -9- Beef jerky (at least, how I imagine beef jerky), or a bunch of small twigs - something to get your teeth into.
Similarity to the original : -?- Buggered if I know. Are there real Squid Chews?

Overall
Squid Chews, or Flavouring Rolled Squid, gets 8/10 on the TVP-o-Meter for it’s sheer chewiness coupled with it’s boldness to add so much sugar as to make it difficult to describe as savoury, but not so much as to be able to label it a desert.