Vegetarian BBQ Sauce Gizzards and other weirdness

[Kiz]

Today I returned to one of my favourite supermarkets. It's a four hour round trip there, so I haven't been for a while, but now that I work nearby I have time to shop. It's a huge Asian supermarket, and it has two entire sections of vegetarian meat replacements! (Frozen - 2 whole cabinets worth, and a few shelves of vacuum packed).

I bought an old favourite, chicken nuggets! They are awesome! Don't taste much like chicken but they are incredibly yummy. But in amongst the goodness there are some very strange things.

Vegetarian BBQ Sauce Gizzards. Um.... ok. Maybe, just maybe, I can see an ex-meat eater might crave gizzards, maybe, but with BBQ sauce? What the? Disturbily enough, they did look quite like entrails with BBQ sauce on them. (No, there were no tomato sauce flavoured vegetarian gizzards.)

The other one that got me was not so strange "Vegetarian Sliced Snow Flakes". I think they were meant to be "flake" fish (shark), but with a very odd translation. Man, there was so much choice! Vegan shark fins, vegetarian italian sausage, vegetarian squid & cuttlefish. I just got the "chicken" that I like, and the "beef" in the same brand, a couple of different flavours of agar agar and some vegetarian mushroom fluff. The mushroom fluff is really good!

Sooo... what's the strangest vegetarian product you've seen? Finally my mushroom fluff has been outclassed by BBQ sauce gizzards! But can anyone top that?

ETA: Oh... and should I go back and buy them and try them? They look revolting but the ingredients are vegan.

[Medesha]

Veggie...gizzards? O.o

I've never seen anything close to that strange.

[eri02]

i kinda do miss fried gizzards. *teehee* but bbq sauce? um, no. so what's mushroom fluff and what do you do with it?

[Eva-bo-beva]

I bought vegan field snails at an asian market almost a year ago...they're still in my freezer. haha.

[gracie2006]

There's this great veg chinese restaurant (mostly vegan) in the Orlando, FL area (called Garden Cafe) that has veg versions of even wierd things like salt and pepper ribs. What makes it weird is that they make the "meat" half of the rib and even the "fat" half, so basically you're eating vegan lard. I thought it would be revolting, but it was actually good, and as I don't know what lard really tastes like I wasn't comparing it to it.

[anthony11]

veg food with guts

[catgirl67]

I didn't like that stuff when I was omni! The thing that cracks me up about this, is that the vegan version is probably 50% more expensive than the real thing, and probably taste even more disgusting!

[bjorn again veg]

I have just come back from the shops with some vegetarian bbq sauce bought from a local Korean vegetarian shop / cafe. Supposed to add a nice flavour to stir fries etc. Haven't tried it yet tho...

[anthony11]

I didn't like that stuff when I was omni! The thing that cracks me up about this, is that the vegan version is probably 50% more expensive than the real thing, and probably taste even more disgusting!
I feel the same way about tuna / Tuno :spew:

[Tofu-N-Sprouts]

Yeah, I love the stuff in asian markets! Do take someone with you who is familiar with the language/culture if at ALL possible - especially if you are totally unfamiliar with products, packaging and so forth. They can be valuable in pointing out good vegan finds and items to steer clear of that may or may not be genuinely vegan... sometimes, as you've noticed Kiz, the translation of a package's ingredients into English leaves a bit to be desired.

At VegFest last weekend here in Seattle they were sampling vegetarian caviar made out of seaweed. The people around me were all raving how it tasted so "real" - I have never HAD real caviar so I have no idea... it was just salty and the tiniest bit fishy... but I thought that it was definitely a novelty!

[catgirl67]

I feel the same way about tuna / Tuno :spew:
Tuno? Oh yuck!

[shannon1976]

Amazingly enough I used to eat liver with bacon wrapped around it and it was good. You bake it in the oven.... I don't think that I would want a veg*n version of it though..... I *do* miss roast beef and cheddar sandwiches from Arby's and Spicy Chicken Sandwiches from Wendy's..... Mmmmm. I am sure that I can make the spicy chicken sammie vegan because I have made a clone recipe of the real thing back in the day, but I am not sure how to go about the Roast Beast Sandwiches.

[bizarro]

I'm pretty sure somebody posted this site here before but here is some of the strangest veggie stuff I have ever seen. I haven't tried any of them. We have a Chineese resturant here in Portland Oregon called The Vegetarian House that serves a lot of stuff from this site. I think they do have the veggie eel there. YOu can buy some of this stuff at the resturant and Food Fight too.

http://www.vegieworld.com/d002/d002.htm
http://www.vegieworld.com/h010/h010.htm
http://www.vegieworld.com/g003/g003.htm
http://vegieworld.com/w003/w003.htm


And here is the BBQ gizzard http://www.vegieworld.com/p003/p003.htm

[Kiz]

Yep, that's it. Years ago I bought the eel. I can't remember whether it was that brand or not, but it was from the frozen food section. It was odd. I ate it, but I would not get it again.