Today was mostly driving, but one mildly interesting thing did happen today which is what I'm going to blog about; in stopping by LA I got to go to Umami Burger and eat an Impossible Burger. For those who don't know, Impossible is one of a handful of companies trying to break through to the next level of creating meat without having an actual dead animal. They claim to have broken the code of meat, by using a heck of a lot more science and being very meticulous about creating the actual constituent parts of meat, instead of just messing with grains to try and make something meat-esque. So, the big questions: Is it delicious? Yes, definitely. Does it taste like meat? Yeah, it does, actually. Would you be able to tell the difference in a blind taste test? Yeah, you would. It's the texture that gives it away. Don't get me wrong; it's close. It's a hell of a lot closer than anything else I've ever tried. But it still isn't quite right. It's a bit too soft and the strands are too, well, strand-y, for lack of a better word. I will say this, though: at some level, I felt as though I was having an actual meat experience. Like, not to be gross, but I totally had those satisfying cheeseburger burps a half hour later. It went really well with cheese and grilled onions on a bun. One of the secret ingredients is this thing called heme, and it really does feel a lot like blood; it runs into the lettuce and turns a sort of brown and it's satisfyingly fatty and salty and sorta, well, meat-y. It looks pretty good, too; not perfect, but close. It has kind of a potato-chip-y sorta feeling, not in a bad way but just in the way it browns up on the bottom. I definitely could see people getting into it if they can get the cost down. It's close enough to meat that I wouldn't miss actual meat, to be totally honest. I mean, I'm not a big meat guy per se, but what I am is a cheeseburger guy, and to make a good cheeseburger the meat is just one part, and this stuff is good enough to play the part. I'd like to see what it tastes like if you cook it up medium-rare, actually. And maybe salt it a bit more.
It's clearly a major step forward, that's for sure. Way way better than a veggie patty or some other junk. I'd eat it again, for sure, especially if it didn't cost $16.
