During lunch today, as we ate vegetable stir fry with fake beef, Jeanine and I simultaneously wondered aloud if producing more unusual varieties of mock meat would be scandalous. For instance, would there be a furor over mock dog? What about house cat flavored soy product? And for all of the culinary adventurers out there, should vegetarian substitutes for endangered species be made available? Siberian Tiger patties? (I must insert here that I hold a very dim view of people sick enough to actually eat the real thing - that's not really culinary adventure, but more of a species-ist power trip). People have eaten mammoth too, although I'm not sure if any of the scientists involved in that particular tasting are still with us. And sure, food companies would have to hire as taste consultants people who had eaten the real animals in question, but it is possible, isn't it? I'm tired of fake beef, pork, and chicken. I'd like to try some fake muskrat, or perhaps fake penguin. Why do food companies have to be so unimaginative? They could probably just make up weird flavors too, and dispense with consultants altogether, for the simple reason that most people wouldn't know dog meat from wildebeest meat, or condor steaks from polar bear jerky.

That said, we vegetarians already seem to have more options than people who stick to meat. I've been vegetarian for over half my life, and have seen the whole "meat substitute" end of the food spectrum go from one miserable make-it-yourself powdered hamburger substitute to a huge range of vegetarian products, made out of everything from mushrooms to soy to wheat and beyond. There is even one vegan cheese that actually melts like real cheese. If they can make it taste just a little more convincing, I might actually go vegan.