Had an old block of tofu that needed to be used. Crumbling up tofu by hand is so much more satisfying than breaking up ground beef in a pan. I tossed it in double fermented soy sauce and squid brand fish sauce and baked it at 350F until it browned. The beans were kidney, black, garbanzo, and some tiny guys called “rice beans”
The more vegan I go, the more the point is in replacing unhealthy animal products.
Chili absolutely works without meat, but it does take some skill and/or good substitutes.
Chili without meat is like chili with beans… just stew. Chili is a specific dish, you are basically saying that you can make chicken nuggets without chicken. There are some decent facsimiles, but they aren’t chicken nuggets.
Well that’s the whole point-- a decent facsimile that tastes close enough to meat. They have these “Gardein” vegan meatballs at the local store that are absolutely incredible… no way would I be able to tell them apart from meat in a blind taste test. And they’re much better than the “Impossible Meat” brand.
If I made chili with that stuff, a lot of people would be legitimately fooled. Hence… chili, effectively. That’s all that matters to me, not living up to some definition or belief system that some may cling to.
I mean… do you feel the same way about AI slop for instance? It’s okay if whoever is showing it to you can trick you into thinking it isn’t AI? I’m happy that you can make good food but words have meanings for a reason.
That’s a crazy poor analogy to me, but whatever. The meat substitutes aren’t lazy slop in any way, shape or form.
Words have meanings sure, but the meanings of words shift over time, and sometimes all it takes is half a generation for that to happen. Also, food substitutes are common in recipes, and recipes also shift over the years. Pizza for example used to have nothing whatsoever to do with tomatoes before they were introduced via the New World, and now they’re standard. Similar story with cheese.
Okay… but the meaning of chili hasn’t changed. If you go to a chili competition with beans and no meat you wouldn’t even be allowed to enter.
Btw, it looks like you’re downvoting all of my responses.
Is that what you usually do in an argument? XD
To be honest I still can’t tell if you are trolling me or not, but I will remove them for now in the interest of valid argument.
“Any argument upon my POV must be ‘trolling’!”
Yeap, I get it.
Generally-speaking I would call it vegan or vegetarian chili. I wouldn’t try to deliberately fool anyone, as that would be pretty devious IMO.
I would still put that in the category of saying “vegan chicken nuggets”, an aspirational title more than a descriptive one. But you do you.
Hoss… I literally just told you that I do that.