Monday, January 4, 2010

Great Inventions: Mushroom Jerky


mushroom beef jerky, originally uploaded by Akanzler.

Now I've got friends and family who are vegetarians and also either have an aversion to soy or are allergic to soy.

Being a vegetarian means one must give up a lot of foods and not eating soy means one must give up even more.

I've often used mushrooms to replace meat, sometimes using a portobello instead of a patty on my burgers, (though I'm not a vegetarian myself). So this great invention was somewhat of a surprise, but not completely.

Unfortunately, you probably won't find it in your local supermarket, you may not even find it in your local asian market. I found this in a chinese market in Rowland heights called SF supermarket. (on google maps it's called Hong Kong supermarket). I will, however, be keeping an eye out for it at the more local markets.

There are 4 different flavors, the green bag is Mustard, and quite delicious. There is also a note on the bag that says GMO FREE, that's always a good sign. Though the ingredients don't state any animal products There is a sticker on each of the bags that says if it has milk or eggs in it. Unfortunately, that sticker is in chinese, so unless you have someone with you that can read chinese, you vegans are SOL. There was one that had no milk or cheese but i don't remember which it was, it was either the red bag or orange. The flavors are also written in chinese so you may be playing a guessing game with that. This particular bag has milk and is the mustard flavor. The only problem is that it is shipped all the way from Taiwan.

While you're there you may want to pick up a bottle of fresh squeezed soy milk over by the butcher(instead of that stuff made from soy flour), something you cannot find in the vicinity of Pomona. The freshest ones are usually pretty warm, almost hot. I must warn you though, if you don't like the taste of soy in your milk, you may not like it.

2 comments:

Mona Hsieh said...

i think it is called sf, for shun fat. it's on the north side of colima. the hk market is directly across the street from i though.

Unknown said...

haha I used to work in an optometry place next to that market. There is a place near it called "Green Bean" or something that sells a lot of similar stuff, check it out. Make sure you tell them Tim sent ya and you'll get charged 20% extra.