Mock Vegetables

[Shelley]

I found this on a local chinese restaurant menu, anyone have any idea what mock vegetables are or is this some weird misunderstanding or a strange typo.

 

Attached picture is the vegetarian choice (there is only this one ) with mock vegetables.

 

 

 

[TheBigZaboon]

Shelley,

I hope you didn't order these items!!!

If you dare, take a look at the definition of 'mock turtle soup' on Wikipedia...

Grossimundo!!!

TBZ

[Shelley]

No I didn't but I am very curious as to what mock vegetables are.

 

 

Edit: come to think of it what is mock duck?

[abcdefg]

Mock meat is made of tofu and high-gluten flour in such a way as to resemble meat items that can usually be found in a non-vegetarian restaurant. They are often accompanied by gravy or a sauce plus garnish that would be used with the meat item they are impersonating. They can be simple or elaborate.

 

I've seen them several times in Chinese vegetarian restaurants. One such place in Kunming is next door to a large Buddhist temple. They have mock chicken, mock duck, and mock fish. At first glance, when these come out of the kitchen, they look like actual chicken, duck, or fish.

 

Pretty sure they also have mock sweet and sour spare ribs (pork imitation.) Sometimes soy protein is combined with tofu to resemble pork or beef. Can't remember how they simulate visible bones, but they do have a way.

 

I don't know why the photo you posted lists "mock vegetables" on the menu. Seems that wouldn't be a necessary change.

 

-----------------

Footnote: I recall that you have previously mentioned an allergy to nuts. Satay sauce (in your photo) almost surely uses peanuts.

[Shelley]

Do you mean mock duck?

Mock vegetables are made of tofu in such a way as to resemble meat

 

Yes I don't understand why a vegetarian would not eat real vegetables.

 

I am aware of all the mock meat products, here in the UK we Quourn which is a soya based product done in various meat shapes, mince meat (ground beef), sausages etc.

[abcdefg]

Yes, sorry. A typo (fingers going faster than brain.) I'll go back and fix it. Should read "mock meat" not "mock vegetables" in the opening sentence.

 

The vegetarian restaurant I mentioned in Kunming has elaborate entrees that look a lot like the "real thing." I've been several times with vegetarian friends.

 

Here's something I just found on Wikipedia specifically about mock duck. Sounds nasty.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock_duck

[Shelley]

Eeeew yuck. I would rather just go without.

 

As it happens I do think if you have given up meat why do you want stuff that looks like meat. If you really like meat but have given for moral reasons then you should stick to your decision and leave meat copies out all together.

[abcdefg]

I agree. And the times I have tried the fake stuff (with friends at that restaurant in Kunming,) it didn't taste very good. For some strange reason, it's a popular place, perhaps because it has found its way into some guide books.

[TheBigZaboon]

Shelley,

I made that post about the mock turtles (Lewis Carroll notwithstanding) just to tease you last night before I went to bed. But it seems you didn't take the bait.

As abcdefg mentions, mock meats made of vegetables, soy products, and even nuts have played a role in this part of the world for religious reasons for a long time. He mentions that they went to great pains to make them look like the real thing. In my experience, they also went to great pains to reproduce the flavor, at least here in Japan. There used to be a restaurant in the Shibuya section of Tokyo that made deep-fried pork katsu filet cutlets out of ground nuts that you couldn't tell from the real thing. The mock meats were so good, and the imitation flavoring so realistic that I told my vegetarian girlfriend at the time that if she could cook as well, that I would give up meat and marry her (She couldn't, and I didn't...).

As to the mock vegetables, my understanding is that more modern forms of vegetarians (vegans, maybe...) take the process one step further and remove or substitute vegetables from the normal vegetable menu that are considered unhealthy or otherwise unacceptable (no gluten, for example). If you look on vegetarian cooking sites, you will sometimes see mock this or mock that where processed substitute vegetables are called for to replace veggies that are unacceptable or simply unavailable in a certain region or part of the world. So maybe some Chinese vegetable called for are unacceptable or unavailable, and others prepared in the same manner have been substituted. But some vegetarians consider themselves more vegetarian than others, so strict orthodoxy may not be observed in the use of the word by all.

##Edited the above paragraph because a couple of words and phrases making it more relevant to the original question went missing somehow.

Did you read the mock turtle soup' recipe on Wikipedia? After reading that, I decided never to eat those nut cutlets again.

[lips]

Traditional Chinese vegetarian goose and vegstarian roast duck are made of bean curd sheets.  For me they don't taste like goose or duck at all, and do not look like them either.  Others look more realistic, like vegetarian roast pork, but still don't taste like the real thing.  I do like these kinds of traditional vegetarian Chinese food but I only eat them occasionaaly as I find them too oily.  Vegetarian doesn't necessarily mean healthy!