A Flowery Song

Background: I’ve evidently caught them in the middle of a brand shift, since there’s an extra sticker on the back that proclaims “Same Great Nayonaise, New Look”, while the actual label makes no reference to Nayonaise. Yep, it’s another vegan mayo substitute, with ingredients including soymilk, soybean and/or sunflower oil, guar gum, xanthan gum, and sodium alginate. Mmm, emulsifiers.

Not a very appetizing start, with a bit of separation at the top. Mixed back in okay, though there was still a lumpy impression. Smells like white vinegar and chicken bones. As for taste…the less, said, the better. The flavour has a nasty soybean oil component (I’ve always hated when it sneaks into spreads and dips), and other than that is fairly bland.

In the tuna salad test, the texture’s right but the flavour just isn’t there.

Overall: The only thing this has going is a nice creamy texture (in the non-separated bits, anyway).

The mission: “[F]ind something reputed to be Fine Kosher Wine”

I actually studied up on kosher wines about a year ago, but didn’t write up what I learned at the time.

First things first: what makes a wine kosher? Well, kosher wine will carry a hechsher from an authority certifying that it was produced in accord with kashrus, which is the portion of halakha (Jewish religious law) dealing with dietary concerns. This mark indicates that any additives (such as fining agents) were kosher, production was supervised by the appropriate overseers (called mashgichim), and the wine is either mevushal or every step of the production was done by an observant Jew. This all has to do with the historic use of wine in idolatrous religious practises and the strict prohibition in the Torah of the use of such wine (yayin nesach), as well as a Rabbinical injunction against the use of unsupervised wine (stam yaynom).

Mevushal means “cooked” or “boiled”. Once a wine is mevushal it can be handled by non-Jews without losing its kosher status. Wine can be rendered mevushal at any stage after the press, but in the US most mevushal wine is heated prior to fermentation. Mevushal can broadly be taken as synonymous with pasteurised and follows the same procedure; thus, in modern production flash pasteurisation is seen as a way to reduce or eliminate the deleterious effects of heating the wine. While it definitely will help stability from a microbial standpoint, opinions are divided: some claim that flash heating has a positive effect on the wine’s character, while others claim that it reduces the aging potential and gives the wine a cooked fruit character.

There’s actually another level to kosher certification, which has to do with Passover. At Passover kashrut becomes even more restrictive, so a wine can be kosher for other times but not for Passover. If a wine just says “kosher”, it’s not suitable for use during Pesach; it must specifically say “kosher for Passover”.
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Background: Brewed by Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh (except there they call it Golden Promise). English pale ale brewed with organic Golden Promise malt and First Gold hops. I’d never heard of this hop variety before, but it’s evidently a dwarf derivant of Whitbread Golding.

Nose: Sweet, rounded malt with hints of apricot.

Taste: Candied orange and tea leaf influences on a soft honeyed malt background. Finish has a bit of metallic copper.

Overall: Decent, but not outstanding, pale ale. Just a hint of off-tastes detracts from the overall experience.

Background: Mayonnaise substitute from Follow Your Heart® in California. Available in four (soon to be five) varieties, with the main difference being the type of oil used as the base: Original (canola oil), Expeller Pressed (higher-grade canola oil), Grapeseed Oil, Organic (organic soybean oil), and the upcoming Reduced Fat (a blend of safflower, olive, and flaxseed oils). Other ingredients include brown rice syrup, cider vinegar, soy protein, salt, mustard flour, and concentrated lemon juice. The result is an egg- and gluten-free vegan product.

Appearance: Good texture, looks just like mayonnaise.

Nose: The cider vinegar, lemon, and mustard make themselves apparent.

Taste: Tangy and creamy; a bit more mustard than I remember commercial mayonnaise having. I wonder if this was a deliberate flavour profile choice or a result of needing the emulsifiers in the mustard. Either way, I like it.

Overall: Clean, fresh flavours and an excellent texture make this an ideal mayonnaise substitute for anyone avoiding eggs or looking for a slightly healthier sandwich spread.

Background: From Vegan Dream in California comes this meatless jerky substitute.

Three flavours are available, bu all use the same base of wheat gluten and defatted soy with psyllium husk, soy sauce, and spices. You may ask yourself, “Paul, why are they using soy sauce?” Well, a major flavour component of storebought jerky is monosodium glutamate, also called MSG. MSG is in the way of being an unmentionable word among certain circles of health fanatics (that happens to overlap with vegans), so listing it in the ingredients is a quick way to turn them off. As it happens, glutamates give soy sauce a lot of its flavour, so dimwitted vegans might not notice that they're being fed those nasty chemicals.

Ahem.

My personal experience may be colouring the above paragraph.

Appearance: The product vaguely resembles jerky made from processed (ground) meat, but has a certain disquieting sheen.

Nose/Taste:
Original Hickory Pepper
Smells of smoke and pepper. An encouraging sign for something called Hickory Pepper. Tastes like spices, salt, and umami.

Cowgirl
Smells sweet. Some tomato, some vinegar. Evidently based on “an old cowboy ketchup recipe”, and is definitely reminiscent of that omnipresent condiment. Actually quite sweet, has a wee bit of heat but mainly tastes of tomato.

Hot Chili Pepper
Not much aroma. Has some good chipotle flavour and a nice kick of heat.

Mouthfeel: Here's where it starts to fall apart. As decent as the flavours are (the MSG and spice combination of jerky isn't difficult to replicate), the texture is all wrong. Rather than the clean stringiness of whole muscle jerky or the denser chewiness of processed, what we're presented with is a vague gumminess and an impression of cardboard.

Overall: Not at all a substitute for real jerky, but if you're avoiding meat for religious, ethical, or health reasons, it's not a bad snack. Given an actual choice, though, going with the meat version is a no-brainer.