The Post took a team to Oregon to find out exactly how Tofurky, a kneaded paste of wheat gluten, silken tofu and flavorings, becomes an enduring holiday favorite. https://t.co/0GlEG3lbPr
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 23, 2023
Fifty years ago, I remember our Midwestern college dining hall introducing its first official vegetarian option — chunks of slightly rubbery ham-flavored TVP, added to mac’n’cheese. (Very good mac’n’cheese, actually, since we had an excellent dairy science department.) Now, we’re told, Tofurky has become a nostalgic holiday favorite…
From the Washington Post, “See inside the Tofurky factory, where a Thanksgiving icon is made” [unpaywalled gift link]:
… Tofurky’s holiday roast, which is now more than a quarter of a century old, is a nostalgia food, hearkening for vegetarians and vegans an era when holiday main dishes were often expected to be meat-based. The roast is their rebuttal to Norman Rockwell’s iconic Thanksgiving turkey, with its own cachet and fame.
Tofurky was the trailblazer, setting the standard for a plant-based offering that still captured the festivity of the holiday season. These roasts, with their bouncy exterior and squidgy wild rice stuffing, some accompanied by a packet of gravy and even a vegan brownie for dessert, haven’t changed much over time, and that’s just the way devotees want it. Like the green bean casserole with canned mushroom soup — could you make it more “gourmet” and contemporary? Yes, but holiday diners want it just the way they remember it.
The finished roast is not jiggly and bland like tofu. It’s savory, with good chew and something Thanksgiving-ish and autumnal imparted by the stuffing…
This time of year, at a factory in Hood River, Ore., workers hustle to produce 6,000 roasts in 10-hour shifts, doing this four days running, before turning to produce the company’s other meat substitutes. We took a team to Oregon to find out exactly how this kneaded paste of wheat gluten, silken tofu and flavorings becomes an enduring holiday favorite. In essence, finding out how the un-sausage is made.
A “masa” of 130 pounds of wheat gluten, 56 pounds of silken tofu puree, 23 pounds of canola oil, water and spices and are loaded into an industrial-sized bowl chopper and kneaded for 15 minutes. Workers swing by to test the gluten activation of the mixture: How stretchy are the proteins? Are they forming longer and longer chains and giving the mixture cohesion and elasticity like bread dough being proofed? The churning mass smells yeasty and a lot like bread dough. When the temperature of the mixture reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit and it has a smooth, elastic texture, it’s ready for the next stage. The mixture is dumped into a hopper and whisked away on a wheeled dolly.
Tofurky has a production staff of about 175 workers, 50 of them in this Hood River facility. Four people mix the masa, one person makes the wild rice stuffing, another is responsible for assembling the dry seasoning mix. In the packing room, it’s all hands on deck to build the boxes and assemble the finished holiday roast packages. The roast with gravy runs about $13.50 and serves about five people…
After that, frozen roasts are rolled over to the packing room, where a group of workers tuck a roast and gravy pack into festively decorated cardboard boxes that proclaim, “yum for all.” For 20 years, the packages described the food inside as “vegan”; now it’s “plant-based” to appeal to a wider and younger audience. When the packing team finishes boxing all the roasts for the day, a group cheer goes up. It’s getting close to the end of season for manufacturing holiday roasts…
Okay, *I* found it fascinating… (After all, the production of *actual* Thanksgiving turkey carcasses is hardly less mechanical.) More history & business detail at the link.
War for Ukraine Day 638: A Brief(er) Thursday Night Update
Westyny
When one tofurkey loves another tofurkey very much . . .
Alison Rose
I mean, anecdote =/= data, but as a vegetarian for 22 years now, I have never eaten a single bite of tofurkey and almost no veggie person I know has, either. (One of my brothers and his wife are also vegetarians, and I think they tried it once. And only once.) I don’t really get the point, since almost every other dish at a typical Thanksgiving table can easily be made vegetarian without making the omnivores cry, except those ones who require six kinds of meat on their plates at all times.
Suzanne
I did Tofurkey once, in my vegetarian years. It was okay. I didn’t do it again.
Spawn the Younger loves the stuffing the best, and she went vegetarian this year. So I made it for her. A few years ago, I switched from cornbread to brioche, and have never looked back.
raven
@Alison Rose: It’s like non-alcoholic beer or smoking Kent’s !
like a metaphor
I went to a Friendsgiving with some veggie friends in Oakland, and they served the ‘deluxe’ Tofurky. In addition to the gravy and stuffing, it also had dark and white meat sections. And it had skin (a giant sheet of tofu skin) stretched over it. But the funniest part was the wishbone, which seemed to be made of some kind of plastic. This was years ago, and I don’t know if they still make the deluxe model.
Eljai
I made a breakfast sandwich this morning with scrambled eggs, cheese, and a tofurky deli slice – they’ve expanded the product line. I was out of Canadian bacon.
Geminid
Long ago, I once helped a guy make tofu. He’d make 150-200 lbs. at a time. An interesting process.
Soybeans produce the highest yield, but I think any bean can be used. Chickpea tofu might be tasty. At least compared to soybean tofu.
Alison Rose
@Geminid: Tofu is wonderful in many dishes. There was a restaurant in Japantown in SF that I used to go to that made the most amazing vegetarian sukiyaki with cubes of tofu in place of meat, with bean sprouts and carrot and zucchini and such. (They did not do the raw-egg dip, thankfully.) It’s great because it soaks up the flavor of whatever sauce or broth you cook it in. But the tofurkey just feels like a prank to me.
RepubAnon
I tried a bite of it once. Then, I signed the confession to avoid further bites.
Jay
@Eljai:
It’s not Canadian “bacon”,
In Canada we eat real bacon.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109370/
Atticus Dogsbody
I have become intolerant to gluten recently and it has made me very sad. Knowing that I’ll never eat that monstrosity gives me a little joy.
JPL
@Atticus Dogsbody: For family and friends I have to cook gluten free and occasionally dairy free. I made cornbread stuffing this year with Stonewall Kitchen cornbread mix, and it was excellent.
dmsilev
I think the important question that must be answered is ‘can tofurkys fly?’.
As God is our witness, or otherwise.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Benjamin Franklin is credited with the earliest English language mention of tofu, and it was in a letter in which he enclosed some soybeans and referred to them as “Chinese garavances” (chickpeas), and called tofu a kind of cheese made from them. So he was definitely noting the similarity already.
BellyCat
To be a vegan with celiac would mean being very thin. Fortunately(?), I am only the latter.
The whole vegan thing is appreciated conceptually, but to witness people throw fits over even the slightest “meat contamination” demonstrates food privilege to the extreme. To be vegan is a choice, not a medical condition — unlike celiac where even the slightest wheat, rye, or barley presence causes intestinal damage.
If I only had a dollar for every time someone told me (including restaurant staff), “It only has a little flour or soy sauce (which has wheat in it) in it, so that should be OK, right?”
Alison Rose
I will also add that I have always loved the word “tofu”. It just…looks cute. I can’t explain it. I also happen to have this amazing shirt as well as some old urban vinyl figures with tofu cubes for heads. I am an adult.
Lyrebird
@Matt McIrvin: @Geminid:
You can buy commercial chick pea bean curd, it’s fine, it’s not exactly the same, though.
I really don’t understand people saying that un-seasoned tofu is bland or whatever. I mean, if you soak pasta in water and don’t cook it or season it, you can eat it, and it will be pretty tasteless and bland.
@Alison Rose: The one time I was served Tofurky was at a friend’s place. She was a committed vegetarian who really missed the ceremonial roast bird, so she loved it.
Lyrebird
@Alison Rose: That shirt is cute, and the organization it’s supporting actually does pet rescue and wildlife rehab, maybe I just don’t see much, but I don’t think I have seen those combined before.
BTW I hadn’t thought about that Tofurky dinner in years, it was a couple decades ago, but one of the kids really likes fake meat stuff, and Tofurky’s Italian sausage is their favorite. For anyone who likes this kind of challenge, I tried to make something similar at home, and even though I had to alter a bunch of ingredients, it came out better than I’d expected. Our guests ate some, but they probably would have liked it better if I had just made roast tofu!
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: I have been using Challah for stuffing, it’s rich like brioche but not as sweet as some brioche is.
@BellyCat: I did not appreciate how viliglant people with celiac must be until my neighbor outlined all she does to avoid gluten, including having her own toaster and butter dish.
Ohio Mom
I watched the video in the WP article and read the article and I can’t help but think many of their customers will be turned off, particularly the part about baking the loaves in plastic. I don’t know if it’s true or not but I’ve heard that cooking in plastic is carcinogenic (to which I say, What isn’t?).
Most manufactured food looks inedible in process but most of us are not such purists to avoid it altogether.
Jim Appleton
I live and work in Hood River, once ate Tofurkey at Thanksgiving, it was way too salty, rubbery, otherwise flavorless and unappealing.
Alison Rose
@Lyrebird: I mean, there’s gotta be people like her out there, otherwise they wouldn’t still be a thing :)
Marmot
Had one this evening. Enjoyed it. That is all.
Marmot
But truly, stuffing is where it’s at. There is no other. Well, maybe cranberry sauce. That too. And goddamn, that rosemary bread was good.
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!
BellyCat
@Ohio Mom: True. I don’t wish celiac upon anyone, except GOP voters.
like a metaphor
@Alison Rose: ok I want that shirt. Please, Santa?
StringOnAStick
@Jim Appleton: We have close friends who are from Good River and still have a lot of family there.
The last time I had tofurkey I spent the entire night with persistent acid reflux that no antacids could treat. Now that I know that it is mostly gluten, that makes sense. I’m not celiac but the amount of gluten a normal bread eater consumes wrecks me.
JR
@Matt McIrvin: I mean, they both basically start with a curd. Different chemistry behind it but it’s a curd.
Mart
@Alison Rose: Wife and I have been vegetarian for almost 30 years. Tried Tofurky once when first came out. Found the flavor off-putting and the mouth feel disgusting. One and done. Like you say, tons of great meatless food on the Thanksgiving table.