what's the point of quorn?

[Noru]

Out of interest, I had a look at the ingredients list of a packet of Walkers Roast Chicken and Smoky Bacon flavour crisps.

"Roast Chicken Seasoning contains: Glucose, Salt, Dried Yeast, Dried Garlic, Dried Onion, Potassium Chloride, Parsley, Flavouring, Colour (Paprika Extract), Dried Chicken Breast."

"Smoky Bacon Seasoning contains: Dried Milk Lactose, Salt, Sugar, Flavouring, Hydrolysed Soya Protein, Acids (Citric Acid, Malic Acid), Smoke Flavouring, Colours (Paprika Extract, Sulphite Ammonia Caramel), Dried Pork Shoulder."

So the flavouring does contain some actual meat, but as the very last ingredient. I don't know the precise details of the rules around use of terms like 'chicken' or 'bacon', which are not AIUI protected in the same way as 'Stilton', for example, but Walkers seem to think it's important to have a token meat presence in their meat-flavour products.

Having worked in catering Walkers are particularly annoying with their recipe changes. I guess it swings depending on who's in charge & the cost of ingredients.

Pre-2013 Smokey Bacon & Roast Chicken Walkers crisps were vegetarian. But in 2013 they decided to add a tiny % of meat to the flavourings. Then in November 2016 they became vegetarian again and it now seems they are back to being non vegetarian.

However Walkers Beef & Onion, Prawn Cocktail and Cheddar Cheese & Bacon all remain vegatarian.

It's often the Cheese & Onion crisps veggies have to watch out for as they can sometime contain rennet.

The meat in the Quorn product names just gives you an idea of what to use it instead of in recipes, I've not met anyone fooled enough to buy it expecting meat.

Processed foods always surprised me in particular frankfurters, the Oxford dictionary describes a frankfurter as a pork &/ beef seasoned sausage.
Yet the ones stocked in UK supermarkets contain more mechanically recovered chicken than they do pork, surely they should be named Frankfurter style chicken sausages?

 

[captain nemo1701]

I don't mind Quorn. A bit bland, doesn't half give me wind though.....

 

[smutchin]

Pre-2013 Smokey Bacon & Roast Chicken Walkers crisps were vegetarian. But in 2013 they decided to add a tiny % of meat to the flavourings. Then in November 2016 they became vegetarian again and it now seems they are back to being non vegetarian.

That's interesting, thanks for the info. I didn't know about those changes - I wonder if the website just hasn't caught up with the recipes? It would seem a bit odd to have gone veggie in November 2016 but change back just a few months later. Or maybe they're just delaying updating the website until they've cleared the old non-veggie stock.

The meat in the Quorn product names just gives you an idea of what to use it instead of in recipes, I've not met anyone fooled enough to buy it expecting meat.

Exactly. Presumably the people who make the products are clued up enough to know whether they are legally allowed to use words like 'chicken' and 'bacon' in the product name.

Although the crisps thing does show that you always have to be careful to check the label rather than make assumptions. I believe at least some of the meat-flavour Pot Noodles are also suitable for vegetarians.

 

[smutchin]

I don't think anyone has suggested that to the case.

No, but it probably answers @Ride2017's query about why they're allowed to call it chicken when it isn't - basically, no one thinks it's genuinely misleading.

 

[Globalti]

Animal ingredients in crisps? I think not. What are they?

 

[smutchin]

Animal ingredients in crisps? I think not. What are they?

Some meat-flavour crisps do (or did) contain traces of actual meat in the seasoning mix.

 

[Globalti]

Geddaway! What's declared in the ingredients panel?

Using meat extracts would be
far too expensive, would alienate a large proportion of consumers and would probably add unnecessary potential for spoilage. But I'm ready to be convinced.

 

[srw]

Geddaway! What's declared in the ingredients panel?

Might one suggest a perusal of the thread?

 

[Drago]

Quorn. Soylent Green. That is all.

 

[Globalti]

Can't access it. I'm on dodgy Wi-Fi in a German beer garden in Addis Ababa.

Edit: just read smutchin's lists and yes, I was wrong, there's a token chicken or bacon content just for the labelling. Just like those fancy extracts in your shampoo.

 

[Tim Hall]

Can't access it. I'm on dodgy Wi-Fi in a German beer garden in Addis Ababa.

Edit: just read smutchin's lists and yes, I was wrong, there's a token chicken or bacon content just for the labelling. Just like those fancy extracts in your shampoo.

Jojoba flavour crisps. The next big thing. Remember you heard it here first.

 

[swee'pea99]

I'm on dodgy Wi-Fi in a German beer garden in Addis Ababa.

That is almost certainly a unique and unprecedented sentence in the entire history of the language. Well done!

 

[BrumJim]

Both me (who isn't vegetarian) and my wife (who is) don't really like or understand quorn. Pretends to be meat, but doesn't taste like it, despite the advertising. I would rather eat a vegetarian lasagne, chilli, etc made from vegetables rather than quorn. Much more colourful and tasty.

However I do use it when entertaining, and making a casserole. One sauce, two pots, one with meat and one with quorn fillets in it. Easier than making two separate meals.

One question, though; why do they call it quorn fillets? Filleting is taking the bones out, and there are none in quorn. So do they have to put bones in first, and then take them out?

 

[smutchin]

However I do use it when entertaining

I now have mental images of you juggling with Quorn meatballs.

 

[Motobecane]

Well, there is so much debate about Quorn here that I'm starting a thread on Cooking Bites.