I’m in San Francisco, at an Italian joint just south of Golden Gate Park, enjoying meatballs and bacon not made of meat in the traditional sense but of plants mixed with “cultivated” pork fat. Dawn, you see, donated a small sample of fat, which a company called Mission Barns got to proliferate in devices called bioreactors by providing nutrients like carbohydrates, amino acids, and vitamins—essentially replicating the conditions in her body. Because so much of the flavor of pork and other meats comes from the animal’s fat, Mission Barns can create products like sausages and salami with plants but make them taste darn near like sausages and salami.
I’ve been struggling to describe the experience, because cultivated meat short-circuits my brain—my mouth thinks I’m eating a real pork meatball, but my brain knows that it’s fundamentally different and that Dawn (pictured above) didn’t have to die for it. This is the best I’ve come up with: It’s Diet Meat. Just as Diet Coke is an approximation of the real thing, so too are cultivated meatballs. They simply taste a bit less meaty, at least to my tongue. Which is understandable, as the only animal product in this food is the bioreactor-grown fat.
Kinda agree, I might try the bacon if it’s not prohibitively expensive. But an ethical source of pork fat would be pretty nice for any culinary focused vegetarian. But I actually liked the impossible stuff I hear people talk a lot of shit about, so I’m obviously no super tasting expert.
Tasting expert can only tell you what they taste, not if it’s any good because that is entirely up to the individual. Some (arguably quite a lot) people love diet coke, does that make OPs statement wrong? I’d say no because that individual doesn’t like diet coke, but that doesn’t speak for everyone.
Never said they were wrong, but they are essentially saying if we don’t get it perfect, then why try at all? That I disagree with. I’m with them on not liking diet Coke, but I like that it exists for whoever does like it.