Green Daily

At this weekend's Green Fest in Chicago, I decided to address one of my biggest environmental dilemmas: my love of tasty meat and the uncomfortable ethics and consequences of American of meat production. You don't have to look far to find horror stories about the meat-making process, from hog farms' waste problems to mistreatment of cows at large beef facilities. Even chicken consumption pulls at the heartstrings of some greenies-- all you have to do is ride behind a chicken truck for a while to find out that the live chickens are not secured well for transport from coop to processing plant.

Soul Vegetarian is a company affiliated with the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, whose doctrine requires that they maintain a vegan diet. At the Green Fest, they were serving barbecued "riblets," vegan mac and cheese , collard greens and cornbread as well as several tasty-looking desserts. Now, I love barbecue. At my family reunions we barbecue a whole pig over an open pit overnight (yes, really) and it is just tasty. But I get kind of queasy looking at the whole pig and thinking about what an intelligent animal it was, and the conditions it may have endured to get to our reunions.So I decided to give another shot to substitute barbecue products. While the young man I spoke with at the Soul Vegetarian booth, Zarachia Madiero, would not reveal his sauce secrets, he did tell me that the riblets are made from whole wheat seitan, the protein essence of wheat flour. Seitan begins somewhat like bread; you wash and knead the wheat flour, add flavoring, bake it, then saute it, grill it, fry it, or find another way to cook it.

Analysis: Well, it's not a pulled pork sandwich, and its not baby back ribs. But the riblets weren't bad, if you can recognize that they are a horse (or, in this case, grass) of a different color. They had a firm texture that was well infused with the restaurant's secret barbecue sauce, and they managed to cook the riblets in a way that made them nearly crunchy on the ends.

I was excited about the vegan mac and cheese, but,again was a little disappointed that it didn't taste like the oven mac and cheese my mom makes (I think she uses upwards of 2 lbs of cheeses in one pan of the stuff). The collards were perfect: tender, yet not overcooked. My recommendation: give Soul Vegetarian a shot--you just might like it.