When I told friends and family that I was reporting on the first chicken meat grown from animal cellsTheir first comment was “Eww.” Their second comment was: “How does it taste?”
The short answer (you may have heard this sentence before in other contexts): it tastes like chicken.
The longer answer, which folds into an “Eww” response, is more accurate. Yes, it’s weird to think of eating an entirely new type of meat — chicken that doesn’t come from chicken, meat that would be sold as “cell-farmed” chicken after the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday gave the go-ahead to two California companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat. .
But it’s also interesting (and exciting!) to taste-test the premieres of a new era in meat productionwhich aims to eliminate harm to the billions of animals slaughtered for food – and dramatically reduce the environmental impacts of grazing, growing feed for those animals and handling their droppings.
I eat meat for life. I’m also a victim of the “meat paradox,” a term scientists use to describe the psychological conflict that occurs in people who like to eat meat but don’t like to think about the animals that died providing it.
As someone who has reported on foodborne disease outbreaks and slaughterhouse safety, I’m acutely aware that the chicken on my dinner plate probably struggled to get there. And this fact makes me uncomfortable if I focus on it too much.
So I was open to trying a different kind of meat—and also curious if it would taste like the real thing.
I’ve tried the vegetarian options Like the Beyond Meat sausage and Impossible Burger and love them, although I didn’t think they were perfect replacements. To be honest, the Beyond Meat sausage tasted good, but a little off. And the Impossible Burger was dry, even though I had cooked it for a long time. Either way, I enjoyed the taste of the produce but was still aware that I wasn’t eating pork or beef.
How about all artificial? It didn’t bother me that this new cultured meat was made from cells growing to epic proportions in large steel vats, only to shape and shape it—”extruded” is the somewhat unfortunate verb that comes to mind—into familiar cutlets, slices and nuggets that would sound right at home. at the dinner table.
But as with all foods, eventually it will come down to taste. In this case, we turn to the bigger question behind it: Is this new material in fact a chicken, or is it a quack??
In January, I traveled to the Upside Foods manufacturing plant in Emeryville, California. There, Chef Jess Weaver cooked a farmhouse chicken breast in a white wine butter sauce with tomatoes, capers, and green onions.
The aroma was inviting, just like any filet cooked in butter. And the taste was light and sweet with a tender texture, just like any chicken breast I’d make at home—if I were a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef.
Last week I visited the Alameda, California plant where Good Meat is preparing to start producing chicken products. Chef Zack Tyndall had this smoked chicken salad topped with mayonnaise, golden raisins, and walnuts ready. He followed it up with a dish of chicken “thighs” – darker meat served on a bed of potato mash with mushroom – demi-glace vegetables, golden beets and baby purple cauliflower florets.
The taste was richer than chicken breast, like dark thigh meat. And the texture was soft and chewy, like a well-cooked chicken thigh.
That, Tyndall says, is the whole point.
He said, “It has to be as lifelike as possible to be able to hold it.”
While “vibrant” is an interesting word, I think on my part of the fork this would come across. Huge hurdles remain—how to increase manufacturing and reduce costs, experts say, and the lingering question of whether birdless chicken is actually chicken—but if you’re basing yourself on authentic taste, I’ll leave you with this:
Please pass the “chicken”.
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The Associated Press Health and Science section receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Education Media group. AP is solely responsible for all content. Follow Associated Press journalist JoNel Aleccia on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JoNel_Aleccia
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