Have you ever taken a bite of food and immediately craved more of it even though it was sitting right there, on your plate, ripe for the taking? Of course, you have— you’re only human; gluttony is our cornerstone sin, evolved from generations of hunting, gathering, and starving.
This primal urge has turned fake-meat fanatics, Julie and Danita, into a new discovery, which would change their lives forever.
Do you like fake meat, but find it spongy or bland or too meaty or dense or too “healthy?” Do you just want to re-live your childhood experiences of hotdogs and chicken tenders? We feel the same way, which is why we went on this journey to find the best vegetarian chicken tenders known to man.
Danita:
I am a pescetarian, have been for 7 years, and have tried so many fake meat alternatives during that time. I’m not super picky about them, and I’m not expecting them to taste exactly like meat, but it gets very annoying when I bite into a meat alternative and it’s just… weird and bland and spongey. Even worse is when meat alternatives market themselves as “healthy,” so instead of the crispy, salty breading I crave from, let’s say, a chicken tender, I’m met with a crumbly, disappointing, thin layer of quinoa (I’m talking to you, Gardein Seven Grain Crispy Tenders). I’ve tried everything. Gardein, Impossible, Beyond, Lightlife… everything. And nothing has come close to the level of tastiness I require. Except for Incogmeato Plant-Based Tenders, which I discovered one fateful day at the Chat, a Wawa-style food establishment at Arcadia University. For a while, the only dedicated fake meat option that they had was a Beyond Meat burger, which was really good, and something I prefer to Impossible Burgers, which are more spongy and bland in nature. But I don’t really want to eat burgers all the time and upset my very fragile stomach, so I don’t get them often.
But one day… one day, I decided to go to the Chat, unsure of what I wanted. Then I saw it on the order screen. Vegan chicken tenders. I read it once. Twice. I’d never seen anything like it before. So I got them and was incredibly skeptical. I tore them apart a little bit to make sure they weren’t actual meat. And then I dug in.
You know that scene from Ratatouille, where Remy bites into a strawberry and a piece of cheese, and then he transcends reality? That’s how I felt at that moment. The breading was just how the breading of chicken tenders was meant to be: greasy (but not too greasy), crunchy, perfectly spiced. The meat itself was good, though not as juicy as real chicken, nor as stringy. While my meat-eating boyfriend could tell the difference between real chicken and these tenders, he admitted it was very good.
After getting them a few times, I began to feel a sense of dread. I kept charging these $8 tenders and fries to my student account, and as much I wanted to believe that I could grovel my way into getting my balance waived, I knew in my heart that someday I would have to pay for my gluttony. So I went on a journey and contacted the General Manager of Arcadia’s Dining Services, Dan Callan, via email. I explained my deep love for these tenders, and that I needed to get my hands on them as soon as humanly possible.
In one day, he responded, lifting the heavy burden of the unknown off my shoulders.
“We use the MorningStar Incogmeato chicken tenders and they have been a huge hit. I’m not sure if or where you can find them in stores but if you have trouble let me know and we can get you some,” his email read, and it was the best news I’d received since Arcadia told me they were cutting my balance in half. At that moment, Dan became my favorite person in the world.
I rushed to MorningStar’s website, happy to find a “Where to Buy” button. I plugged in my zip code, hoping to find these beautiful tenders near me, but… nothing. I was perplexed. Certainly, I’d seen the brand in stores before. I was about to take Dan up on his offer to secure the tenders for me, but then I got a wonderful text.
Julie then became my favorite person in the world. After Julie secured the tenders for me, I began to make so expand my horizons beyond simple tenders with fries…
My absolute favorite thing I made with the chicken tenders was fettuccine alfredo, using this recipe here. I put the chicken tenders into the air fryer for 10 minutes at 380 degrees, flipping them halfway through, and then chopped them before mixing them in with the pasta. It was fantastic. I ate so much pasta that day.
As our saga comes to an end, and I woefully look at my bag of tenders with just one lonely piece left, I am so grateful for finding them. Even if they’re $7. Nothing will stop me from getting my tenders.
Julie:
Here’s the thing: I’m not vegetarian, or vegan, or any of the fun, pick-and-choose options in between that I sometimes think are just different names for “semi-picky omnivore.” (I am not anti-picky-eaters, for the record. I’m a recovering picky eater myself.) I do, however, have a tendency to get skeeved out by meat. You know that weird bite of chicken nugget you get? The chewy bite? The gristle? The slight whiff of meat that you think may or may not be rotten, but you don’t know how to politely ask? I live in constant fear of that. Constant. If I experience it, I won’t eat meat for weeks. We think it’s an undiagnosed mental disorder; that’s not important. What matters is the fact that I want a way to eat chicken nuggets and tenders without my brain descending upon the meal like the seagulls from Nemo, squawking off intrusive thoughts in lieu of the word “mine!”
Here’s the sentence that started my journey— not, of course, that I would have assumed someone so inconspicuous would have altered the course of my relationship with food when Danita said it: “The chat has vegan chicken tenders now… They’re actually pretty good!”
That sentence is what echoed around in my head while I stared dreadfully at the options on the ordering kiosk in front of me. The thing with Chat food is that the options are usually: meat, meat, meat, chewy tofu, meat. I’d reached the point where hunger became palpable frustration. Only ten minutes before, I’d been staring at my senior thesis project, so unnecessarily annoyed that there were tears in my eyes. It took me one second of assessment to realize that I hadn’t eaten all day.
But I was too hungry. I stared at the menu and thought about how if I ate a piece of meat that was too chewy I’d throw up. I spotted the vegan tenders and thought, what the hell? Even if I didn’t like them, I could just eat the fries. So I ordered, got a glass of water, and waited impatiently for the cook to call my number to let me know that my food was done.
They don’t look like particularly convincing chicken nuggets: they’re very smooth and relatively untextured despite the breading. There’s a moment before trying any new kind of fake meat where I have to take a second to lower my expectations. You know, remind myself that I’m not about to bite into a delicious chicken nugget, but am instead going to bite into a mass of soy covered in breadcrumbs.
When I took the first bite, I had to pause. Horrified, I reeled back and shredded the nugget apart. Had they given me real meat? It tasted like it.
It was too white, not stringy enough. Relieved, I took another bite and immediately texted Danita:
So, as you well know, Danita took to emailing Metz and I took to researching the company. Incogmeato (I love the name) is made by MorningStar, a fairly popular fake meat distributor. If you’ve ever gone down the plant based freezer aisle, you’ve probably seen their logo:
Photo by Kellog
But when I searched Arcadia’s zipcode on their Incogmeato-specific website, it yielded mixed results. They tell me there are no local online sellers (that makes enough sense. It’s frozen, and trying to keep things frozen in transit is a pain in the ass.) Locally, however, it advertised CVS, Walgreens, ACME— You name it, they had it.
Boldly (read: stupidly), I assumed this would expand to the grocery chain Giant.
The mystery thickened, as these things often do, in the frozen food aisle of Giant.
“They should have them,” My roommate said as we rounded the corner, “They’re on the app.”
Except, Giant didn’t have the Incogmeato fake chicken. In fact, Giant didn’t have any brand fake chicken, or any brand fake meat at all. The freezers beneath the plant-based alternatives sign was dark. Not only dark, but also barren. Where there should be a collage of brands was just the faint reflection of the fluorescent lights on the metal shelves. The shelves were collapsed in on each other— It was a boarded-up ghost town.
I’d have to try somewhere else, apparently.
The plan was to take the loss and go to CVS. It would be less convenient than, say, being able to pick them up on my weekly shopping trip. But I was desperate, and apparently talking about them enough that my dear friend Ollie who goes to school in Central Jersey texted me:
Thanks to the aforementioned friend, the story comes to a close in a crowded Wegman’s in Lawrence, New Jersey on the day before Easter. It’s a last ditch effort, really— I had woken up at 5:30 in the morning to go with a couple friends to Stock’s bakery in Philadelphia. We were all having fun, so Ollie suggested we go to a diner in Lawrence for no reason other than why not. One conversation led to another, and they reminded me that they thought they’d seen that exact brand in the Wegman’s near where we were. We figured it was worth a shot. And, boy, was it ever.
Aisle 11B, fellas, is where miracles happen.
Delighted, I texted Danita a photo of the chicken in my possession:
Which went unanswered despite being read only moments after having sent it, so a few hours later I sent a photo of a half-eaten nugget:
What can I say? I wanted the recognition I deserved.
When I got back to school, my head was full of possibilities: fake chicken parm, chicken wraps, protein with my meal that wasn’t eggs (I like eggs, don’t get me wrong, but I eat a lot of eggs). I did, mostly, end up throwing it in with pasta. When it’s not the main star of the dish, it’s an even more convincing fake. I threw it in with spinach and roasted tomatoes. I ate them straight. I—
Featured image by Kellog
