The memes of the climate

Meat used to taste delicious.

I was raised pescatarian and started eating a little bit of meat in university, it was pretty good. I could definitely understand the hype, meat was pretty delicious. But for me personally, I just don't get the craving for it. Eventually I just ended up going back to a near vegan diet because it's what I like to cook, and it's so cheap. I'm not vegan, but 99% of what I've cooked at home in the last 10 years is.

However, I was craving charcoal chicken for like two weeks straight, so the other day my friends and I rode down to the place everyone goes to. We made a proper day of it with our bikes and picnic blankets. The chicken was cooked perfectly, really moist and falling off the bone. The seasoning on the skin was delicious, I can see why that place is so popular.

But the chicken had no flavour of its own.

Taste wise, it could have been anything cooked with the seasoning rub over the charcoal spit. A block of tofu would have had the same flavour.

Texture is the only unique experience, and I'm sure there will be a brand of meat replacement out there that has nailed the texture (but not nailed the taste) so it really isn't long now until there are viable alternatives. I haven't really tried many meat replacement products because I'm allergic to potato and e160c and those two ingredients are in a surprising number of vegan packaged proteins.

I was disappointed with my chicken. I thought maybe I'd over sold it in my mind, as my friends confirmed that yup, this is good chicken, I'm being picky. But when I said "it's just not as good as I remember from uni" and then my friends did a full 180° and agreed that yes, in the last 10 years since I've had chicken like this, meat quality has gone downhill, and chicken isn't good anymore, but what we were eating was good chicken, and that they all still like chicken, even though it's disgusting by direct comparison.

Now I'm curious how different the quality is between home raised chickens vs store bought chicken meat. Because it's got to be insane, even if both birds are the same species of heart attacks on legs.