Day 192

"Chick-N-Fried" Tofu: Over time, I've noticed that I've tended to bounce around a pretty good bit when it comes to trying new foods. One day I might be trying some animal part of strange origin, the next eating a new fruit or vegetable. I really can't discriminate; if I did, it would be extremely difficult to complete 365 days of this project.

After yesterday's success with the weird but tasty mish-mash of pig parts called scrapple, I chose to go in a completely different direction today. I was completely out of new food, so I stopped by Whole Foods on Ponce to see if I could find anything interesting. I normally don't do much shopping at WF, since their gluten-free, vegan, organic, free-range inventory doesn't hold much interest for me. I'm not knocking it, but that kind of shopping isn't necessary for my needs (or my wallet - ouch). However, I needed something badly, and since it was close, I figured it couldn't hurt.

I've actually had great success with WF's hot bar as well as their salad bar. It's extremely overpriced, but if you ask the counter staff, they'll be glad to give you free sample cups to try things. And since my project only requires me to taste something for it to count, I've used this method several times. While browsing the bars today, I noticed something that was new to me (and halfway tasty-sounding): "chick-n-fried" tofu. Anyone that reads my blog knows how I feel about fake vegan meat (yes, I hate it), but I don't have a problem with tofu. And how could anything "chick-n-fried" be bad. right? I dropped a piece in my sample cup to take home.

Once I checked out and got home, I gave it a closer look. There seemed to be a nice crust on the chunk of tofu, but I wasn't sure if WF had actually deep-fried it. The ingredients stated that they used a dry chicken soup mix for the breading, so I'm not sure how vegetarian it really was. Whatever. Let's eat.

My first bite was surprising - it was really pretty tasty. The crunchy exterior reminded me of fried chicken breading, but the lack of grease led me to believe that it had been baked instead of deep-fried. After getting through the thin breading, the center was just your standard firm tofu, nothing special. Despite the lack of meat, I could have seriously eaten about 50 more of these, especially if I had some good honey mustard or BBQ sauce for dipping.With some mac n' cheese or collard greens as a side, it would have been a good meal.

I can apparently only handle fake meat or tofu if it's fried or baked with chicken breading. Obviously, I'll never be a vegetarian.