Is it chicken? This is how the first bite of ‘cell-grown’ meat tastes
When I told friends and family that I was reporting on the first chicken meat grown from animal cells, their first comment was “Eww.” Their second comment was “How does it taste?”
The short answer (you’ve probably heard this phrase in other contexts before): Tastes like chicken.
The longer answer, which folds into the “Eww” response, is more nuanced. Yes, it’s strange to think of eating a totally new kind of meat — chicken that doesn’t come from a chicken, meat that will be sold as “cell-grown” chicken after the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the go-ahead to two California companies on Wednesday. , Upside Foods and Good Meat.
But it’s also interesting (and exciting!) to see the first offers from one new era in meat productionwhich aims to end the harm to billions of animals slaughtered for food – and to drastically reduce the environmental impact of grazing, growing feed for those animals and handling their animal waste.
FACING THE ‘MEAT PARADOX’
I am a lifelong carnivore. I’m also a victim of the “meat paradox,” a term scientists use to describe the psychological conflict that occurs among people who enjoy eating meat but don’t like to think about the animals that died by providing it.
As someone who has reported on foodborne illness outbreaks and slaughterhouse safety, I am well aware that the chicken on my plate probably suffered to get there. And that fact makes me uncomfortable if I dwell 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 vegetable options like the Beyond Meat sausage and the Impossible Burger and liked them, although I didn’t think they were perfect substitutes. To be fair the Beyond Meat sausage tasted good but a bit mealy. And the Impossible Burger was dry, although I may have cooked it too long. In both cases, I enjoyed the taste of the produce, but was still aware that I wasn’t actually eating pork or beef.
What about the artificiality of it all? It didn’t bother me that this new cultured meat is made of cells that grow to epic proportions in large steel vats, only to be molded and molded – “extruded” is the somewhat unfortunate verb that came to mind – into familiar schnitzels, fillets and nuggets that wouldn’t look out of place on the dinner table.
But as with all food, it ultimately comes down to taste. And in this case, to the bigger question behind it: is this new material, in fact, chicken, or is it one imposter?
TIME FOR THE ALL-IMPORTANT MOUTH TEST
In January, I traveled to the Upside Foods plant in Emeryville, California. There, chef Jess Weaver baked a cultured chicken breast in a white wine butter sauce with tomatoes, capers, and green onions.
The aroma was enticing, just as any filet cooked in butter would be. And the flavor was light and delicate with a smooth texture, just like any chicken breast I would make at home – if I were a chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America.
Last week I visited the factory in Alameda, California, where Good Meat is about to begin production of its chicken products. Chef Zach Tyndall was ready with a smoked chicken salad with mayonnaise, golden raisins and walnuts. He followed it up with a chicken thigh dish – darker meat served on a bed of mashed potatoes with a mushroom-vegetable demi-glace, golden beets, and tiny purple cauliflower florets.
The flavor was richer than a chicken breast, more like the dark meat of a thigh. And the texture was both soft and chewy, like a well-cooked chicken thigh should be.
That, says Tyndall, is the whole point.
“It has to be as lifelike as possible to catch on,” he said.
While “lifelike” is an interesting word, I think it will catch on on my side of the fork. There are still huge hurdles – how to scale production and cut costs, experts say, and the lingering question of whether chicken without the bird is, in fact, chicken – but if you base it on authentic taste, I’ll let you behind with this:
Please pass the “chicken”.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Division is supported by the Science and Educational Media Group of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Follow Associated Press journalist JoNel Aleccia on Twitter http://twitter.com/JoNel_Aleccia
