The Tofurky Review

After a 24-hour reprieve, I find myself with a plate of tofu masquerading as turkey. The package arrived with the following:

One tofurkey, filled with stuffing
Four tempeh drumsticks
Soy giblets and gravy
Wishsticks made of tofurky jerky (which shall remain unbroken forever and ever, due to the inherent lack of fairness of an all-powerful wish granter being provided to only one person)

The first thing I tried was the soy gravy, which has the consistency of apple sauce. I put a tiny bit on my fork and ate a bite of mashed potatoes, but the gravy had a weird sweetness to it and a bad aftertaste. Yuck. I'm not a big fan of regular gravy either, so perhaps I'm not a good source of information on that topic.

I have two slices of tofurky sitting here. The first slice was the tofurky heel -- the smallest slice, made mostly of "skin." It's textured like corduroy. The second slice is filled with weird bubbly spaces. I guess real turkey has bubbles, too. At least, I'll keep telling myself that.

Claudia's afraid I'll taint the review by letting the tofurky get cold before I actually try it. I can only wish. Okay, here goes.

...

The texture of tofurky is fairly similar to turkey. It's somewhat chewier, but it doesn't have any of that distinctive turkey flavor. It's sweet -- in part because of the soy sauce, orange juice, and brown sugar it was basted with.

If I eat a bite, then eat two bites of plain mashed potatoes, I can probably make it through both pieces.

...

Okay, two more bites. I can taste the tofu now -- strangely reassuring in the context of mystery "meat," but I don't like the sweetness at all. If they'd just call it "tofu" and not try to make it act like turkey, I'd like it much better.

The corduroy "skin" creeps me out, though. I can't eat that. Sorry. I had to cut it off like a bread crust on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I'm very seven-years-old like that sometimes.