If you order "vegan buffalo wings" you're attaching yourself to the vegan subculture and the baggage that comes along with that. Ordering "plant-based buffalo wings" just means you're ordering cauliflower.
I will never understand why parts of the vegan movement need to disguise foods as something else. Vegetables are good!
Why do vegans and vegetarians insist on disguising vegetables as meat - now that's the question. Even though the same cultures have a mind-boggling variety of foods that don't involve meat, and don't pretend to be meat.
As to why vegans do it - hotdog buns are really well designed for holding a tube of protein.
I might buy 'halloumi and apple sausages', just like I might 'pork and apple'. I wouldn't buy 'vegetarian pork and apple sausages', even though it describes the former (and could be the same) - it's vague and unappealing.
Just like a Breaded Drumstick was unlikely to have been used by Ringo Starr.
People understand the colloquial terms for foods.
The term "vegetarian pork" may be vague an unappealing to you - but sales figures show it is pretty attractive to lots of people. And, to a veggie like me, it gives some indication of the flavour profile, which I personally find useful.
Let's go back to your original statement, shall we: "Why do meat eaters disguise things as burgers, sausages, and nuggets?"
No part of that statement ever said anything about buffalos. And wings don't disguise themselves as wings.
Also, Buffalo Wings have nothing to do with buffalos, and everything to do with Buffalo, New York.
> The term "vegetarian pork" may be vague an unappealing to you - but sales figures show it is pretty attractive to lots of people.
Because it turns out people crave meat, and the market is happy to disguise vegeterian/vegan food as meat. Including trying to replicate both taste and texture. Funnily, meat is never (or very very very rarely) disguised as vegetables.
Yes, and hamburgers have nothing to do with ham, they're named after the city of Hamburg. Frankfurters also not made of Franks.
> Funnily, meat is never (or very very very rarely) disguised as vegetables.
OTOH, what exactly do people think they're eating when they have wieners? Because I'm fairly sure the meat shapes that get replicated — bacon rashers, sausages, burgers, fillets, deli slices — even where they had a specific original cause like "stuff meat into intestine", stuck around because they're convenient. The meat that still looks like the original animal (whole roast chicken, whole leg of lamb, stuffed pig head), I've not seen replicated. Well, not since the "everything is a cake" meme, at least.
And your point is?
> OTOH, what exactly do people think they're eating when they have wieners?
That they eat a sausage made of meat that is named "weiner".
That "meaty" names are just as much nonsense regardless of whether or not meat is still involved.
Just remembered an even more extreme example, albeit one that may only exist in the UK: christmas sweet pastry called "mince pie" filled with "mincemeat" which is often entirely vegetarian because it's an extremely archaic use of "meat" in the sense of "food".
> That they eat a sausage made of meat that is named "weiner".
QED: the name and shape (in this case, both being penile) are not really that connected to the mental model the consumer has of what they're consuming.
To use 'chicken drumsticks' then, yes obviously no drumstick, but certainly chicken, as though a drumstick made of chicken instead of wood.
A 'vegetarian drumstick' only tells me it's not made of chicken, and that it's edible, non-wood, I suppose. 'Vegetarian chicken drumstick' is a contradiction.
An equivalent to 'chicken drumstick' would be 'jackfruit drumstick', or whatever it actually is.
Buffalo wings are named after the city Buffalo in New York State. It's that spicy buttery style of baked on sauce that got popular and spread around.
You could obviously bread and bake the sauce onto anything, I like it on potatoes. It's a funny modifier, because it's sort of the sauce, it's sort of the preparation, like you might say cajun style, but the phrase only seems to be used around wings.
Buffalo cauliflower makes sense to me, but I internalized the word differently.
The idea that vegans are being sneaky with their foods is kind of funny considering the usual reputation of vegans is best captured in the joke "How do you know if someone is a vegan? Don't worry, they will tell you."
Ah yes. The non-natural form of "vegetables that taste like pork hamburger". Funnily how you never see meat producst disguised or sold as replicas of non-meat products.
But more fundamentally, I'm not sure what you're getting at. If "giving foods a different flavor or texture" were a totally new idea that vegetarians came up with, so what? Are you allergic to vegetables, but constantly being tricked into eating vegan food? What is the problem here?
It definitely isn't. Their new idea is get on a high horse about plant-based foods, but then going out of their ways to pretend it's meat.
Most of them don't. These are attempts by the manufacturers to sell vegan foods to meat-eaters.
Although 'hotdog' is familiar, in my experience, at a UK barbecue you'll likely be offered 'sausages and burgers' not 'hotdogs and hamburgers'. Not to say you can't or wouldn't put a sausage in one of those finger rolls, or a stick of baguette, just that probably nobody would say 'hotdog' during the process.
'Catsup', I had to look up, was a widely used term in America for a while, now usurped by (the familiar) 'ketchup'.
In brief, your examples are not contradicting, since they don't really fall in my sphere of experience or usage.
Perhaps though, there's an idea here that you in the US are more comfortable or accustomed to it; so it's natural on packaged products' marketing material, which is then used selling these things worldwide. Maybe.
The one thing I do see that seems to be "disguising" food is some "Vegan Mac & Cheese" where it tastes good but it tastes nothing like cheese. I would rather know what's actually in it.
You’re much less likely to see this sort of thing in actual vegan restaurants.
Planta Burger is (was?, this was pre-pandemic and we no longer have an office downtown) absolutely a wholly vegan QSR based around burger-like sandwiches and they were busy mostly feeding people who weren’t vegan themselves but really liked the food because it was damned good.
First, it suggests a preparation that is reminiscent of a food that people enjoyed before they stopped eating animal products. This means that the spices and texture will be similar. That's an indication for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians to expect a texture, condiment, and spice experience.
Second, it's not about disguising foods as other things; it's about combining foods. Falafel isn't fake meat, but it's ground chickpea (or fava bean in some cases) flour. Meatballs aren't somehow lesser because it's ground meat, no? As such, the thought of ground beans or other combinations into patties isn't somehow any more deceptive or disguised as ground meat. We transform food in all sorts of novel ways - that doesn't mean it's disguised because it is a substitute for other purposes.
Third, while vegans eat a lot of vegetables and mushrooms and beans, most people don't want every meal to be that. We crave variety in general, and a lot of plated vegetable plates are out of place at a barbecue or restaurant. So, it helps when things look in place.
Unless falafel does mean that, in which case, I will happily shut up.
Thanks for the answer anyways!
'Fried jackfruit with sticky barbecue sauce' might be nice; 'plant-based buffalo wings' is completely unappetising.
Something that is literally only made from plant products is food that both vegetarians and (most) vegans would be comfortable eating, in the absence of any other dietary restrictions.