The Black Sheep plant-based lamb is *amazing*—game-y, barn-yard-y, savory.
At least in the context of spiced meatballs in Souvla's salad, I'm indifferent between the real lamb and Black Sheep. Don't think that's happened with a substitute before.
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I'm not a vegan, but I'm a "reducitarian", so I'm really excited about the rapid progress in this space.
Looking forward to trying cell-based artificial meats in the next couple years—have any of you tried yet? What's really got me pumped there is: custom tissue composition!
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As I understand it Black Sheep tried to figure out what makes lamb taste gamey and so on, then added those to their product. What's surprising to me is they're not yet using fermentation to produce those compounds, like Impossible—they're extracting them from plants?
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Wouldn’t be surprised if it is a bamboo extract.
Lot of these things were solved a thousand years ago, so somewhat amusing to see hypey startups spend their VC dollars reinventing the wheel.
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Interesting! I haven't noticed the barnyard-y flavor in the bamboo I've eaten—know where I can read more about historic use of bamboo as flavoring?
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Never looked into any formal sources, but it is in most “duck” and “lamb” dishes at the vegetarian Vietnamese and Chinese places we visit.
It is probably fermented, and has a definite “warm horse” aroma.
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Fascinating! I have a vegan "fish sauce" made with some kind of fermented pineapple. I wonder if it's a related process / compound.
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Bit heavy on genetic methods but this is related:
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