Hello, and welcome to Saber Prediction of Ihart are you. I'm any Rea and I'm Lorn.
Vocal Bomb, and today we have a classic for you about Satan.
Many puns. Oh, yes, fondly recall.
Was there any particular reason this classic was on your mind, Lauren?
You know, I was going through our backlog and we just recorded a whole episode about barbecue, like Memphis style barbecue, and I felt like I needed to apologize in a small way to all of our vegetarian listeners.
That's yeah, and you can get barbecued Satan. Oh, yeah, usually the one that I see, but you can yeah, get it.
Yeah.
This episode of Rich only came out in November of twenty eighteen, and we don't really have any updates for you. I usually just do a quick scour of the internet to see if anything is super new. Nothing is super new with Sitan. I did read a lot of articles about whether jackfruit or Sitan is better for a barbecue, and it was personal. Everyone kind of had their own response, So here we are.
It was deeply personal.
Well, as we talked about in that Memphis Style barbecue episode, people have very strong opinions. They do very personal opinions. Oh about those kinds of things always, always, and we would love to hear those opinions from you listeners.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, about vegetarian proteins the same way as anything else. But yeah, I suppose, without further ado, we should let former Annie and Lauren take it away.
Hello, and welcome to Savor.
I'm Annie Rises and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're talking about satan.
Yes, satan, not satan, not satan. No, different thing, very different.
Probably not vegetarian that second one.
I don't think so, but you never know, you never know.
No, we're talking about satan, which is flavored wheat gluten, sometimes called a gluten, wheat gluten, wheat protein, or wheat meat. It's in your tofriky slices, yes, yes, but.
Really though, what is it? Okay?
Satan is a protein product created using wheat gluten. Gluten is the primary protein in wheat. It's a stretchy and sort of linky, and the texture of satan is well, it's a lot like meat, maybe more so than other meat alternatives. It has a sort of fibrous chew that reminds me a lot of chicken or at least like a chicken nugget actual chicken. And you make satan by first coaxing the gluten out of wheat flour and then by encouraging that gluten to lock up just right to
give you that nice, chewy texture. To get the gluten out, you make a sort of dough of flour and water and then soak and knead it with a more water, like a lot more water. Gluten is not water soluble, so it will stay put in your sort of dough, but the starches that make up the rest of wheat flour are totally water soluble, so they will eventually wash out.
You're then left with gluten, and okay. Gluten is made up of two types of protein molecules, glutenins and gleiodins, plus a smattering of a few other compounds like cysteine, which is an amino acid, and all right under normal circumstances. Gluten is a sort of gel like suspension of this
stuff and maybe some molecules of water. But when you mess with it, both physically mixing or kneading the gluten and also chemically changing its pH by adding stuff like vinegar or baking soda, those cysteines will make the gluten in molecules link up. The gleiodins are smaller and will get trapped in these like cross linked matrices of gluten molecules like a Okay, imagine, imagine you have a few strands of giant Christmas lights.
Oh I do like.
Like like the bulbs are like the size of like normal lamp bulbs. Okay, And these strands are just super tangled up.
Oh no, as they do.
And for some reason you and all your wisdom decided to store a bunch of bitty little like pinky sized globe ornaments in the same box as these strands of Christmas lights. And so when you take this mass of tangled lights out of the box, all of these little ornaments come with it, trapped in the little like pockets made up by the chords.
Did my mom put you up to this?
It's a lot of work taking down the decorations at the end of the year, Mom, No.
No, shame, no shame. Okay, okay, does this imagine that you can eat it?
Oh? Does that make it better? Then I don't have to untangle them? Yeah?
Okay, yeah, yeah, Well that's satan cool.
Guilt free. You can also make it at home.
It is notoriously difficult to get the texture right, but yes, you can totally work your own gluten out of flour or buy wheat gluten often called vital wheat gluten in stores and use it to make your own satan. You can also use vital weet gluten to up your homemade bread game.
Ooh, I'm always looking to up my homemade bread game. If we're talking about flavor, I actually don't have too much experience with satan. Satan yes, the form of horror movies, but satan, no, not really. I do remember it having a hearty, meaty exture and that it absorbed flavor really well. It can mimic some of the flavors and properties of meat so well that it makes some vegetarians or vegans suspicious that there might actually be meat in whatever vegetarian
vegan dish they've ordered that has satan in it. Yeah.
By itself, wheat gluten is pretty bland, but satan is usually made with flavor additives to make it taste meaty. Common recipes recommend savory things like nutritional yeast tomorrow and worster share sauce.
And we're talking about nutrition Satan has a good amount of protein. One ounce comes in around twenty one grams of protein. It's low fat, low carb, but obviously not gluten free if celiacs or gluten intolerance is something that you deal with.
Yeah, and this package of really high protein with really low fat and low carb is something that some people find very desirable.
And numbers wise.
In twenty twelve, some research put the meat alternatives industry in the US, of which Satan is a part of, at five hundred and thirty three million dollars.
So it's making some money. Yeah, it's making some money.
And if we look back at the history, it features a cameo from someone I was not expecting that we haven't talked about in a while on this show. But you're gonna have to wait to find out who it is until after this quick break forward from our sponsor.
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you.
For centuries Chinese and Japanese vegetarian Buddhist monks have eaten satan.
Or not exactly Satan, but who romanized either Hu or Fu. But yeah, who is not exactly what we think of when we think of satan today, but is also a product made from wheat gluten that has been processed to form chewy proteiny products. It's usually a little less fibrous than satan, more like the texture of seafood than chicken, or sort of spongier, like a sort of springy cake.
Yeah, there isn't too much when it comes to history recorded history when it comes to satan. But I do know that some people like ignore this whole thing and say that this isn't satan when they're talking about.
The history of satan. Yeah, depends, you know, mysteries of history. Yeah, sure, Yeah.
It's been a Southeast Asian diet staple since sixth century CE. In Japan, for instance, where for centuries up until the nineteenth century, eating four legged animals was forbidden.
This resulted from the arrival of Buddhism circa sixth century CE, compounding existing Shinto beliefs against killing or eating animals.
Because of that, Japan and also India, which had a similar story, the idea of mak meat wasn't really a thing for a good while because there wasn't really a reference point.
Yeah, there were pockets of cultures that ate meat anyway in Japan, but it was not widespread like new emperors had a long standing tradition of as soon as they rose to power, re upping that edict against eating mammals.
Right, the same wasn't true in China, not.
For the common person at any rate. Buddhist monks on the mainland and in Korea wouldn't eat animals either.
Poet Yuwan May included a recipe for a satan textured to be similar to goose in the book Recipes from the Sway Garden. Journey to the West, a book out of the Ming dynasty, comes with several wheat gluten mentions. One involves a demon trying to trick a monk into eating human flesh and brains that resembled wheat gluten.
Oh, tricky demon.
No, that sounds like it could be a future fantasy food.
Oh, Journey to the West is full of It's the legend that we got so many other stories out of, like a dragon ball z and Sayuki and all of these weird problems.
Oh yeah, yeah, I revisit that for sure.
Yeah oo, or you know, whatever recursor to satan you want to talk about did feature pretty widely in Chinese art. There's a poem from the eleventh century CE book dream Pool essays that said steel is to iron as gluten is to flower. It is only after thoroughly washing the dough that gluten is revealed.
Wow.
I don't want to go think about that for a minute, but I suppose we should continue.
Yeah.
In eighteen ninety five, Vegetarian Restaurant Number one opened in New York thanks to the New York City Vegetarian Society.
Vegetarian Restaurant Number one. I love how on the nose that.
Is, we have a restaurant similar to that in Atlanta. It was similarly named, but the opening night menu included fruit and graham bread. Yes, that gram, but that's not the kmemeo what I'm talking about. Although related, George Osawa came up with the term satan in nineteen sixty one. He was also the founder of the macrobiotic diet, and indeed, satan wasn't that common in cookbooks until the nineteen seventies. That word anyway, And like I said earlier, all that
early history we've been talking about. Some folks dispute it, saying that satan got its start with the macrobiotic diet in the nineteen sixties.
I think satan is based very heavily on who like to the point where you can really call it, I mean that you can count.
The history of Yeah, it was sort of like a progression. Yeah.
Absolutely, it's just just an offshoot.
Yeah, I agree.
When Mormon settlers were making their way to Utah in the nineteenth century, they needed an inexpensive protein source and satan was their answer.
Oh and also, you.
Know who was a huge part of this movement, One John Harvey Kellogg. Kellogg That Kellogg as part of his whole health sanitarium thing that we've talked about in a few episodes, he was looking for a successful meat alternative the vegetarians in his flock. He and his brother Will Keith, through some weird circumstance, came upon the conclusion that dry wheat flaked super well, and you add milk boila toasted
wheat flakes. Now, Kellogg and his brother Will Keith had a huge blowout when it came to the profitability of the cereal, eventually leading to Will spinning out the Kellogg we all know that company and John Harvey Kellogg starting the Battle Creek Food Company. This company's product line was primarily mock meats. The most popular of witch was known as protos. It was a combination of soy peanuts and wheat gluten, sort of the.
First commercial approximation of satan.
Yeah, some Seventh day aventist fans of Kellogg got the idea for mock meats more closely resembling hot dogs and hamburgers and adding more seasoning for flavor, including one doctor George Harding, a relative of worn Gee Harding. Yeah, we're getting all guy. It's a surprising peace in this episode. From this came the Worthington Foods Company and their two canned imitation meat products in nineteen forty nine. If you're wondering, because we were meatless wieners still available these days, be
looking for a throwback and soyloin steaks. Oh that legitimately made me laugh.
That was good. It's a good pun.
And we talked about these meatless wieners in our hot Dogs episode. These were maybe the first veggie dogs on the market.
Eventually, Worthington's got bought out by Miles Laboratories, and from this came a brand you've probably heard of, morning Star Farms.
Yep, that one.
They were the first that were really able to commercialize the mock meats market in the US.
Like the Chick with a K Patty that.
Was them, morning Star went through several companies before once again falling under Kellogg's ownership. Satan's success largely depended on the public at large accepting vegetarianism, which for a while was a tough sell in the United States, especially for Middle America. In the nineteen twenties, one of America's first chain restaurants, it was called Child's, attempted to transition to a full vegetarian menu at an affordable price at the
behest of owner and vegetarian William Childs. Folks didn't go for it, though, Sales plummeted and Childs was removed from his leadership position. Even progressive New York City was iffy on the idea of vegetarianism during World War II, entered Cranks in nineteen sixty one in all vegetarian restaurant that went on to attract famous fans like Linda McCartney and Princess Diana.
And I wanted to put in here at the end that these days, Satan is pretty widely available in supermarkets. But if you're looking to expand from Satan into who territory. The fresh stuff that's mixed with glutenous rice in Japanese called namafu is hard to find in the West, but you can probably find a cooked and dried who called u yaki who or yaqui boo in whatever Asian import market is in your area.
I don't have to keep an eye out for that. This episode has inspired me to try try some more. Say ton, Yeah, me too.
I'm sort of I'm craving it right now. I've definitely had like clear broth Japanese soup that has these little it almost looks like a like a little spongy cracker And that's definitely this this like YUCKI who like dried mm and yeah, and I'm just like, oh, it's nice. It soaks up, it soaks up the broth. Yeah, it's a nice little texture difference in the soup.
Yeah. Oh man, I got a craving. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Tempe episode to date is the one that has changed my diet the most because I eat Tempe all the time.
Now really I love it. Oh wow, that's so cool.
Yeah.
Oh, now I want to know I want to like pick your brain for recipes and stuff. How do you like cooking it?
I like a good simple stir fry with soy sauce and a little sesame oil.
Oh yeah, says Meia oil makes all the difference.
Yeah, but now I'm hoping maybe I'll have a similar revelation about Satan. And that brings us to the end of this classic episode. We hope that you enjoyed listening to it, whether it was your first time or who knows how many times, as much as we enjoyed bringing it back. Would definitely love to hear from you listeners any Satan recipes or favorite uses very much.
Oh oh always, yes, please, and you can get in touch with us.
You can you can email us at hello at sabrepod dot com.
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