The Secret to Making Fake Meat You Want to Eat

It was chicken thigh, guessed Ferran Adrià. Probably organic or free-range and definitely from the south of France. The legendary El Bulli chef was sampling some mystery meat cooked by a Dutch friend in 2011, trying to figure out what it was. The dish was delicious; the texture of the protein marked its quality.

Only it wasn’t meat. Adrià was the victim of a kitchen prank—his taste buds had conned him into believing he was eating poultry. In fact, it was a spiced all-soy confection that’s one of the signature products of Holland’s waggishly named Vegetarian Butcher. (Well, De Vegetarische Slager in Dutch.)