(Editors note: This is inane poetry that I wrote about 5 years ago during my conversion to vegetarianism. It reflects my general unease about the idea of fake meat. I have since grown to love the stuff. Mock meat, I mean, not unease)
Why do we mock the mock meats?
Is it our feverish fear of fakes?
That make us avoid eating mock snakes
Do we fear down deep that we are eating
Something that never was bleating
Some hybrid of bean sprouts and shark
That looks like a deformed snark
Do we feel people will see us as quirky?
If we down a box of Tofurky
Should we eat what does not cluck?
Like a steaming plate of mock duck
Or avoid things that do not moo
And happen to taste like Elmer’s glue
What is a new vegan to do?
Settle down to a plate of mock kangaroo!
When will the mock meat madness stop?
Will they open a mock meat butcher shop?
Will mock meat mania destroy our nation?
Will we become a mock civilization?
A mock culture in neverending retreat
Who cannot tell the difference between real and mock meat
The Tyranny of Tradition 
#1 by johncerickson on August 16, 2011 - 4:46 PM
Neat stuff! Though I was expecting something about Spam, or bologna, or some such “meat of mysterious origin”. Can’t really speak to Tofurky, or anything like that, being a member of PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.)
Feel free to hurl rotten fruit, as you see fit. 🙂
#2 by Keith Spillett on August 16, 2011 - 5:15 PM
Nah! I’ll stick to throwing wax fruit. It makes more of an impact and saves me a meal. Mock meat really isn’t so bad. If you want to try some awesome stuff, there is something called Qu’orn. It’s a mushroom-based protein that tastes amazingly like chicken. Boca burgers are like eating warm, meat flavored sponges. Those things should have been banned by the Geneva Convention. Morningstar is solid. It’s not such bad stuff when you get used to it.
#3 by johncerickson on August 16, 2011 - 7:06 PM
Qu’orn? Isn’t that Klingonese for … um … “Go have carnal relations with yourself”, or words to that effect?
And I love Jim’s little paean to Pluto! Who cares if it doesn’t orbit correctly, or has a moon larger than itself? Dang Solar System Nazis! Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to tell us the Earth isn’t really hollow, and Hitler isn’t ruling over the UFO people who live there. Harrumph, I say!
#4 by Keith Spillett on August 17, 2011 - 3:40 AM
You speak the truth, sir.
#5 by Jim Wheeler on August 16, 2011 - 4:55 PM
I think this is terrific, Keith! It’s kind of Doctor Spockish, is it not? I submit that you, a father, might do well at some children’s books with something similar. You have a gift.
I am reminded of one of my own feeble efforts at poetry, one I knocked out when the astronomers demoted Pluto from its full planet status:
Poor Pluto, whirling in a tilted orbit
Is now demoted, status “forfeit”.
Sharing fate in the debate
With little asteroids and Charon.
What’s the difference in a name I say?
Space hasn’t changed in any way
It’s only we who can’t agree
And mostly astronomers a’carin’.
#6 by Keith Spillett on August 16, 2011 - 5:12 PM
That’s excellent, Jim! I often wondered why the demotion of Pluto to “a large rock floating through space” was not met with more poetic handwringing. It was a sad day for admirers of the planet when that went down. Mercury quickly became my new favorite planet essentially proving that I see the universe in extremes.
Thanks for your kind words, sir! It’s a bit more Seuss than Spock, but both deal with the correct demographic. I have a few weird existential children’s stories I wrote in a similar way that I’ll put up here at some point. The market for depressing children’s literature seems to be quite neglected. I still think Camus should have adapted The Myth of Sisyphus for toddlers.
#7 by Jim Wheeler on August 16, 2011 - 8:44 PM
OMG, I meant Seuss. The neurons are slipping.
Camus? Sisyphus? Now this is just an idle notion, but it comes from years of observation: the most successful comic strips have been those which leveraged adult themes, e.g., Walt Kelly and Al Capp. Dr. Seuss did it too, but was more subtle. Go for it, man!
#8 by Keith Spillett on August 17, 2011 - 3:39 AM
Al Capp was hysterical!!! A complete lunatic to boot.
#9 by Phil Dai on August 17, 2011 - 9:16 AM
Like your poetry,feel happy to read.It has quite different and fresh topic …Here besides the buddhist,most of peopleare are not vegetarianism,I am not ,too.But I like vegetable more.Needn’t answer my comment,since fear it may still bring virus…I don’t know how to avoid from that…by the way,all of our teachers have to listen many courses on line these days,so I just finished those courses today,and would like to watch the open course you said.Is it intersting?
#10 by Keith Spillett on August 19, 2011 - 2:42 PM
Hey Phil!
I edited the link so it doesn’t go to the virus thing. I miss chicken from time to time. We have a thing here called Buffalo Wings. I really, really miss them. They are made out of chicken. Buffaloes, as I’m sure you know, don’t have wings.
The Donald Kagan course on Greek history is excellent. Not as good as the Death series by Shelley Kagan, but quite interesting. Donald Kagan runs on a bit, but he has a very unique view on how history works. Well worth listening to. Let me know if you find any other good ones.
#11 by Juan Don on August 18, 2011 - 4:40 PM
Keith,
I’m not sure what I’m eating. I’m going to call it “found ground”, as I found it in the frig. So far so good. The nicotine insulating my nostrils makes the sniff test impossible. But it beats sending Hop Sing to Wendy’s for supper. He’s reluctant to part with whatever change is left. I fear he is saving up for another escape attempt.
#12 by Keith Spillett on August 19, 2011 - 2:44 PM
Hey! Great to see you, as Nixon used to say, back in the arena. I have stuff in the icebox so old it probably could levitate if I took it out. Asparagus isn’t naturally blue, right?