Yves Meatless Pepperoni

Guys don’t even ask me what I was thinking when I bought this product.  Usually, I try to stay away from imitation meat products.  Yes, I’ll eat a Morningstar or Boca something-or-other every so often but it’s not a huge part of my diet.  So why I picked up these meatless pepperoni slices is beyond me.

Maybe I was looking for a healthier version of pepperoni because let’s face it, pepperoni is some scary shit.  Tasty with just the right amount of spice and kick, but damn scary.

Side tangent, did anyone else grow up eating hot pepperoni sandwiches? Sandwich pepperoni (or little rounds if that’s all you got), some cheese, on a bun, wrapped in foil and heated in the oven till melty warm.  It’s mighty fine eats.  As long as you don’t think too hard about what makes up that pepperoni. ;)

Anyway, back to the review!  I tried reading the ingredient list but that ended up being a crazy long tale that didn’t seem to have a plot so I left it alone.  Plus it made me realize how much processing and manipulation it takes to get something that is not meat to resemble meat and that made me nervous.  Wait. Isn’t that same thing for regular pepperoni as well?

Meatless Pepperoni Slice

Maybe it is just like pepperoni?!  I pulled it out of the package and it was sort of slick like regular pepperoni.  I smelled it and I’ll be dang, it smelled  just like pepperoni too!  Well this was starting to look promising and all my negative thoughts were receding.

However the look of it isn’t so appealing.  I think they tried a bit too hard here.  I mean, we all know that pepperoni has some nasty bits in it and typically they are small so we can easily shove the sight to the back of our minds.  But Yves lets you know there are mysterious things in this fake pepperoni slice by making them gigantic!

As if to say, “Oh so you want to eat pepperoni, do ya?  Well here’s a meatless version and just for good measure we threw in some huge gelatinous unidentifiable vegetable matter!  Chew on this suckas!”

Or something.

So while it smelled like pepperoni and was slippery like pepperoni, it did not taste nor have the texture of pepperoni.  This slice was very soft and there was almost new chew to it at all.  I didn’t care for it and couldn’t even eat an entire little slice.  I called in Scott.  He’s my backup, because if I won’t eat something he usually will.   I had him try a plain one and then one I heated up in a skillet.  He didn’t like them.  He also did not think they looked or smelled like pepperoni, so we differ there.

The packaged ended up getting tossed.  I wouldn’t even think about eating these again nor would I even purchase another Yves meatless product.  Yves gets an A for effort but the taste and texture just quite aren’t there.  They deserve a beer for giving it a good old college try (and to help wash down the nastiness that is the meatless pepperoni)!