Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Vond, Barbecue editor at Texas Monthly. And this
this Fire and Smoke at Texas Monthly Barbecue podcast, brought
to you by YETI. I'm an open minded guy when
it comes to barbecue, and I certainly could use a
few more vegetables in my life. So when I got
the email from Rice University asking me to come by
and check out their chef's new plant based versions of
vegan barbecue brisket, I didn't dismiss it outright. It might
have taken me a couple of days to respond back,
but when I got back to him, well, we had
a tour all set up. I got on campus and
I met some of the pr folks for Rice University
and Suzanne Glenn, she's the manager of communications for Housing
and Dining at Rice University. The first thing she said
to me is, are you ready to start your plant
based journey? They even have a hashtag on campus called
hashtag our plant based Journey, so you can check out
all their different vegan options that they serve on the
dining halls right there on Instagram. The vegan brisket that
I got, or the plant based brisket that I got
wasn't much to instagram, but it was certainly interesting to try,
and it was fun to talk to the chef about
how he developed it. So let's head to Rice University.
So it's safe to say I was dubious walking into
one of the many dining halls on the Houston campus
of Rice University recently. I was here on a mission
to visit Senior executive Chef Roger L. Koori. He had
recently developed vegan versions, that's right, vegan versions of Texas barbecue,
although he uses the term plant based to describe them.
As I entered the dining hall, I was skeptical, and
of course I have plenty of misgivings about appropriating meat
terms to make vegan dishes sound more appealing, like so
many other culinary misnomers. There's there's no faheita on a
grilled shrimp, and almonds certainly don't produce milk of their own.
You are really deceptively using the word brisket.
Speaker 2: As well, because yeah, yeah, you know, just that you
can come off an animal, you know, yeah, just that
soy American, I'm American, cassu American and all that stuff,
you know.
Speaker 1: So one of the its like shrimp fijetas I guess
the phrasing here of a vegan plant based brisket is
a way to sell a less familiar alternative. I guess
vital wheat gluten loaf likely wouldn't make it off the
shelves in Texas, but plant based brisket has a shot.
I guess here at rice, the culinary team admits it's
a marketing tool to get students to try new items
before dismissing them. I mean, exploring new ideas is what
college is all about, right.
Speaker 2: And honestly, people hate culiflower and college shooting. They hate
cult flower with passion. So I'm gonna go in ginea
a recipe that make people wait in line for cauldiflower
every Monday. So I did, and then we'll do it. Oh,
that's a year and a half ago. People line up
for it.
Speaker 1: It looks el Koori began his own plant based brisket
journey a year ago. He'd already developed plant based versions
of meats, including ham, turkey, and sausage at rice, and
he wanted to add a new barbecue dish to the menu.
When his first plant based brisket emerged from the oven,
looking suspiciously purple. He knew some adjustments were in order.
Along with the taste and texture, it had to mimic
the look of brisket as well.
Speaker 2: Spoke about a year assault. Yeah, and a lot of
testing and a lot of crying.
Speaker 1: You know, there some cryingold He didn't really cry over
at the.
Speaker 2: Gym, not over it the way home.
Speaker 1: After many failed iterations, he settled on a recipe that's
ninety five percent vital wheat gluten. That's wheat with all
the starch removed, leaving behind only the gluten, and that
is mixed with water, spices and the secret ingredient porcini
mushroom powder for that umami flavor. There's also some liquid
smoke in there. That's because it's not smoked, it's baked,
although there is a smoker on site that he uses
for chicken and the occasional beef brisket. At the serving line,
we walked right past the beautiful prime rib carving station
to read the plant based menu. Barbecue smoked brisket sliders
were the day's selection, and it was only the second
time they had been offered. I tried to slice a
vegan brisket without the bun. It pulled apart easily enough.
El Koori said the biggest challenge was to keep it
from becoming rubbery. Black pepper was the most pronounced flavor.
There wasn't really much else that stood out, thankfully. The
liquid smoke had been used sparingly. Essentially, this was a
blank canvas. The texture was far more important than the flavor.
Since the finished product was covered in a thick barbecue
sauce and a pile of caramelized onions, the quote unquote
brisket didn't have to really stand on its own. It
ends up not being really much more offensive than a
passable chopped beef sandwich and an average barbecue joint that's
covered with sauce and pickles and raw onions.
Speaker 2: And then the favor was the biggest thing. You know,
how you're going to convince people they're eating almost the
experience of the brisket. We fooled a lot of people
with the brisket. We gave him to the brisket's already
made and they eat it and they say, oh, this
is very good brisket. What do the smoke it? And
they said, we did it al side in the smoke
with we don't have.
Speaker 1: Now, before you get too worried about university indoctrination, el
Koory's stress that he's not really trying to turn students
into vegans or really even eliminate the meat from the menu.
Rice's campus food is highly rated, and the dining team
would like to keep it that way. The plant based
options are a result of inclusivity, not exclusivity. Many of
Rice's international students don't eat meat at all, so el
Koury's brisket might be their only option for a bite
of Texas barbecue, however distorted it might be. For that reason,
he also creates plant based dishes that don't rely on
peanuts or cashews for texture, so diners with nut allergies
can enjoy them. I guess the gluten free folks are
out of block for now. El Kouri attributes his philosophy
about non traditional meat dishes to his upbringing in Lebanon.
We never thought of hummus and peeda bread as vegan,
he said. Instead, his family saw the many plant based
dishes that they served alongside grilled and roasted meats. It's
just what they were food. He hopes RICE students will
be equally open minded el Kouri considers it a success
when they have both the meat option and the plant
based protein on their trays. When I see that, I
think the mission is complete.
Speaker 2: He told me, this is for everybody that's not only
for vegan, because when you say vegans, they came to
the life. I said, would you like to try that?
She said, they ate a lot of meat. I'm not vegan.
I experienced this, you know when I start doing this.
And then I looked and I said, well, this is
for everybody that's not for vegan. Because it's for vegan,
we'll probably say the ten fifteen sandwiches. We're saying about
four hundred hundreds a day in here, So this is
for everybody. This project was made for everybody.
Speaker 1: El Kouri sees a broader transition towards less meat consumption
as something that's inevitable. The future is plant based, he said.
Since products like nutritional yeast have hit the shelves at
grocery store chains, he reasons meat replacements have officially made
their way into the mainstream.
Speaker 2: We wanted to reduce the intake of the SII meat
redmating all the a replace it or something plant based.
That's it. Yeah, We're not trying to cancel their diet.
We're not trying to do any of that.
Speaker 1: His perspective is backed up by science, as the warming
planet requires significant changes to meat production. According to a
recent dire report released by the UN's Inner Governmental Panel
on Climate Change, halting the warming of the planet to
a non catastrophic level would quote require rapid, far reaching,
and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society end quote.
That means we'll likely see many more plant based meat
substitutes rather than less. Meanwhile, El Koori will continue innovating
with his contributions. At the end of lunch, he headed
back to the kitchen to work on new versions of
plant based pork ribs and pork belly, the latter of
which is particularly difficult because of the layers of fat
and meat that will need to replicate. The pork belly
is two dimensional set the frustrated chef, it needs a
lot of work. In the end, I can't imagine that
this plant based brisket is going to convince any Texas
carnivores out there to abandon their beef brisket. But I
will say I'm interested to see where this develops and
how some of these mock meats might develop into something
that who knows, might even one day fool me. Texas
barbecue is built from the ground up, from the wood
to the smoke to the meat. You have to have
the right tools to create a masterpiece on butcher big
YETI coolers have you covered? Built to be indestructible, keep
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Yetti is built for Texas barbecue. You've been listening to
Fire and Smoke, the Texas Monthly Barbecue Podcast. I'm Daniel Vaughan,
and I'll see you out there on the barbecue trail.