To Make a Long Story Short
Twenty-Five Percent Soy
Written in 1974, never published
©2023 Elder Road Books
IT WAS A MATTER OF BUDGET. When several companies came out with a mixture of ground beef and soy protein, it cut the price nearly as much as it cut the flavor. We rejoiced at our house. The remarkable discovery meant that we could have meat twice a week. On our limited food budget, it was rare to see beef on the table, even in its ground up form.
However, we soon discovered many more good things from the remarkable little legume called soy beans. First, we discovered that the soy additive absorbed much of the grease that normally was left in the skillet, oven, or lost to the flames on the charcoal grill. As a result, our hamburgers were plumper, juicier. Our meatloafs and casseroles were moist and tender. And our dog was extremely unhappy that she no longer got meat drippings on her food.
There was no difference that we could tell in the flavor of the ground meat. My wife to whom the meat shortages meant nothing but an increased cost of feeding me, still couldn't stand the taste of red meat.
It appeared the soy bean had made its debut on the table of America.
In doing research on the subject, we found that soy beans provide all the necessary proteins except one amino acid. That one was found in corn. Some brave scientist (I believe it was my father-in-law) exclaimed, “A person could live on a total diet of nothing but corn and soy beans.”
The food value in that inexpensive commodity took my house by storm.
If by adding twenty-five percent soy meal to the meat, we could have it twice a week, perhaps by adding fifty percent, we could have it four times. And what with the prices being relentless in their upward sweep, it appeared that might be the only way eventually to maintain the budget. Still there was no noticeable change in flavor. Perhaps the meat was not quite as moist as it once was, but it still didn't shrink when you dropped it on a hot skillet.
My wife, being a vegetarian at tongue, took this to its logical conclusion. Why use meat at all? Why not just live on soy beans and corn? Why not invent the dish that would feed millions, and in five loaves and two ears of corn provide their minimum adult daily requirement of vitamins, iron, and protein? (I am certain her father was egging his brilliant daughter on.)
Why not?
Our kitchen was soon turned into a scientific laboratory. A sprouting tank occupied half the kitchen sink. The refrigerator was traded in on a storage bin. The stove was equipped with hydro analysis gauges, thermometers, and other miscellaneous devices. The cupboards took on the appearance of a high school chemistry lab. The soy bean was king!
The first thing we learned was dried soy beans must be cooked a long long time. Our first soybean dinner was the crunchiest thing I had eaten since the day as a tot I ate my mother's birth control pills. That was just before my little sister was born. As I have never been pregnant, I assume they work.
A pressure cooker solved the long cooking problem and we were back in business within the bushel.
The recipes on 3x5 notecards that were soon tacked to every available spare bit of kitchen wall looked more like a college science book than the Best of Betty Crocker.
“Heat cooker to 230 degrees at 40 pounds pressure for 18 minutes and 31 seconds. Drain off excess liquid and transfer 10 grams to blender. Puree at 1500 rps until a smooth paste has been formed.”
That, by the way, was the recipe for the sandwich spread I was to carry to work with me each day. It looked a bit like liverwurst, without the flavor. An occasional crunchy bean inevitably gave it away. The homemade bread I carried it on was made of nothing less than soy bean and cornmeal flour. It takes four cakes of yeast per loaf to make a mixture that heavy rise, but it was complete in its food value.
May I interject here that we noticed no particular change in flavor by deleting the meat entirely, but then again, there was no noticeable flavor by this time to notice particularly anyway. I think my tastebuds had simply died.
My wife went about this like a fanatic. I would catch her up in the middle of the night studying her notes and jotting down new formulae. To her, soybeans were the greatest thing to hit America since the I-can't-believe-it's-a-girdle girdle.
You can imagine my surprise when I came home from work one night and found, sitting in the middle of the table, a big beautiful chocolate cake with deep brown chocolate frosting. My wife had remembered my birthday with my favorite cake!
I was elated. I ate all my super soybean casserole in record time. I drank my soy bean tea, and dished a big helping of chocolate cake onto my plate.
One crunch and it was all over. I ran to my soy bean bed, pulled my soy bean covers over my head, buried my face in my soy bean pillow, and cried myself to sleep in a surge of soy bean soup.
It was all right for a change, but it had ceased to be a change.
You might think, and rightly so, that I have now turned off soy beans entirely. Not so. I still have one favorite recipe. I cook the beans up to their crunchy best, mix them up with a little beef broth, add some onions, salt and pepper. Then I feed it to my dog. It saves me $20 a month on dog food, and now I can afford to buy meat.
I just don't like the looks my dog has been giving me lately.
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