Textured vegetable protein

I was in a diner and decided to order one of my longtime diner favorites - Chicken Croquettes.  When they came I was amazed at how big they were for the price.  As I ate them I bacame aware of something different about the texture.  I then realized the these croquettes were loaded with TVP (textured vegetable protein)  There was very little chicken in the filling at all!  Should they be required to list these on the menu as chicken FLAVORED croquettes??  

TVP has come a long long way since the 70's and I actually don't mind it.  Your point however is well taken.  Truth in advertising.

I think that they should be required to list it. The consumer has a right to know if he/she is getting "doctored" food.

I can't stand TVP. (I ate too many cooked soybeans from our garden during WWII.)  So I read labels on all frozen and canned "meat" products (and several major brands use it extensively).  I would be major POed to find it used in food in a restaurant where I ate with no mention of it on the menu.  If I was allergic to soybeans (and some people are) and I had an attack, some lawyer would have a field day putting the restaurant permanently out of business. 

This is a pet peeve of mine. I know that diners serve SOME 'prison food', i.e. heat-and-serve food they buy from SYSCO. I try to stick to food I reasonably think was cooked from scratch in the back of the diner.

New York City now has chain FF restaurants post calorie counts on the menu boards. I think it would be fair to diners to have each item on a menu assigned a code number.

Some codes could be:
1. Prepared on site from scratch
2. Merely heated prepared food supplied by SYSCO.
3. Doctored up prepared food supplied by SYSCO.
4. Mystery meat prepared from yesterday's leftovers.

Clearly, those Chicken Croquettes were supplied by a prison food vendor. This is not a new practice. Howard Johnson's Chicken Croquettes used to be prepared in their commissary in Queens, NY, then frozen and shipped to their restaurants.
 
EDIT: Changed MOSTLY to SOME in the second sentence.

David_NYC


This is a pet peeve of mine. I know that diners serve mostly 'prison food', i.e. heat-and-serve food they buy from SYSCO. I try to stick to food I reasonably think was cooked from scratch in the back of the diner.

Having recently had reason to eat "lunch" in jail, I can assure you that anything from SYSCO would have been an IMMENSE improvement! 

I can't remember the last diner I was in that served premade food.  Many of them get their supplies from SYSCO (or, more commonly around here, GFS), but they make the food from scratch.  And TVP is not allowed.

Felix, you've made me realize that one of the sayings that I have been using for 25 years, "prison food from SYSCO", is obsolete. For one thing, the Keefe Group of St. Louis is now the largest supplier of products to the prison market.

I have changed 'mostly' to 'some' in my entry above. I say this from years of watching what gets delivered through the back door of some of the diners around here.

Many diners around here have huge menus. If you order off the blackboard menu, chances are the entree is cooked in the diner. But, I can't see how they can prepare all of the items they have on the menu in-house. Even if they were to prepare in-house and freeze, they would not have the shelf life of factory prepared foodservice items.

I've been looking over product sheets for frozen chicken croquettes on the web, and the ingredients lists numbers about 3 dozen, with TVP being listed on some of them. Recipes, even for restaurants, don't call for TVP.

Perhaps Chris could offer an opinion if the chicken croquettes were made in the diner, or purchased frozen.

David_NYC


Perhaps Chris could offer an opinion if the chicken croquettes were made in the diner, or purchased frozen.

 
David;
I'm not sure, but I had the feeling they were purchased frozen.

Chris