One of the hardest parts of being a new vegan (or even an old seasoned vegan) is trying to keep up with all the new products out there. I must have spent over $50 looking for the "right" vegan cheese my first year being a vegan and I have over 50 vegan/vegetarian cookbooks in my arsenal but not all the recipes are the greatest. I’m the first born so I’m used to being a Guinea Pig and now I’m your Vegan Guinea Pig. So here are my recommendations and critiques. Let me know what you think!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Vegan Ham aka “Ham Tube”

At first I was afraid…I was petrified. Frankly, the image of a big pink tube of fake ham seems like the stuff of vegan nightmares. I haven’t had any parts of a pig since the 80s so I saw no need to start eating a vegan version two decades later. My omni-boyfriend swore it was delicious after trying a ham & cheese hoagie at Govinda’s To Go and the folks on twitter said it was the best thing since sliced bread. So, after what has now been almost 3 years of resistance to the “ham tube” I finally decided to give it a shot.

Everyone was right! Scary pink tube aside, this stuff is absolutely amazing. Now if you’re a new vegan and still remember what ham taste like I can’t really vouch for whether or not this taste anything like actual swine, because I have no clue. What I do know is that it has a slightly sweet flavor with a wonderful texture that is extremely versatile.

The ham tube, as I affectionately call it, is made by May Wah and can be found at most vegan online retailers. It’s also a great price for the amount of ham tube you get. At Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe it retails for $9.29 and that is for a 2 pound tube! At first I was concerned about how I, as a single person, would be able to work my way through 2 pounds of anything before it went bad. But, as I mentioned before it’s amazingly versatile. So far I’ve used it to make a classic Ham & Cheese Sandwich with vegan American cheese, I country fried it up for a great addition to a breakfast of tofu scramble and banana pancakes, made a Hawaiian pizza (pictured below) with cheezly mozzarella and pineapple, over the weekend I made a breakfast burrito with tofu scramble, vegan pepper jack cheese and pan fried ham tube, and as of this morning made a breakfast sandwich with freshly made biscuits, a vegan egg, vegan American cheese and pan fried ham tube (pictured below).

If you still haven’t tried it and you are a skeptic like I was I highly recommend you order your very own ham tube. Cosmo’s is always having some type of sale so check back with them often and try it for yourself.

15 comments:

  1. i must get myself a ham tube. i can't believe i just said that- but wow- your food has me craving it somehow!

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  2. ooo, how did you do the vegan "egg" in the breakfast sammie? tofu?

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  3. i've had one in my freezer for quite a while now. how long do you think it stays good for once it's thawed? i'm dying to try it.

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  4. Hey Joyful vegan, the "egg" is in my upcoming book Vegan Comfort Food available for pre-order now. It only requires a couple ingredients and is super quick and easy to make.

    Chris, I would really say that it's up to you and your comfort level how long you keep it out for. With all the different variations that I've used it with I've gone through a little over half of it in a week and it will probably take another week or so for me to finish the rest of it. I have a food saver so I vacuum seal it and put it in the "crisper" drawer of my refrigerator to give it the longest life possible.

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  5. thanks! good idea, i have one of those packed away, and this would be a good reason to dig it out.

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  6. I've read rave reviews about the much coveted ham tube before and I sooooo wish I could get it over here. It looks the biz! Have you ever tried Fry's Polony? I'm wondering if they are similar to eachother because that I could cope with.

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  7. The problem with non-meat eaters is that we have an identity of being strange and abnormal. We feel like we have to make food products that impersonate meat products.

    We need to start making new food paradigms, not meat impersonators! WE are normal, and MEAT products and impersonators are OUTSIDE of our food constructs.

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  8. According to the may wah website, this product contains powdered albumen (egg white) making it vegetarian; certainly not vegan.

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  9. Hey Anonymous, May Wah does in fact make a vegan "ham tube" and cosmo's vegan shoppe as well as other online vegan retailers have been selling them for years. Here's the link to the may wah vegan ham at cosmos http://www.cosmosveganshoppe.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MWVH&Category_Code=FFM&Product_Count=21

    The ingredients are most definitely vegan

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  10. It is very good; i had some at a vegan Chinese restaurant

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  11. I haven't tried this (but will soon, thanks for the review!), but I wanted to respond to the vegan-ness of this product. It seems that there are two different "ham tubes". The main one (pictured) definitely contains Albumen, as noted on May Wah's site. It's the first product when you click on "vegetarian meat". (end pt 1)

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  12. (pt2) The one offered at Cosmo's can be found at May Wah as well by searching for "vegan". It leads you to the product pictured at Cosmo's: http://www.vegieworld.com/cart/product_pages.asp?id=777 . The ingredients still contain the mysterious (and sometimes misleading) "vegetarian seasonings", but there is no albumen powder listed. Furthermore, I'm assuming Cosmo's is something like Veganstore.com, or Veganessentials.com, where they research the items they sell to make sure they're vegan. I'll definitely have to give this stuff a shot when it's back in stock :) There are plenty of vegan deli slice options out there for ham, but I haven't seen any with which I could make beans, taters & ham with until now!

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  13. I make my own version of vegan ham, but I might use something like that for my extra girly bentos. ^^

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  14. wilbur chill, i just wanna eat something delish without it being an animal--don't overthink it, vegetarianism and veganism doesn't have to be an intellectual construct or theory, most people will never switch over to non-animal consumption anyway

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