Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

You’ll be amazed by vegan ‘meat’

Alberto and Hilary Casatto
Alberto and Hilary Casatto

IT sounds like a recipe for disaster.

A butcher’s shop appearing at a vegan festival.

I don’t know about you, but I’m picturing hordes of irate vegans brandishing pitchforks and flaming torches, storming the stall like it was Frankenstein’s castle.

Alberto and Hilary Casatto are the butchers in question, and they’ll be taking their streaky rashers, smoked steak, rare roast beef, salamino — pepperoni to you and me — and spiced German wurst to the West Midlands Vegan Festival at the end of the month.

But they’re butchers with a difference — Sgaia Vegan Meats are the UK’s first mobile vegan butchers, to be exact.

To be honest, though, “vegan butcher” sounds a bit of a contradiction, like “military intelligence”.

“Yeah, I understand that, but it’s a new thing happening all over the world now,” says Alberto.

“Loads of people went vegan not because they didn’t like the taste or texture of meat — they still like that, but they don’t eat animal products now because they don’t want people to kill animals for food, which also pollutes the environment.”

A vegetarian friend tried a few “fake” meat products several years ago and pronounced them inedible, but Alberto says: “Basically, our vegan clients wanted something that tastes good and isn’t fake and highly-processed.

“It needs a good flavour and doesn’t taste like cardboard!

“We don’t like to call our products fake because there’s nothing fake about them,” says Alberto.

“They’re a reproduction of the flavour and the texture, but they’re artisan-made — they’re real.

“We’re from Padua, Italy, originally, and our products are made from seitan which is a variety of high-protein wheat flour.

“It’s like making a pizza dough, and we mix in different spices and cook it in different ways to make the various products.

“It’s used a lot in Italy, but when we moved to the UK we couldn’t find it, so we decided to make it ourselves.

“We experimented, but it’s not easy to recreate the flavour and the texture so it took us a couple of years to develop the recipes

“Then we thought: ‘Why not start selling this?’ because we were good at it and we thought it was something everyone should be able to eat as an alternative.

“If they want to make the transition to a plant-based diet, why not make it easier and give people something they can relate to like bacon?

“That way, they don’t feel like they’re having to give up something.

“When you go to a restaurant, the vegan option is usually salad and that’s it,” Alberto explains.

“We wanted something so people could feel like everybody else, that you’re not missing out on something — food should be inclusive.”

To be honest, having seen the pictures, Sgaia’s steak looks like, well, a steak.

“That’s the best product we have, I think, and it’s our best-seller along with the bacon which we call streaky rashers,” says Alberto.

“A lot of the alternatives you can find out there, they taste very plain and flavourless.

“Because we make an artisan product instead of highly-processed stuff, we can push the flavour.

“We use a lot of spices. Actually, we copy the traditional recipes.

“For instance, when we’re making speck, which is the German version of bacon, it’s cured with juniper berries, rosemary and a lot of spices — just like they did with speck originally.”

The West Midlands Vegan Festival was held in Wolverhampton Civic Halls on October 29-30.

For information visit www.midlandsveganfestival.org.uk and you can find out more about Alberto’s products at www.sgaiafoods.co.uk


READ MORE

Will YOU tuck into insects at dinner?

9 things you probably didn’t know about Guinness