Welcome to the blog for Colgate University's interdisciplinary course on food. This is the place to keep up with what students in the course are experiencing in their work at Common Thread Community Farm and through their everyday encounters with food.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Tofurky?

I always was entertained by the concept and the name of tofurkey, but never bothered to consider it as a serious aspect of Thanksgiving. However, with the number of vegetarians in my life on the rise by the week, I thought I'd do a little internet research regarding how it came to be.

Apparently, the tofurkey was invented in no place other than Portland, Oregon (Portlandia anyone?) 20 years ago. According to this article: http://6abc.com/food/the-history-of-tofurky/413860/
it started off as mostly a joke, but now more than 3.5 million tofurkys (plural?) have been sold in the US. However, the whole concept is confusing because apparently Tofurky (without the E) is a brand name, where as Tofurkey is just the name of a turkey-shaped tofu product.
Here are a few more articles about the history of Tofurk(e)y and how vegetarians are taking over the holidays.

http://www.thelittleredjournal.com/2013/06/interview-with-tofurky-founder-seth.html#sthash.2lAh2ONj.dpbs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofurky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofurkey

http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-20-years-tofurky-20141114-story.html

No comments:

Post a Comment