Who doesn't love a delicious cheeseburger?
There are, of course, many reasons that a cheeseburger is delicious beyond the meat itself.
The burger you see above is covered in cheese (looks to be cheddar), a thickly-sliced tomato, a fat circle of red onion, at least two pieces of bacon, and a gorgeous leaf of lettuce (looks to be butter lettuce). That's before we talk about the beautiful, crusty bun and anything that's been slathered on it (hopefully mayo).
I'm not here to talk about all that stuff. I'm here to focus on the meat, because this past week I tried the Impossible Foods meatless burger which is now available at a single restaurant in NYC (Momofuku Nishi). It's the first and only place you can get the burger that's been in the works for five years (it's coming to San Francisco this fall).
Before you balk, take a look at this:
Impossible Foods
The "burger" you see above is actually an amalgamation of, "wheat, coconut oil, and potato protein," according to the Impossible Foods website. Pretty standard vegetarian stuff thus far. But there's also a "secret" ingredient that transforms those ingredients into something much more like meat: it's called "heme." Which, uh, what's that?
As my colleague Melia Robinson wrote earlier this month:
"A molecule called heme that's found in plants and animals carries oxygen through the bloodstream (and in plants, through the mechanisms that produce energy). Heme makes your blood red, turns meat pink, and gives the traditional burger its slightly metallic flavor and delicious aroma when it's exposed to sugars and amino acids."
Heme is what's allowing the meatless burger to "bleed," to sear - to emulate some fundamentals of good burgers.
And in this respect, the Impossible Foods burger I ate this week beyond met that criteria. It was seared well on the outside, meaty and flavorful on the inside. It was - no caveats - a delicious burger, as measured against standard beef burgers. I literally ate a Shake Shack burger the night before, and would happily have eaten the Impossible Foods burger from Momofuku Nishi instead.
Ben Gilbert / Tech Insider
The Impossible Burger at Momfuku Nishi in New York City. Tell them Tech Insider sent you!
There is, however, one fundamental component that the Impossible Foods burger lacks where standard burgers excel: beef fat. Delicious, flavorful, complex, buttery/salty/nutty beef fat, in all its glory. It's terrible for you in every logical way, and yet...
Ben Gilbert / Tech Insider
I ate the burger you (sort of) see above yesterday at my local bar, The Double Windsor in Brooklyn, New York. The Double Windsor makes, dare I say it, a damn fine burger. Much like the Impossible Burger, it comes on a beautiful bun with butter lettuce, heirloom tomato, red onion, and pickles.
But when I bite into this burger, the dank, fat-laced liquor you see above comes spilling out. It doesn't come in waves, but in drips over time, waiting to be sopped up in the final delicious bites with the hearty bun. The same juice is laced in every bite, eliciting sensory memories of Sunday pot roast and birthday steak.
Daniel Goodman / Business Insider
Peter Lugers Steakhouse in Brooklyn, New York makes this incredible beast of an aged steak.
Ever since eating the Impossible Foods burger this past week, friends and colleagues have been asking me about it. Was it good? What was it like? What does the burger taste like by itself? Though I'm clearly very positive on the experience - it's a seriously delicious burger, I assure you - it felt lacking in some indiscernible way.
I discovered what was missing from the Impossible Foods burger in the first bite of a standard beef burger. The earthy depth that beef fat brings to burgers is deeply important, and it's the one missing ingredient in the Impossible Foods burger.
Ben Gilbert, Kim Renfro / Tech Insider
A patty melt made using the Impossible Foods burger on the left, a cheeseburger on the right, both from Momofuku Nishi in New York City.
On the plus side, no beef fat means not feeling like you ate a bunch of fat. I ate an Impossible Foods burger and half of a patty melt for lunch - and, amazingly, felt fine. And in the long-term, eating less beef fat (and meat in general) is better for overall health. I will sing no songs for beef fat if I'm going to a cardiologist in my mid-30s.
Let me be clear: the lack of beef fat in the Impossible Foods burger is not a huge knock against it. I'd put this burger up in a blind test taste against the best from Shake Shack or In-n-Out. Beef fat is, however, the one major missing component that distinguishes the Impossible Foods burger from the beef it aims to replace.