promises

I am biting into a drumstick that took three years to make. It is a piece of plant-based protein, fashioned into the likeness of a chicken leg, complete with a faux bone (edible), and glazed with something wet and brown. The bone is brittle and strangely sweet, the flesh a little chewy and rubbery. But the glaze has an unmistakably creamy, mouth-coating texture, just like chicken fat. It is remarkably familiar. Boringly predictable. It tastes, as they say, like chicken. […]