I bought a sandwich the other day made with “turkey ham”.

Turkey ham is one of those products that’s supposed to be a more healthful version of something else. In reality, it’s a more rubbery, less flavorful, smoked version of turkey, which the turkey manufacturing people hope will serve as decent competition against the regular, old “ham ham”.

I guess the turkey people figure:

“Well, all we sell is turkey, we might as well crank out every permutation of turkey humanly possible.”

It’s sort of like an encyclopedia publisher telling you that not only is the book great for looking up information, but it also makes a great computer monitor stand. (By the way, kids, an “encyclopedia” is sort of like a print-out of Wikipedia.)

The funny thing is, I like regular turkey breast. But I don’t like anything that’s supposed to be made out of something else but made with turkey instead: turkey bacon, turkey sausage, turkey chicken, turkey crab legs. The only reason I will tolerate this recipe for turkey nachos is that it’s premised on the assumption that you’re trying to get rid of Thanksgiving leftovers.

The only thing worse than a non-turkey meat product made out of turkey is a non-turkey, non-meat product that’s supposed to taste like turkey but is made out of non-turkey ingredients. Case in point: Tofurky.

When are these effiing vegetarians going to start calling their vegetables vegetables? I don’t feel the need to eat a hamburger and call it dog or human. So if you’re eating tofu, call it tofu. And more than that, don’t even try to eat things that taste like meat. You’re a vegetarian, not a cross-dressing carnivore.

Speaking of which, what would a ham company call a hamburger if they made one out of ham? A “ham hamburger”? Or, would they say:

“Fuck you, cattlemen assholes. Our hamburger is really made out of ham, so you pricks change the name of your burger. We’re sticking with ‘ham’.”

Don’t fuck with a pig farmer.