We’ve got double Daniele posts this week, so all you veg*ns get double the love. -Leslie

Oh, Asian supermarkets, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways: cheap tea, affordable produce, interesting spices, awesome snack foods… My list could go on and on. But the item that is always at the top of that list is, of course, the wide variety of fake meat products that you will usually encounter in a large-size Asian grocery.

In the New Orleans area, going to the big Asian supermarket means going to the Hong Kong Market. There are several other Asian groceries in the metro area on the West Bank and in New Orleans East, but Hong Kong Market is the biggest and most diverse. And fake meat products abound. Look for them in three main areas of the store: dry goods, canned goods, and frozen goods.

There are many incarnations of dried soy and gluten in the center aisles of the store. Unfortunately, I find most of them to be pretty lacking in taste. One good buy in this section is a bag of textured-vegetable-protein (or TVP if you’re hip to veggie cooking lingo), which is marketed as “veggie nuggets” or some other name more enticing than TVP. TVP is great because it can stand in for ground beef in most recipes that call for it: from stuffed peppers to sloppy joes.

Canned fake meat usually succumbs to the same peril that most canned foods do: they taste like can. I’ve had some pretty good success using one of the many rubs or marinades available just a few aisles away to mask that off-taste. The fake duck in a can is especially good for this. I also really enjoy the plain ol’ fried gluten in a can. Too bad it’s full of fat and sodium, because fried gluten makes a great addition to a veggie stir-fry or a bowl of noodles.

By far the best section of the Hong Kong Market to go hunting for fake meat is the frozen section. There is a wide variety to choose from and the selection changes pretty regularly. Of course, such variation also means that your favorites might not make it back to the store once they are sold-out. I miss you so much, Kung Pao fake chicken! At least the fake BBQ pork was still there when I went this weekend.

Of course one caveat of a girl like me shopping for fake meat at the Asian grocery store is that most of the foods offered are made to please an Asian palate. Hong Kong Market has a lot of fake meat options that I do find to be very tasty. I can accept the fact that not all of the fake meats will appeal to my American tastes. Yes, soy sea cucumber, I am talking about you.