Burgarmix I love you..

Burgamix is a quaint, British vegan institution - that of the dried mock meat mix that you re-constitute with water to make a delicious meat analogue. Yes, sounds kind of... uninspiring and weird, I know, and I readily admit that as a fledgling teenaged vegetarian, I was rather snooty about it. "What, powdered veggie burgers? How droll... " *takes drag on a Gauloise and returns to her copy of 'The Dharma Bums'.*
But actually, I have a confession to make - Burgamix rocks! The first time I made Burgamix burgers for tea, the Mister came home and eschewed his usual habit of polishing off the kids' leftovers because they looked too 'meaty'!

I know some vegans never enjoyed meat to start off with - fair enough - but a lot of us who have renounced meat for health or ethical reasons really did enjoy meat and though there are lots of delicious and nutritious dishes that standalone without the need for any kind of replacement, sometimes it's just nice to have something familiar and delicious you can tuck into - hence the hundreds of 'neat loaf' and seitan burger recipes out there on the internet.
Burgarmix was great because it was cheap, was shelf-stable for months at a time, didn't take up much space and was ridiculously easy to make-up - add half a pint of water and chill. That was it!

And once you'd shaped it into patties and fried it up in the cooking oil of your choice, you had a delicious, juicy, savoury burger that paired delightfully with lettuce, some homemade 'secret sauce', sliced polish pickles and tofutti's special plasticky cheeze slices - a burger staple!
You could also make a pretty damn faithful meatloaf with it and my famous veggie roast - 1 sachet burgamix combined with 1 sachet sage and onion stuffing mix made up with half water half red wine - need I go on?

Unfortunately, Direct Foods Burgamix no longer exists, the product was discontinued in 2008 when the multinational company Hain Celestial who had owned Direct Foods for some years decided to sell off it's dry mix division. It has been relaunched under the revamped Granose brand, but the recipe had been tweaked enough to ensure it was different and not as satisfying. Plus the packets were smaller, meaning less value for money. Luckily, my affinity for buying near-dated food in bulk meant that I bought a ton of Burgamix when it was being cleared through at 99p for a case of 12 boxes through Approved Foods.

We're getting near to the end of our supply. End of an Era. I was idly wondering if I could eke out the last six boxes until I formed a multinational company- Clive-Cussler style - to re-start production of Trad Burgamix and Sosmix, but frankly, I think the chances are unlikely.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're right...