Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A chewy, protein-rich food made from wheat gluten and used as a meat substitute.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Wheat gluten.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Coined by George Ohsawa (1893–1966), Japanese advocate of macrobiotics.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term was coined in Japanese by philosopher George Ohsawa in the early 1960s to refer to wheat gluten as used in Ohsawa's macrobiotic system of cooking and health. It may derive from  (sei-, "be, become") or  (-sei, "made of") +  (tan-) (from 蛋白 ("protein")). In Japan, wheat gluten itself is usually referred to as  (fu, "wheat bran, gluten").

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Examples

  • It's unclear whether the lawmaker was referring to "seitan" -- the vegan-friendly meat-substitute -- or to Hell's landlord.

    HUFFPOST HILL - Congress' Manic Last-Minute Debt Maneuvering Eliot Nelson 2011

  • After the seitan is heated through and the mushrooms are softened add the red wine sauce and the vegetables from that sauce.

    Archive 2006-09-01 2006

  • The next big thing - which got its big 20th-century boost from the macrobiotic movement, whose pioneer George Ohsawa gave this ancient food a new Japanese name meaning "protein-made" - is called seitan, pronounced not "Satan" but "say-tahn."

    AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed 2010

  • The next big thing - which got its big 20th-century boost from the macrobiotic movement, whose pioneer George Ohsawa gave this ancient food a new Japanese name meaning "protein-made" - is called seitan, pronounced not "Satan" but "say-tahn."

    AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed 2010

  • Even traditional meat dishes such as roast beef can be reproduced using a meat substitute called seitan which, when prepared properly, can easily pass for sliced meat or ground beef.

    whoar.co.nz 2009

  • And many of the vegetarian protein sources such as seitan and tempeh both of which I actually like are extremely salty which is another problem if you need to limit either sodium intake or fluid intake.

    Eating Meat Is Only Human - Bitten Blog - NYTimes.com 2008

  • It was obviously faux-meat that was actually called "seitan" (seriously pronounced "Satan," as in the prince of darkness).

    Daily Campus 2009

  • I'll put it this way: just because I didn't like "seitan," it doesn't mean I'm going to hell.

    Daily Campus 2009

  • It was obviously faux-meat that was actually called "seitan" (seriously pronounced "Satan," as in the prince of darkness).

    Daily Campus 2009

  • I'll put it this way: just because I didn't like "seitan," it doesn't mean I'm going to hell.

    Daily Campus 2009

Comments

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  • Citation on skordalia.

    November 7, 2008

  • mmm!

    April 19, 2009