It's like being on one of those cooking shows where they give you the challenge of making something fabulous out of a supposedly limiting range of ingredients:
"You must prepare a sumptuous five course meal, and ever dish must contain radishes and raspberries!"
Of course, the average punter at home is thinking "Radishes and raspberries! That's impossible!" But, of course, the clever contestant manages to do something creative and interesting simply by assuming the "limitation" isn't limiting them at all.
I see vegan cooking in the same light.
It's my personal opinion that cake is the highest point of human achievement. So the idea of making a cake without any of the standard cake ingredients (milk, eggs, butter - and, because wheat and I aren't on the friendliest of terms, wheat flour) means you have to do something a bit "smartarsey", don't you?
Granted, it tastes nothing like normal cake. Sorry, vegans, but it just doesn't. When your palate adjusts and you get used to the new ingredients, you can comfortably say "that's not bad at all!" but until then, what you have is something that doesn't taste like normal cake. It's still clever, though.
As I'm going to mention in a future post, my culinary background is from two very meat/cheese focused cultures, so taking the meat and dairy off the table means I have to look at vegetables in a much more useful and creative light (rather than just boiling them to death).
When you take a carrot and say to yourself: "I'm not eating carrots with my dinner - my dinner tonight is carrots", then you have to take the time to make something interesting with carrots (like this, which I haven't tried yet, but want to).
This vegan experiment* is forcing me to do something interesting with vegetables, and I'm discovering that there is no end to the interesting things you can do with them when you actually try.
Plus, it makes me feel clever. Slightly unpopular with the members of my household who would prefer I make something interesting with chicken, rather than carrots, but you get that.
Take away the meat. Take away the eggs and cheese. Look at the vast array of fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, grains, herbs and spiced that you have left. Really see them. Do something clever.
*I'm not actually vegan - yet. The reasons for this will be elaborated on in another post. However I'm sliding in that direction, and making more vegan decisions with my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment