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vegan

Wild & raw

Haliburton farm strawberriesIt’s been a slightly wild week, and the weather’s been bordering on raw at times, but I think we’re safely and belatedly into our summer now, if a mild one. The strawberries think so, anyway. Farmer Ray’s berries have been flying off the farm stand at Haliburton Farm this month, and even my own meagre crop of neglected strawbs which I strategically placed next to the bus stop have been yielding enough for a passing taste. I am rather touched that local travellers are too polite to steal a morsel from my garden. If it were at child level I suppose it would be a different story.

I was tempted back to the VIVA Raw Food Potluck on Sunday by the guest speaker: Roger FoucRoger Foucher with Sow Thistleher, a local expert in wild foods. I’d seen him around – at the Duncan Seedy Saturday for instance, and knew he had given a workshop at Spring Ridge Commons that I wasn’t able to attend, so it seemed an opportunity not to be missed.

Besides, coming up with a raw Raw Cauliflower "Risotto"vegan dish is always an invigorating challenge. After meditating on my garden and what was on offer there, I settled on garlic scape pesto. The garlic was intense so I cut it a bit with tomato and cucumber, and served it with raw cauliflower “risotto” that I seasoned with sea salt and olive oil and prettied up with chive blossom, and “parmesan” “cheese” made out of walnuts, garlic and sea salt. And it went down a treat. We’d been asked to go easy on the salt, so I put a minimal amount in the pesto and “risotto” – I think people seized on the “cheese” as a way of brightening up some of the blander offerings. The “risotto” would make a good rice substitute (just as many recipes suggested cooking and mashing cauliflower as a potato substitute). I may have said before that one of my chief complaints against raw food is its lack of vocabulary and its devotion to the parent cuisine to which it pays tribute through endless approximation.. and endless quotation marks.

Other items of note included comfrey rolls, filled with sweet potato and fresh herbs and seasonings. The texture of raw comfrey leaf is not, to my palate, very pleasant, with a definite prickle. But comfrey is a much-treasured plant of many purposes.  There were a lot of salads, and lots of colour. This carrot salad was pretty, especially beside a beet and carrot salad. There was also a spinach and strawberry salad and a lot of cut fruit, which made me happy. And there were some energy balls (sunflower seeds, pumpkin, sesame, rolled oats, ginger, raisin etc) which were softer and, I think, less interesting than the variations I’ve had that are based on nut butters.

Comfrey RollsCarrot SaladEnergy Balls

 

 

 

 

 

The meal over, we had an hour of talk and another hour of Q&A with Foucher, and didn’t come close to exhausting his knowledge or enthusiasm for eating raw and wild foods. He follows ayurvedic principles when eating them, and suggests that it is in our own interests to explore more fully alternative food sources such as “weeds” and learn what nutritional sources are available outside conventional food systems (which are of course subject to changes and disruptions beyond our control).

Roger Foucher with Wild LettuceRoger Foucher with CatsearOxeye Daisy

He had brought many samples of the sorts of plants he eats regularly, and commented about the importance of understanding their life cycles: they are all best eaten in season, and most plants should not be harvested for teas after they have flowered and are beginning to form seeds, as the leaves become bitter and the plant’s energy is directed to producing seed. He was expansive on the subject of wild lettuce (Lactuca virosa), which he said has been given to opium addicts as a nonaddictive detox therapy and which exudes a kind of latex that is a helpful cure for toothache. Oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) he said would make an excellent tea together with yarrow; and he praised catsear (Hypochaeris radicata) for its flower’s similarity to chocolate (I tasted some the following day and frankly could not sense that resemblance).

He has been eating wild plants for some  years and is more sensitive to their flavours and effects than most novices would be. He remarked that his sensitivity to bitterness has changed over time, and what seemed to him very bitter at first is now a pleasant and complex flavour. “Our palates are habituated to sweet things” he observed. “Bitter tastes take time and practice.” Which was something I noticed in Italy, where there are far more bitter vegetables (radicchio, endive, chicory etc.); one of our tasting instructors told us that not everyone has sensitivity to bitterness, but I’m inclined to agree with Foucher that it is a matter of exposure. Here in the land of sugar, we avoid it and so never grow to appreciate it as a distinct flavour.

He recommended a few texts: there are many such books about but these are his favoBooks on wild foodsurites. The Encyclopedia of Edible Plants of North America is his favourite, but it contains no colour photos of the 4000 plants described, though there are some line drawings. Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada is illustrated with photos and describes some 800 different plants. And Plants of Coastal British Columbia is, I’m sure, already in the libraries of most local gardeners (or should be).

Meatlessness

After seeing Forks Over Knives, I tracked down an audio copy of The China Study, which was excellent listening material while I peeled and juiced a zillion apples earlier this month. And then I had occasion to watch the film again last weekend. Food for thought, as they say. Vegan food.

I’m always a little skeptical of dogmatists, and the book and film are very dogmatic in their condemnation of casein (milk, cheese, yogurt, butter.. ) and other animal proteins. They do present facts and figures to back up their assertions; and the case does seem overwhelming even on a superficial comparison between Western and Eastern diets, for example. Obesity and food-related illnesses are unquestionably out of control in countries that have adopted the Western diet, and rare in those that have stuck to simpler, vegetable-based fare.

The film showed a very dramatic chart from Norway before, during and after the Nazi occupation, which marked a dramatic drop in fatal heart attacks during the war and a steep climb afterwards, and we were told this was due to the population’s having been deprived of animal protein during this time. But that’s not all they were deprived of: cigarettes were also unavailable. The authors of a study reported last March  took a more well-rounded view, observing instead that during the Occupation, “Norwegians ate less fat, smoked less and were more physically active.” (The study compared recent improvements in Norway’s fatal heart attack figures with numbers last seen during the Occupation.)

Veganism is certainly not going to hurt you, which is more than can be said for the Western diet. But is it going to take off? I’m guessing not. Firstly, as a lifestyle it has a bad reputation (see how Anthony Bourdain shat upon it for example) for attracting dogmatists, animal rights extremists, and nutritional puritans. It can be hard for moderate, health-oriented eaters to self-identify with the term (although Bill Clinton’s entry into the fold has probably helped ease the way for others). And, as many of us have witnessed first-hand with vegan dining companions, it becomes really hard to eat [well] in restaurants – or in the homes of nonbelievers.

Secondly, it takes a lot longer to cook vegan food. Unless you plan to live entirely on salads or steamed vegetables, it can take a lot more planning. Whole foods (I’m assuming we’re talking whole food veganism rather than junk food veganism) take longer to cook (think brown rice vs white); dried beans or the seeds and nuts that raw food vegans use need hours of soaking. Fresh fruit and vegetables take chopping, paring and preparation. And we live in the age of convenience when half an hour’s cooking per day is fairly typical. Per day! (Statistics Canada’s 2005 census said .7 to 1.1 hours, including washing up)

Thirdly it’s just mostly not very interesting food. How I wish the film-makers had sprung for a food stylist instead of trotting out grey platters of rice and beans and less than vivid salads, and then showing the eaters oohing and ahhing over them. The book and film say this food is delicious as well as healthful. But I’m sorry, it’s just not inherently better tasting, or even anywhere as good in most cases. The China Study‘s directions are no added oil; whole grains only; no meat proteins. But oil is what carries flavours and lets them wallow in your tastebuds. Chefs and cooks of all nationalities have spent centuries developing recipes to please the human palate (not talking Western diet here, of course, although that has been developed to create a kind of addiction that can be mistaken for pleasure). And that food was designed for pleasure, for flavour, for texture and appearance. Not for health-giving benefits alone. As Bourdain also says, his body is not a temple, but a playground.

So we have a fundamental division of purpose. I don’t mind being pointed towards a healthier diet, but I do mind being told it’s delicious when it looks horrible, and too often tastes awful. I know that’s a sweeping generalization. And I also know there are some delicious foods in the vegan repertoire (kale chips! Green Cuisine‘s lasagna! Ottolenghi’s green bean salad!) and more to discover and experiment with, which I’m happy to do after a lifetime of meat-based cooking. I know it’s possible to eat really delicious Indian food that is vegan – but very far from fat-free.

And I also know there are lots of good reasons not to eat meat, and certainly not every day. Just in time, the Meatless Monday campaign has a new video:

What is Meatless Monday?