I Can't Believe It's Vegan! Volume 4

Now you can "Live like a vegan, but eat like an American!" with these 100% "veganized" all-American truck stop, diner, and lunch counter "Road Food" favorites! Try:

*Classic Western Egg Sandwich

The Roadside Rueben

Woolworths Lunch Counter Ham Salad Sandwich

Jersey Diner Tuna Melt

Bacon Mushroom Swiss Burger

Texas Hot Wieners

The All-American Blue Plate Special

Meatloaf and Brown Gravy

Salisbury Steak

Chicken Fried Steak with Southern White Gravy

*

All re-created 100% vegan!

"Meatless" Does Not Equal "Boring"

Probably the biggest obstacle preventing most Americans, even those who feel powerfully drawn to the ethics of a meat-free lifestyle, from going vegetarian or full vegan is fear of the unknown.

Will giving up meat mean I have to eat lettuce and bean sprouts all day? Isn't all vegan food super-expensive weird stuff you have to buy at a health food store? What about the meals I loved as a kid that I still love... Do I have to surrender everything...? I'll get bored! I can't do it!

With this cookbook (or any cookbook by Felix and Carol Ann Whelan) in your hands, yes you can!

Carol Ann and I grew up in the American Midwest during the 1970s, members of normal, Middle Class, meat-loving families, raised on a steady diet of good, old-fashioned all-American comfort food. "American cuisine" is in our genes, so when we first went vegetarian (each of us, individually, before we met) we had the same doubts any other red-blooded American would have at the thought of exchanging burgers and fried chicken, beef stew and pot roast, sloppy Joes and meatball sandwiches for "rabbit food"...

But, as it turns out, that wasn't the bargain at all. The truth is that you can, in fact, live life as a vegan, but still eat like an American! This book will prove it to you.

If you're not already vegetarian, we hope these recipes inspire you to take the plunge. If you're already vegetarian or vegan, we hope you'll cook these dishes for your carnivorous friends, and let them experience first hand that going meatless requires no sacrifice of flavor or food favorites at all!

A Word About Meat Substitutes

This is a cookbook series focused on American Cuisine. American Cuisine is, almost by definition, "meat heavy." You can't just leave the meat out of most classic American dishes and reach the same result. "Pot roast" without the "roast" is just vegetables. Tasty vegetables in gravy, but still just vegetables. If that had the power to win anybody over, the whole world would have gone vegetarian a long time ago...

So we turn to meat substitutes. All of the recipes in this cookbook call for one meat substitute or another, so as to keep them vegan, but still grant them their unique American appeal. Some recipes call for readily available commercial products, like Boca burgers and crumbles, or Yves brand veggie dogs. Others tell you how to create your own meat substitutes using tofu, chick peas, vital wheat gluten, etc.

They way I see it, if people who think they can't live without the taste and texture of meat discover they can satisfy their cravings with plant-based substitutes, it makes embracing vegetarianism easier, and more and more people will do it. "Meat substitutes" will eventually become just "meat.