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.
What Carol Ann and I have discovered over the years, and will be sharing with you in this series of cookbooks, is that we have yet to discover a single American Classic meal that can't be re-created vegan... and taste just as good, if not better, than the original.
Not one. We keep trying, and we keep... Well... succeeding. We hope that, once you try some of the amazing recipes in this cookbook, you'll agree.
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!
The Whelan family is vegetarian – technically lacto-ovo vegetarian – but we are not vegan. That means we do not eat any meat, fish or fowl, nor do we consume products with ingredients that require an animal's death to obtain, such as gelatin or beef or chicken stock. We do, however, eat eggs and dairy products like cheese.
Someone following a vegan diet eschews all animal products, including eggs, milk and cheese, but also things like honey. Veganism is really a subset of vegetarianism (all vegans are vegetarian, but not all vegetarians are vegan... Remember sets and subsets from grade school?).
As we developed the recipes in this book for our family, our concern was making sure they were vegetarian. But having accomplished that goal, it only takes a little bit of research and experimentation to take them all the way to vegan, finding suitable substitutes for any eggs and dairy.
And out of love for our vegan brethren (and "sisteren," I suppose...), we have done just that for this series. Every recipe to follow is either full vegan as presented, or vegetarian with well-researched suggestions for "veganizing" specific ingredients.
There is nothing in this book that cannot be enjoyed by every vegetarian everywhere, no matter how strict their observance! Everyone is welcome!
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 crumbles, Morningstar Chik'n Strips, or Soyrizo. Others tell you how to create your own meat substitutes using tofu, TVP, vital wheat gluten, etc.
It is a common vegan attitude (at least on the Internet!) to reject meat substitutes, following the reasoning that consuming vegetable products that are intentionally crafted to look and taste like animal products is hypocritical. If that is your opinion, I sincerely hope you will at least sample one or two of the recipes in this cookbook. We just might change your mind!
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." In the future vegan world we are all working toward, no one will even remember that "meat" ever came from our animal friends. "Meat has always been a soy product, right...?"
That's the dream, anyway. Help me make it a reality!
Most cookbooks preface every recipe with an estimate of how long it'll take to prep and cook the dish, and how many people you can expect it to serve. Many also provide a nutritional breakdown, showing how many calories are in the finished product, how much fat, sodium, vitamin C, etc...
I don't do that. I reject the first two factors, prep/cook time and number of servings, because my long experience in the kitchen tells me both numbers are absolutely useless.
How long does it take to chop an onion? Depends on how fast you chop. Are you using a knife or a food processor?
Number of servings is even worse. Are you serving Prima ballerinas of NFL football players? Picky six year olds or ravenous teenagers? I don't think I've ever seen "serves 8" on a recipe and had it serve more than four.
Both of these are meaningless numbers, so I just don't go there...
Here's my suggestion: Prepare each recipe the first time, as written. Then you'll know how much it makes and how many of the real people in your real life it will serve. Next time you make it, double or halve the recipe, depending on your own clear observation.
Now let's talk nutritional breakdown. In this series of cookbooks, we're focusing on American food – American comfort food for the most part, at that. American comfort food is designed to taste good, take you back to your childhood, and to be soul-satisfying to folks like you and me who grew up in the USA. And I love that! So do you, or you would not have read this far...
But American comfort food is not "health food." An honest nutritional breakdown could only serve to discourage us from our pursuit of culinary pleasure. And who wants that?
Rest assured that these vegan versions of classic American dishes are a whole lot healthier than their carnivorous cousins... But let's not count calories, OK? Let's just agree to enjoy ourselves and be proud of our heritage!
God bless America! Let's eat!
This introduction, "Meatless" Does Not Equal "Boring," is a general introduction to the whole series of recipe collections Carol Ann and I plan to release in the months and years to follow. In the spirit of "reduce, reuse, recycle," these same first thousand words or so are going to open every volume, so folks discovering the series at any point along the way get to "start at the beginning," so to speak. No matter what door a new reader enters through, we all start on the same page!
Point being, next time you purchase a book in the I Can't Believe It's Vegan! series, feel free to skip the introduction and move straight to the recipes. Thanks!
And now, without further adieu...