No milk, no eggs, no cheese? No problem. With an eclectic menu inspired by Southeast Asian, Central American, African, and Southwestern cuisine, the Cinnamon Snail truck is trying to change perceptions of vegan food one meal at a time. And it seems to be working. Helmed by Chef Adam Sobel, the truck serves up vegan and organic breakfast, lunch, and snacks around the city six days a week to a large and loyal fan base, many of whom are not actually practicing vegans. “It’s hard to say exactly, but I would say well over seventy percent of our customers are not vegetarian. Some of them are just open-minded enough to be consciously eating vegetarian food, and some of them really just want something tasty, and we happen to be that. They just see yummy-looking doughnuts, and then they come back, and they’re eating a tofu sandwich, and then they’re eating raw food. It helps break the stereotypes about vegetarian food.”
Though Adam had been a practicing vegetarian for years, it was the birth of his daughter, Idil, eleven years ago that sparked his vegan epiphany. “Both of our kids were born in home births. I just had a major revelation that day about how important it would be for my daughter to be breastfed—how that’s important on so many levels, and I wouldn’t want to take that away from someone else. I also wanted to raise her vegan with a lot of compassion and respect for living creatures, and I knew that wouldn’t be easy to do if I wasn’t vegan and my wife was.”
Adam had first thought about starting a vegan truck eight years ago, but at the time, he was intimidated by the permitting process and the capital needed to launch a mobile food business. When the vegetarian restaurant he was working at shuttered abruptly, Adam found himself at a crossroads and started his own catering company, Certified Orgasmic. “I inherited a lot of the regular customers and started doing some farmers’ markets with a stand. We did that for two and a half or three years. It just was growing really rapidly.” With time he was able to save enough to buy a beat up truck on Craigslist, which, through the kindness and support of his friends, was completely gut renovated and decked out with an eye-catching, psychedelic sepia paint job. Taking its name from their puffy cinnamon buns, the Cinnamon Snail hit the road on Valentine’s Day in 2010. They began cultivating a following in New York after being named New Vendor finalists at the 2010 Vendy Awards and New Jersey finalists at the 2011 Vendy Awards where their crème brûlée doughnut took home the prize in the Maker’s Mark® challenge. When the truck started running afoul of Byzantine food truck regulations in their native New Jersey, they crossed the river and started serving in New York City in the fall of 2011.
“Whether or not people go all the way vegan or not, at least for people who are just coming to my truck once a week and otherwise would never go to a vegetarian restaurant, at the very least that’s one less animal. I think it’s pretty important. I really try to afford other living creatures the same respect that’s afforded to me.”
Lines queue early and go late for Adam’s hyperflavor-packed seasonal menu. His Ancho Chili Seitan Burger isn’t your run of the mill frozen veggie patty on a bun. Instead spiced seitan is topped with beer-simmered onions and garlic, arugula, piri-piri pepper sauce, and horseradish cream, and then served up on a grilled herb focaccia. When you see all the elements that go into each dish on the truck, it’s not surprising to learn that Adam worked under Tom Valenti at Ouest. “When we started, we had three sandwiches on the menu, and the rest of it was all these super kooky entrées. It’s evolved every time we change the menu to be more and more stuff that’s kind of more convenient to eat on-the-go. We still try to keep it as complex as the entrées were but they’ve all become sandwiches; lots of different sauces and marinades and condiments and stuff.”
Many an unsuspecting carnivore has been lured in by their massive case of pastries. Their doughnuts are habit-forming, gateway vegan fare and come in inventive and hunger pang–inducing flavors like the Cherry Chocolate Brownie, the Thai Coconut Basil, and an outrageous chocolate-frosted, chocolate-cookie-crumb-covered and chocolate-filled doughnut known as the “Hulk Hogan Transvestite Fudgie Wudgie.” Whimsical, playful, and occasionally downright absurd, Adam and his crew don’t take themselves terribly seriously. Rather than proselytizing the virtues of veganism, they show by example how delicious and satisfying vegan food can be. “We try to do a food that’s a balance—it’s nourishing, it’s tasty, it’s not super processed, and it’s not super boring.”
Above all, Adam loves the customer interaction that running a food truck affords. “Working in a restaurant, you’re always stuck in the back kitchen. It’s not an appropriate setting to really hang out with your customers. Food trucks really provide a nice space for really getting to know the people you make food for and your customers really getting to know each other.” With the explosion of social media, the truck is able to connect and stay in touch with its thousands of fans. “It becomes this really open exchange where you’re not just forcing your food creations down people’s throats, you really hear what people are loving—what people would love for you to make.That’s really, really fun. That really brings it alive and stops it from being just a business.”
Adapted from Adam Sobel’s recipe
Inspired by Southwestern cookery, these blue corn pancakes are lighter than your typical whole-grain pancakes and are a favorite of Adam’s daughter, Idil. Slather these with cinnamon-laced pine nut butter (page 164) and a generous drizzle of real maple syrup for a healthy and hearty breakfast. Adam favors Vita Spelt® brand spelt flour and Bob’s Red Mill® blue cornmeal both of which can typically be found at heath food stores, your local Whole Foods, or online at natureslegacyforlife.com and bobsredmill.com.
cup blue cornmeal
cup spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup soy milk
3 tablespoons agave nectar
3 tablespoons canola or safflower oil, plus more for greasing the griddle or skillet
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
In a large bowl, add the cornmeal, spelt flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk ingredients together to combine and remove any lumps.
In a medium bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together soy milk, agave nectar, oil, and vanilla extract.
Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour the wet ingredients in. Whisk thoroughly to form a smooth, light blue batter.
Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium for 1 to 2 minutes. Ladle 
cup of batter on the heated surface. When small bubbles appear toward the center of the pancakes, flip them and allow them to cook for another minute or two on the other side, or until the pancake is lightly browned on both sides.
Serve with pine nut butter (page 164) and maple syrup.
Adapted from Adam Sobel’s recipe
You won’t miss dairy with this sweet, salty, and slightly crunchy butter on your breakfast table. Use leftover pine nut butter on muffins, toast, or waffles. If you are preparing this recipe for practicing vegans be sure to look for a dairy-free margarine. Adam recommends the Earth Balance® brand.
½ cup pine nuts, coarsely chopped or pulsed in a food processor
8 tablespoons (1 stick) dairy-free margarine
cup coconut butter
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar or panela, firmly packed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
In a small saucepan over a medium flame, toast the chopped pine nuts, stirring frequently to avoid burning.
When the pine nuts are deeply golden, add the remaining ingredients. Once the margarine and coconut butter have melted fully, pour the mixture into a small metal pan (like a 7-inch loaf pan) and chill for two hours or until solidified.
When the butter has solidified, use a spatula to transfer the contents to an airtight container, making sure to distribute the pine nuts throughout the butter, as they settle to the bottom while cooling.
Note: To give the butter a rich hint of molasses, Adam uses Sucanat®, an organic and fair-trade whole cane sugar product made of dehydrated cane juice instead of the dark brown sugar or panela. You can find Sucanat® at Whole Foods and other natural foods stores.
Adapted from Adam Sobel’s recipe
If you’re the slightest bit spice-adverse, beware—this soup packs some serious heat. “There’s not really that many places that do really good spicy vegetarian,” Adam says. “That’s one of the things, I think when you’re serving largely non-vegetarians is [spice] kind of gives this food a little bit of balls. They don’t want it to be super wimpy, plain food.” The Cinnamon Snail offers this spicy lentil soup in the fall. If you like heat as much as they do, reserve the seeds from the jalapeño pepper and use them for garnish, along with your favorite Harissa. Have a milder palate? Reduce both the crushed red pepper and jalapeños.
¼ cup olive oil
1 medium white onion, finely chopped
3 jalapeño peppers, deveined, seeded, and finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
3 tablespoons ground coriander
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes, crushed
2 bay leaves
1¼ cup French lentils
6½ cups vegetable stock
3 tablespoons lime juice
¼ cup fresh mint leaves, chopped
salt to taste
In a soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add jalapeños and garlic, along with the spices. Cook, stirring occasionally for 2 minutes, until the spices are evenly distributed but not sticking to the pot.
Add the lentils and stock. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat. Cover and reduce the heat to medium-low for 35 minutes. Add the mint leaves and salt to taste before serving.
