Cooking with Ron_Summer19_Ed-final.qxp_Copy of profile_sTEFAN_fall05.qxd 5/30/19 1:05 AM Page 24
food | cooking with ron
Summer in Louisville is a
Vegan Paradise BY RON MIKULAK | PHOTOS BY ANDY HYSLOP
Summer! What a wonderful time it must be to be a vegan in Louisville. I am not a vegan (one philosophically and morally committed to avoiding consuming any products, food or apparel derived from animals), but I often cook vegan meals, and look forward in the summer to eating lots of the excellent fresh vegetables and fruits grown by local farmers and sold at the burgeoning number of farmers markets in the area.
24 Summer 2019 www.foodanddine.com
I try to cook all-vegetable meals several times a week in the summer and find I don't miss meat
or other animal products (cheese, yogurt or
egg-based sauces) at all at such meals.
Now, I don’t go long without eating meat,
poultry, fish or dairy products, so I don’t think I
have experienced “meat hunger.” But apparently meat hunger is a thing, and one that local veg-
ans seem to experience if the menu offerings of
local vegan restaurants are a guide. Diners who
don’t want to actually consume animal prod-
ucts still seem to want the taste of meat and cheese—or as close as industrial food process-
ing can get to the taste of meat and cheese by
treating vegetable protein with texturizers and artificial flavorings.
Hence, local vegan diners can confront the
ontological paradox of avoiding eating actual
chicken, beef, pork, fish or cheese by ordering a chicken parmesan sandwich made with oyster
mushrooms, a crab patty made with jackfruit, Buffalo chicken wings made with seitan (a prod-
uct gluten-sensitive stomachs should avoid since it is processed wheat gluten), or a roast
beef sandwich made with tofu and topped with cheese made from nuts.
The mystery for omnivores is why such items
cannot be more honestly labeled as oyster
mushroom sandwich, jackfruit patty, Buffalo sei-
tan strips, and sliced roasted tofu sandwich with finely ground nut sauce.
I'm here to celebrate vegan cooking based
on fresh vegetables and fruits, flavored with
fresh or dried herbs and spices, and presented
as what the food honestly is. For those who
subscribe to “clean eating” in the best sense of
that term, recipes such as these, made with
ingredients that are fresh and locally produced as much as possible, are the best way to go.