Veeeguhn

My mom can barely say the word "vegan."

"It sounds so restrictive," she said. "Veeeguhn."

Our conversations on the topic sound something like this:

"I made these delicious almond biscotti yesterday."

"Yum! What cookbook did you use?"

"Vegan Planet."

"Eww."

What I find interesting about this exchange is that one of things I love about being a vegetarian is the diversity and abundance of foods that I discovered that I had no idea existed way back when I ate meat. I grew up believing that dinner always consisted of three things: a piece of protein hanging off a bone, a starch (usually a shriveled baked potato with Butter Buds, some weird fake butter substitute in powder form, or plain white rice), and a frozen vegetable. We had more types of baked chicken than I care to remember: lemon chicken, barbecued chicken, herbed chicken, chicken with some kind of oatmeal topping...it was like the scene in Forest Gump where Bubba talks about all that shrimp. A really exciting dinner meant we were having sloppy joes.

All that changed when I became vegetarian. I had to re-conceive my entire food schema. What else could dinner look like? Imagine my surprise when I learned that a meal did not have to contain three discrete items. It did not even have to contain two. Dinner could be multiple bowls of a hearty lentil soup, a plate of spinach and rice casserole, or a helping of Thai peanut noodles. I always tell people who are considering becoming vegetarian that simply removing the meat from their diet is not enough, at least not if you want to be a healthy vegetarian. You have to actively seek out varied ways of replacing the meat in your diet, and that doesn't mean that you must have a slab of tofu every night where the steak would otherwise be (though you would never hear me advocate against a juicy piece of grilled tofu marinated in soy sauce and ginger, but I digress). On my path to becoming vegetarian, I discovered grains I never knew existed (quinoa, an ancient grain of the Incas and the only grain that is a complete protein, is now a staple of my diet), increased my consumption of beans and legumes, learned about the varieties of squash. Also, I eat a lot more peanut butter. At any rate, this has forced me to pay much closer attention to what I put in my body and how I feel when I am eating too much, or too little, of a particular type of food, and at the risk of sounding New Age, eating more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains makes me feel more connected to the earth.

Now, I must go connect with, I mean stir, my homemade applesauce that I have simmering on the stove.

The Elusive Agar

Some vegan substitution are easy: soy or any non-dairy milk (rice, almond, oat, even hemp milk) and Earth Balance or vegetable oil for butter. Others are more obscure. For example, many people are unaware of the fact that gelatin is made using animal byproducts and is a common ingredient in Jello, yogurt, and even some breakfast cereals. Fewer people know what to substitute for gelatin. However, agar (also known as "agar agar"), a sea vegetable used more extensively in Asia, can be purchased in flake or powder form. After the agar is boiled, it can be used as a thickening agent. Thus far, I have only found the elusive Agar at Whole Foods, and it was a bit pricey, but it yielded the most congealed pie I have ever baked. The coconut cream pie (from the cookbook Veganomicon) did not spill a gooey mess all over the pie pan. Oh, no. Each slice (enhanced by coconut extract) was its own separate unit. Thus, I have been converted to the ways of the agar flake. Next week: Lemon Bars.