h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>in<< the soup? on?

Okay, I gotta ask...

>>It amazes me how many vegetarian and vegan blog posts I read where people serve a vegan meal with a non-vegan wine<<

This baffles me. How can wine be non-vegan? It's made of grapes, and that's about it, no animal products (unless you count yeast bacteria, but since you eat bread I'm assuming you don't). I'd love an explanation.



Speaking of bread, the recipe for the pumpkin bread rolls is something like this:


Stage 1
------------
* 400g pumpkin, diced (that is the weight after cleaning; the recipe says it's about 700g before. I usually end up having closer to 500g, so I guess you can just get 1lb and it should be fine)
* 40g butter (or whatever you use instead; I like butter)
* 40g light brown sugar
* a pinch of salt

The original recipe says to cook the pumpkin until soft (on the stove or in a microwave) and then puree it with the butter, sugar, and salt. After doing it a few times and getting a too-sticky dough (which meant adding more flour, which meant getting a blander flavour), I started caramelising the pumpkin instead - cooking it with the butter and sugar on the stove, until it loses most of the liquids, and then using an immersion blender to puree it. That works quite well, and the smell is amazing.
Anyway, whichever way you use, get your pumpkin mixture together, and then let it cool a while, until it's just warm.


Stage 2
------------

* 350g flour
* 15g fresh yeast, or 5g instant yeast
* Bunch of warm spices that you like (the original has just 1/2 ts allspice and 1/4 ts fresh ground nutmeg, but I don't really care; I just throw in a bunch of what I feel would work [ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc.], and I think it's probably the best)

Mix the flour and spices in a large bowl. If you're using fresh yeast, mix it aside with 1 tbs warm water; if you're using instant, mix it in with the flour and spices. Make a hole in the middle, and pour into it the pumpkin mixture (if you're using fresh yeast, pour that mixture in first). Slowly stir in the flour, until you have a soft but not sticky dough (add more flour or water if necessary), then move to a floured work surface and knead for 5 minutes. I guess you would do that part in the machine; personally, I love kneading.
Put the dough back in the bowl, cover and let rise for about 1 hour.


Stage 3
------------

* 50g walnuts (pecans work as well, and I suspect so will other kinds of nuts), broken
* 100g fresh, frozen or dried cranberries (we don't get fresh here, and frozen are also hard to find, so I always use dried). Or blueberries. Or raisins. Or, as I once did, an assortment of all sorts of dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, figs, dates, etc). It can be over 100g, too.

Deflate the dough and work the nuts and fruit into it. Divide into smallish rolls (the recipe says 12, I often get a bit more, but it depends what size you like really), lay on a baking sheet lines with parchment paper, put the sheet in a large plastic bag, and let rise again for 30 minutes.

Bake at 200°C (that's about 400°F, looks like) for 15-20 minutes. I think there's supposed to be an egg wash first, but it's not very clear from the recipe; I've never used it, and never missed it, so don't bother breaking out the vegan replacements...

Anyway, the rolls stay okay for a couple of days, but they also freeze very well, so you can make a batch and then keep most of it for later.
Enjoy!

>how can wine be non-vegan?

If it's refined using gelatin, isinglass, chitosan, albumen or any other animal-derived substance. In reality, most wines are *not* suitable for vegans.

Certain beers (Guiness, which involves isinglass for example), liquors (Campari, which contains the red coloring Carmine, for example) are a no-go as well.

The one bit I never understood were ethical vegetarians who still eat cheese and don't check whether or not the cheeses they consumed were made with a vegetarian rennet. If a cheese has animal rennet, it's not vegetarian in any sense. Then again, a few years back I knew a really thick "vegetarian" who regularly ate fish. Fish might be dumber than other animals, but they sure as hell ain't vegetables.

Back to the bread recipe... it sounds tasty! We only get fresh cranberries here in season (which is usually around end of November through Christmastime), and I usually freeze a pound or so, but I also keep dried ones on hand. In fact, I have dried cranberries, blueberries, black and golden raisins, and dried cherries. I might be able to mix it up a bit, too. Raisins and cranberries sounds good.

I might have a go at these over this weekend, thank you Lady P!

Oh- and I'm not convinced that yeast is an animal as opposed to a fungi. And I'm not entirely convinced that if it were proven beyond a doubt to be an animal, I'm not certain single-celled animals are capable of being exploited, feeling pain, suffering, etc. So I don't have any issues with yeast (at least none that I know of ). In fact, I cook with nutritional yeast sometimes, where something might have had cheese and omitting it completely would just be .

Thanks for the explanation. As for the vegans who drink non-vegan wine, or vegetarians who eat fish... well, personally, I think this is all about red lines and where we draw them, yaknow?
Some vegetarians don't want to eat mammals or birds, but their red line doesn't include fish; then you have those who put the line wider, and won't eat fish, but will eat animal-derived products, then you have vegans (and apparently even within them, some of them don't care as much when it's a very small amount of something animal-derived, like in wine), and so on down the line until you get to the most extreme extremists. Me, I'm fine with that. To each his own.
My own red line passes somewhere over cows - and possibly other animals of that sort (horse, camel), even though that meat isn't common here. I can't see myself eating animals that I consider 'pets', like cat or dog, not because they're inherently different from lambs or chickens, but because that's where my red line is.

It's kinda like religion, in a way - I often find a resemblance between the various kinds of vegetarians and vegans to the way different people keep kosher. Some don't mind eating at a non-kosher restaurant as long as it's not something like pork or a cheeseburger, others won't order meat, others will not go to a non-kosher restaurant but will eat at a friend's house that doesn't have a kosher kitchen, and so on, again getting more and more extreme down the line, until you get to the people who need a specific kind of kosher (from a specific rabbinate or rabbi) and will demand it even on things like mineral water, or soap.


(Another resemblance to religion is that some especially militant vegans talk like they've seen the light, and would often try to convert others. )

IMO, someone who consumes non-vegan foods isn't vegan, and someone who eats fish is by definition, not vegetarian. I agree with you that obviously different people have different "red lines" or "yuck" factors. But (and far be it from either of us to pigeonhole people in general, but I think you know where I'm going with this) it's silly to identify as something you're not. It'd be like me saying I'm Jewish just because I don't eat pork or shellfish.

Ah well, I see your point, but you can also look at it like a person saying they keep kosher, and an ultra-orthodox saying 'How can you say that, when you eat food that was prepared in a non-kosher kitchen?'... some people give different values to different things.

True, but because I might share some values with say, someone who keeps kosher, doesn't make what I do kosher. Claiming to do so only makes it more difficult for those who do. Especially if I say, invite them to my home under the pretense of a kosher meal, and then serve a non-kosher wine. It totally defeats the purpose.

"Another resemblance to religion is that some especially militant vegans talk like they've seen the light, and would often try to convert others"

Can't say I've ever encountered a "militant" vegan. Or any who try to "convert" people. I'm not sure what that means at all.

Oh, I've encountered one. Guy writes in one of the Israeli forums I'm on; he's mostly okay as long as nobody mentiones vegetarianism/veganism, or food, or even medicine (he has very extreme views in that aspect, I've once seen him claim that a period of fasting can cure pretty much everything). He has refused to come to a forum meet because of veganism issues - not because there wouldn't have been any vegan food (because there was plenty, bread and hummus and salads and such), but because not all the food was certified vegan and he did not want to be in the vicinity of what he called 'cruelty products'. And, just to complete the newly-born religious vibe, he has once described the way he tastes the food he eats, once he became vegan (he's extreme on that too: he eats fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, basically) as a spiritual experience.


Just in case you find it offensive (I haven't meant any of this to be, and the original message really was supposed to be rather jocular, so I apologise if I erred in that)... I am NOT saying he is a representative of the majority. I know he is a pretty extreme case. But, well, the extreme cases do exist, and they're the ones I was referring to.

We've just 'cos the orange juice is labelled "suitable for vegetarians"; P pointed out that it "contained bits" & in German the word for that means "flesh of the orange"....labelling can be confusing!

I do hope this guy who's on a strict vegan regime is taking supplements; humans (and dogs) are basically omnivores & need a varied, balanced diet which includes protein in whatever form; & certainly extra B Vitamins if he's not to get nerve damage stuff.

zdt

No vegan who has the foggiest idea how to cook would ever need a vitamin supplement. I don't. Humans can- and should- get all the protein and B vitamins they need from vegetable sources. Also the essential fatty acids. If one gets a bit of sunlight, there's no need for vitamin D supplements either. I get a bit annoyed when people suggest supplements are necessary, to be honest.

Perhaps the juice is labeled that way for a reason, Terri. A grocery store we shop at here has an orange juice they claim is fortified with essential amino acids- and those come from fish. (Never mind that flax contains six times as many omega-3 fatty acids as fish oil does...)

>he's extreme on that too: he eats fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, basically

That doesn't sound terribly extreme. He omits beans and grains, which would be better for complete proteins, but really, besides those two things, what else is there besides what you've mentioned?

To be honest, if there were some way for me to avoid eating at any venue or establishment which serves exploitative foodstuffs, I'd love it. I manage pretty well when it comes to say, work lunches or wedding receptions, etc- I eat before I go. But it'd be nice if we had more than a half dozen cruelty-free restaurants in the city. Even the veggie Diner offers eggs, milk and dairy cheese. I'd love a grocery store which didn't sell them, too.

I think it *maybe* depends on the individual; i have a condition which means i cannot absorb B Vitamins from natural food sources; yet i refuse to even contemplate the idea of eating dead animals.

So; in order to be able to walk; i am forced to take supplements of B Complex. The alternative would be injections of it direct, which i'm not willing to handle.

In general, i eat little, but what i do eat is definitely prepared properly, using organic ingredients, takes a load of time & effort.

As to eating out; i prefer an Indian type restaurant run on Buddhist principles, but they are a bit rare around here!

zdt

Well, quite. Someone with a medical condition may well need medication or vitamin supplements to help treat that condition. But otherwise *healthy* humans can get all of the nutrients they need from vegetable sources without supplements. (One bit of misinformation that really gets my goat- when people insist that both ALA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids cannot be obtained from vegetable sources and must be gotten from fish... when flaxseed has SIX TIMES the DHA that fish oil has)

I found myself looking at organic vegetable stock cube suitable for vegans & vegetarians in the supermarket today.

I have plenty of it - I was actually looking for you!

Hey PC,

I'm getting the feeling that I'm being offensive in some way, and I really don't want that. Please let me know if I'm being an ass, okay?

That guy I was talking about _does_ strike me as more extreme than most of the other vegans I've met. I think he eats lentils and grains as well, I just mentally included these in the 'seeds' section. And he eats only those things, no flour or sugar etc., and he seems to be ideologically against all sorts of replacements like soy milk or egg replacements or whatnot. which apparently you use, as do most vegetarians/begans I've ran into. It's not that I have anything against that diet - he seems to enjoy it (and even find it spiritually fulfilling, but I suppose that is psychological rather than physical), and I have no doubt it can be healthy enough when done right. The only thing I am against is the way he acts toward others.

I can understand not wanting to go eat at a diner that also serves the kind of food you disagree with, but when it's a meeting of friends? Where food is not really the main thing, even? Would you do that?
Because that does strike me as extreme, simply because it seems pretty unfriendly. It's basically saying 'I don't want to meet you guys in person, and hang out and talk and stuff, because you eat food I disagree with'. Not 'I don't want to eat your food', which is understandable - 'I don't want to be around you'. That just doesn't seem very nice.

I suppose it depends on how strongly the person feels their food principles outweigh social stuff; i personally have no problem with eating alongside carnivorous types, so long as the meaty bits don't smell, but i live with an omnivore, who finds the smell of me smoking upsets him around food.

So we try & compromise; i smoke only in my room; outside or in bathroom; if he's cooking meat, he has own pans, chopping boards, cooking implements etc & washes them himself. If he's cooking beef; that really makes me feel sick, so he cooks it outside on camping gas. oddly enough, i don't find the smell of pork based meat bothers me though!

It's a slight problem now with the new 'cos we decided to feed her a natural diet, not tin based, two thirds of raw meat/bones (free from local butcher), plus veg, fruit & occasional offal type meat...it's called the BARF diet; she loves it; we don't have expensive stinky cans to deal with, she's stopped scratching. (Labradors/Retreivers are prone to dry skin)

http://www.barfworld.com/

But i hate handling the frozen meat!

zdt

I do go to other people's homes to eat, or to restaurants. If they don't serve something I can eat, I don't eat.

I do sort of expect that most people who know me well, and care for me at all, would pick someplace or something I can have. People sit in front of me and eat stuff with meat in it all the time, and the only time it really bothers me is when people (and I'm thinking of someone specific, of course ) waves a piece of meat in front of my face and says "But look what you're missing!". I'm not missing *anything*, and I think that's just rude. But in general, I think sticking to one's principles far outweighs socializing in terms of importance, and if there's someone who doesn't care enough about me to serve a meat and dairy-free option for me, or pick a restaurant with at least one thing for me on the menu (I've even made do with french fries and a side salad ), then they're not someone worth hanging out with anyway.

Sometimes when we get takeout, K will eat some chicken or something. I don't demand he use different dishes. They can be washed. But he never buys any meat or anything to cook.


Ismarah- our Whole Foods carries vegan vegetable bouillon cubes! I found them there a while back. They're not strategically placed, which is why it took me so long to realize they had them. And I also make my own stock using all my parings and onion skins, and freeze it in cubes. It's good stuff!

Lady P- even if we completely failed to understand each other, or disagreed vehemently on principles, I would never think you were trying to be offensive or that you were being an ass!