Conscious cuisine : Michigan

[Guest guest]

By Jaye Beeler Press Food Editor GRAND RAPIDS -- A dietary revolution took place at Grand Rapids Community College's culinary school this week. Kelp, white miso, raw cashews, agave syrup, sucanat, soba noodles, gluten powder and chickpea flour fused into vegan cuisine was everywhere as the first Vegetarian Awakening brought the country's finest vegan chefs to Grand Rapids Community College for a two-day conference. Eric Tucker, the premiere vegan chef of San Francisco's Millennium Restaurant, performed his magic in GRCC's kitchens, along with actor-activist Woody Harrelson's personal chef, Chad Sarno. Ken Bergeron, the first chef to win a Culinary Olympics gold medal in vegetarian cuisine, and Howard Lyman, former Montana cattleman and vegetarian activist who blew the lid off mad cow disease on the Oprah Winfrey show, crafted concoctions that had participants licking their fingers. "Have you ever heard of the

tipping point?" asked Lyman, president of Voice for a Viable Future. "We're at the tipping point right now. We want to encourage people to do more of what's right and less of what's wrong. But the nicest thing is we have people here cooking with love. That's the beautiful thing about it. You will never teach anybody anything shouting at them. But what could you do better than to say, 'Come sit at my table and share my food?'" Lyman, the keynote speaker, described his 1979 temporary paralysis from a spinal cord tumor his doctor supposed came from the chemicals he used on his fourth-generation Montana farm. "I had less than one chance in a million that I would walk again," he said. "I walked out of the hospital a very different individual than I walked in." He decided organic farming was the answer to his health woes -- sky-high blood pressure, cholesterol pushing 300 and obesity. "I'm from Montana, and I would rather be caught

riding a stolen horse than to admit that I was thinking about becoming a vegetarian, so I became a closet vegetarian," Lyman said. Eventually, Lyman came out of the closet as a vegan, losing 130 pounds and restoring his blood pressure and cholesterol to the normal ranges. "I've learned the best way to teach people about veganism is to tell them what a damned fool I was, to tell them that it saved my life," Lyman said. Vegan training needed In this budding food movement, professional chefs, restaurateurs, cookbook authors, culinary students, food writers and true believers aim to bring vegan cuisine into the mainstream. Banishing meat, poultry and animal byproducts (such as milk, eggs and butter), the cuisine's hallmarks are soy, seitan, nutritional yeast, sea vegetables such as dried seaweed, nuts and seeds, local and seasonal fruits and vegetables, and a wealth of Asian ingredients. "This is the

missing link in a lot of chefs' training," said Randy Sahajdack, program director for GRCC's Hospitality Education Department. "Through no fault of their own, the culinary schools have not been prepared to train this. But right here, right now, we are. It's our job, as a culinary school, to provide leadership to help chefs prepare satisfying and flavorful meals for our vegetarian and vegan guests." Vegan cooking methods challenge our preconceived notions about vegetarian and vegan foods, said Kevin Dunn, GRCC vegan chef-instructor, who organized the conference with Sahadjack. "The chefs here are producing exciting, innovative food that proves vegan food tastes great," Dunn said. Linda Long, contributing food writer for VegNews and Vegetarian Times magazines, has documented vegan cuisine's explosion in the industry and on the street. "People eat vegan every day," Manhattan's Long said. "They just haven't labeled it vegan. If it

grows up out of the ground, if it grows on a tree, it's vegan." "I was in Times Square, waiting for a light, and I overheard one person say to the other 'What should we eat tonight? Italian, Mexican, vegan, Chinese?' And I loved it. They considered vegan a cuisine, not something weird but a great option." During the conference, a full house attended chef demonstrations, sampling creative cuisine: tostada (sprouted corn chips) with pinoli-ancho puree and coconut sour cream courtesy of Sarno; Tucker's edamane gnocchi with a sea palm and oyster mushroom cream sauce; and Dunn's teriyaki soba noodle tofu with Japanese de-fisher. More than 60 GRCC culinary students bustled in the stainless steel kitchens, pulling together this conscious cuisine -- and wowing the taste buds of everyone present. Cathi DiCocoa, of Bethel, Maine, who operates a restaurant, market, bakery and catering company, says she "wants more for you, for your children."

To help young people connect with food, she is looking to open a vegetarian cooking school for children. "I know something good will rub off," said DiCocoa after Tucker's demonstration. "What's going on is so important because we're on the cusp of reclaiming our creativity." Peter <metalscarab wrote: Hi Peter >Will do, you know Cwmbran is only over the bridge from Peter! Yeah - but they speak a foreign language over there ;-) Actually, if I'm around on 6 May, I may well head

across the bridge and see what's going on :-) BB PeterPeter H

 

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