I ask myself if I should ever highlight vegan recipes in this thread, since I'm not vegan anymore. I did once try to be for a while, but I became discouraged. People always wanted to argue with you about it. You had to bring your own food to dinner, or risk going hungry until you could get away. In any new restaurant you went to with friends, you had to ask the waiter "what's vegan on the menu?", and then everybody at the table would start arguing with you.
I'm not saying veganism was never practiced before the 20th century, but I observed that the veganism that gained momentum in the late 20th century was based on the boycott of cruelty in the food animal industry, veal calves kept in boxes to keep them small and tender, chickens left in battery cages until they have sores from the wires rubbing their skin, cattle being carved while still alive, dairy cows given hormones to increase their milk production until their udders are sore and infected, all the while their calves separated from them permanently. And the waste, pig farms producing enough sh*t to fill football stadiums, a kind of wasted gold that could be hauled away to fertilize crop fields but instead is left to produce stench and disease in the open air, causing the need to regularly dose the animals with antibiotics. Efforts to expose these things led to the creation of "ag gag" laws that could land you in jail if you tried to document or film them. I understood, along with the vegans who were growing in numbers around me, that a species that would do these things to defenseless animals, would ultimately do this to our fellow humankind.
But I have come to understand that this institutional indifference to the suffering of food animals is adjunct to a war on food crops, the environment, our water, soil and air, with the egregious use of hormone disrupting, wildlife killing, water polluting pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. Organic growing, companion planting, working in harmony with the local microclimate, has been shown to be the way forward, but it will take time for the efficiencies of the one to overcome the deadly efficiencies of the previous. Organic is the label I look for now, whether animal, vegetable or packaged product. There is no such thing as an organic chicken, but if the chicken label says "organic" it means free range. Free range doesn't have to be organic, but organic has to be free range. The organic label indicates the animal has been given only organic, non-GMO feed, and has not been dosed with antibiotics on a schedule (though antibiotics are permitted if an animal is sick and needs treatment). There is a "humane animal care" certification available to farmers now, and some animal ranches have their own abattoirs so they can be sure there are no atrocious slaughter practices. Under Islam, pork is not consumed, but otherwise their halal animal slaughter protocol is followed for the least pain and trauma to the animal.
But I believe in the health potentials of veganism too, and I respect people's choices, so If I have a party, or have people over for dinner, if anybody coming is vegan, then we all eat vegan that night, and I make sure the food is delicious for all to enjoy. I find it a wonderful challenge still, and for that I still often make vegan choices for my own diet, to stay on top of what's in the market, new recipe innovations and serving ideas.
When I was vegan for a time, I obsessed over never again being able to have a BLT sandwich. I did use Turtle Island tempeh bacon strips back then, before I was concerned about GMO contamination making most of the world's soy crop GMO, which is its own can of worms that I won't go into here. The tempeh bacon tasted great and filled the BLT craving, but eventually I wanted to get away from soy products entirely.
Vegan mayo was grim back then, soy based, bland and strange tasting. I tried some, always had to mix grated lemon peel into the jar, dash of paprika or cayenne, bit of Dijon mustard, anything to disguise that motor oil flavor. Now there are better vegan mayo products around. I don't know what year it entered the market, but Sir Kensington classic vegan mayo is stupendous, so I haven't tried any of the others. It has no soy. You can see the jar in my blurry pics.
So what to use for the bacon? Eggplant bacon is so good. It's trouble to make, so I don't do it very often. I thought of it when I saw this long eggplant in the store. It makes better bacon-y strips than the big fat watery eggplants.
People salt and drain eggplant all the time, to make it less spongey when cooked, so in this instance you peel it and slice it as thinly as possible. You can use a mandoline and get super thin pieces that really crisp up like bacon, but I don't have a lot of stuff in my kitchen, so I cut it thinly with a knife. It was thicker than bacon, more like a thick chewy bacon than a thin crispy bacon. I salted both sides with bacon salt, which doesn't contain one molecule of animal product. It works great for this purpose.
Then placed the slices in a colander, weighted down with a heavy bowl, to sweat and release juice for an hour. See how much juice came out?
Then fried in organic sunflower oil until crisp. Whatever oil you prefer can be substituted, except olive oil, which has too low a smoke point. See how bacon-y it gets?
The eggplant done, drained and cooled, I built my sandwich, including avocado. I like having mayo on the lettuce & tomato side, mustard on the bacon side, but your condiments are your choice.
Yum yum yum yum, vegan BLT.
Winner of the week.
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