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Cooking with vegetables — if McDonald’s will do it, what’s stopping you?
By
Published: Apr 27, 2021
Category:
Food and Wine
It is a law among sensible investors that you do not buy individual stocks. But when I read about all the fast food chains that sell plant-based burgers and saw that McDonald’s — which buys about 580 million pounds of meat a year — will introduce meatless burgers this year, I did the unthinkable, I bought shares of a company that makes plant-based burgers. Not a big plunge: 100 shares of a $5 stock. In two weeks, I’m up 2 cents.
You may have seen — first on Fox News, then in snark from Republican politicians — that Joe Biden wants to rip that juicy grill-cooked burger from your hands. This claim was inspired by an academic paper that considered how changing the American diet might affect greenhouse gas emissions. For Fox, where hard-of-thinking white people peddle lurid fantasies they cannot possibly believe, it was a small leap to Biden cutting “90% of red meat” from your diet and restricting you to “one burger per month.”
There are worse ideas. Cows require land, and the land they require must be cleared. Goodbye, trees. Hello, trucks. Hello between 14.5 percent and 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is a stunningly large percentage. We need to reduce our beef consumption and shift to more plant-based food, or it will be difficult to reverse environmental damage.
Food sites are stepping up. Epicurious quietly dropped beef recipes last year. On April 26, 2021, the editors made it official:
Why announce our decision now? While beef consumption in the U.S. is significantly down from where it was 30 years ago, it has been slowly creeping up in the past few years. The conversation about sustainable cooking clearly needs to be louder; this policy is our contribution to that conversation.
Addressing climate change requires legislation, international cooperation, and buy-in from the corporate sector. Individual actions like choosing alt-meat—or mushrooms, or chickpeas—instead of the real thing can feel so small they’re essentially pointless. But every time you abstain from beef at the grocery store or a restaurant, you send a signal — to the grocery store, yes, but also, and perhaps more influentially, to whomever you talk to about your decision. Our announcement today is simply us loudly (and proudly!) letting you, the home cook, know about a step we’re taking. (Admittedly, we’re also hoping the rest of American food media joins us too.)
Over the years, I’ve leaned in this direction. These cookbooks are my favorites.
V Is for Vegetables: Inspired Recipes & Techniques for Home Cooks — from Artichokes to Zucchini
This is a vegetable cookbook like no other.
First, in its format — as the subtitle suggests, it’s organized like an encyclopedia, with lovely illustrations and helpful pictures.
Second, in its simplicity. These are recipes that require no esoteric ingredients or elaborate preparation — this is gourmet home cooking.
Most original of all is the point-of-view. A great many cooks have adopted the vegetables-at-the-center-of-the-plate religion, with animal protein as a side dish, garnish, afterthought — or non-presence. (They ignore what the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki noted: “You have to kill vegetables too.”) Michael Anthony hasn’t surrendered to the Meme of Vegetables. He includes fish and meat recipes “because that’s the way I eat.” He just happens to like to eat vegetables more: “I am a cheerleader saying, ‘Hey, you can do this. Give it a try.’ I tell readers, ‘Set yourself up like this in the kitchen and you’ll be able to cook this quicker.’”
So the emphasis is on great taste. Which begins with vegetables in season: “We try not to be overbearing when it comes to our excitement about serving seasonal foods. But for me it’s a nonnegotiable. If I can’t do it, then I won’t be cooking it.”
Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate
“Vegetable Harvest” establishes Patricia Wells as Julia Child for the new millennium. She’s not a frothing New Ager, telling you to heap your plate with vegetables because meat is sinful –— she’s just a close observer of traditional French cooking. That is, meat/fish/poultry prominent on the plate, just cooked with vegetables or surrounded by them. So here is an encyclopedia of recipes: 300 pages, with almost no commentary. Most are simple, requiring few exotic ingredients or advanced techniques. I’m particularly excited about the soups, but judging from the recipes I’ve tried and the pages I’ve turned down, there’s a lot here to love in every category —– including meat and fish.
At Home with May and Axel Vervoordt: Recipes for Every Season
There are a few chicken and fish recipes, one for a lamb casserole, one for veal. Mostly this book that showcases vegetables in unusual combinations. Carrot, ginger and coriander salad. Green salad with mango and grilled sweet potato. Avocado salad with zucchini and red chili pepper. Butternut squash marinated in tarragon.
And the fruit recipes! Rhubarb compote with star anise and red berry juice, a refreshing dessert or breakfast treat. Pineapple with saffron and lemon.
Real Food: What to Eat and Why
Nina Planck’s major proposition is that “traditional” food — “foods we’ve been eating for a long time” — is good for us. “Industrial” food — “recent and synthetic” — is bad for us. Worse, industrial food leads to the diseases of the industrial era: obesity, diabetes, heart disease. “The greatest error of modern industrial life, which celebrates the lab and technology, is our love affair with the facsimile,” she writes. “It is time to face the music. Some things cannot be replaced. Real food is one.” That means meat? Yes. And vegetables. A balanced diet.
Twelve Months of Monastery Salads
More than a cookbook, this is a guide to the Zen of preparing great, unique, but surprisingly simple salads.
You ask: How good can a salad be? Well, this is a smart Frenchman who has spent lots of time in the kitchen: Trust him. His advice is minimal but specific: Cube the beets (even if you prefer them sliced); whisk the dressing just one hour beforehand to let the garlic infuse; use Jerez sherry vinegar; arrange the avocado and goat cheese, then drizzle with lemon juice as instructed.
And, of course, you can still start a garden. A square-foot garden.
