Hi everyone, welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. I'm here with Sleepyboy Walter. So for people who don't know why I always put like these funny names on Phil, it's because that's the nickname he puts on the chat platform.
Pilpilwalt, Sleepyboy, Gorilla Dick. You know, at one point I was filling out a form, like an official form on my laptop, with somebody else sitting next to me looking at it, and I clicked the like name section of my name, and for some reason this website decided to take all the nicknames that I put into Riverside, the program we use for recording, as suggestions.
So it was like Big Schlongman, Gorilla Dick, blah. And this person, she was like, what the hell, where are all these names coming from? So today we're going to talk about a very dynamic topic, I would say. Veganism. Everybody has an opinion on veganism, I guess. Especially vegans. Also not vegans, I guess. I remember the first time I heard about veganism, I was working at, well the first time I took it kind of like,
from a chef's perspective, seriously. I was at culinary school, and one of my co-students, he was working in a catering for top artists that would go to Venezuela for performances, concerts, for shows. And one of these was U2, U2 Pop, you know, like U2. And they're all vegans. Vegans to the point of, I remember that they would experiment, like even the clothes, and I was like, what is this? What kind of sect is this?
And back then I would take it as such, as kind of like a sect or something strange. Now for me it's just like a, you know, like a diet profile that needs to be taken into account, and I guess like most restaurants have to operate in that way, having like at least something in mind. And I think as a trained chef, it comes to a point where you already know how to deal with it,
you already know how to automatically filter, this is it, this is not, you know, and what to deliver. So what do you have to say about veganism? I don't know, you know, I feel like obviously vegans get a lot of slack, they get a lot of shit. I feel like, especially with like toxic kitchen culture, you know, everybody used to hate on vegetarians.
And now that's not really a thing anymore. I think like vegetarians are like very widely accepted. They're sort of like, oh, this person is vegetarian, nobody's, I think very few chefs are going to go, oh, the vegetarians. But when a vegan comes, it's a little bit different because it's kind of like, oh, vegan. I agree. Yeah, I agree. Even, I mean, for me, even as a, I mean, of course I have vegan friends, but it is really a fact that you have to put them in a category aside.
You know, like when you're, for example, when I give food tours, I can deal with vegetarians, no problem, but vegans, it's like, okay, you're going to eat patatas bravas and, and guernica peppers the whole tour, you know, because that's all there is. But it's really a problem, for example, in Basque cuisine and in other cuisines that have such traditions of eating fish and meat. And I mean, and also there is, I remember I was with sustainable papi, what's the name of this guy?
Free Obispo. He has like this amazing project in the Bronx, like a vertical farming project to reconvert urban areas that have been neglected in terms of nutrition. These things are known as food desserts. And this is systematically like, kind of like a food apartheid or especially black communities in the States. And he leads this project. Oh, wow. Well, he's vegan and he was visiting me in San Sebastian. So I was taking him on a tour. And that's actually, and I mean, a tour as a friend.
So it was really problematic because I would ask like, can I get the scallop with almond soup without the scallop? And they're like, fuck you. No, you know, like, or, or then I was in this place. And he said, what do you have vegan? And it was like a spinach croquette. And I had great, oh wait, but that has butter and milk. And they were like, come on, but these people, they can't like just be like normal.
And I was like, butter. So you get to see that a lot, like in very normal places, you know, like this kind of attitudes, you know, I guess it's more like in a more professional level that you will see people just not caring and just dealing with it and solving the situation, you know? Because that's what a chef does is a problem solver, no? Like a chef is a problem solver in my opinion. For, you know, for very large part.
I mean, we've talked about this a lot of times, you know, that you have to be a professional and you have to, you know, somebody comes in and says, hey, I don't eat. I don't know, you know, I have a very, very strong, deadly, deadly allergy against dry yeast and, you know, garlic, but raw garlic is fine and bland, you know, some bullshit.
And of course it's bullshit. And it's, you know, not to say that I think it's totally okay to draw the line as a restaurant worker and say, I'm very sorry, but if that's the way, then either please contact us beforehand or go somewhere else. But you find a solution, right? I mean, this like this mentality is very old school. I love the sort of fact that it's kind of like a Spanish croquette. It has eggs and milk in it, but also it's, you know, rebozado in like eggs, you know? So.
And butter for the best of my own. I mean, it's non-vegan everywhere. At all. But these people, can they just like deal with it? You know, like. Yeah, but it's like, it's really difficult when you have a country that is, that has such a strong culinary tradition, right? Like, for example, I had this example a lot of times talking about vegetarianism as in true, like real vegetarianism and especially veganism.
And people sort of, yeah, in Asia, it's like, it must be so much nicer. And I'm kind of like, what are we talking about? I like try to eat fully vegetarian in Japan, depending where you are, right? But like in Osaka and Tokyo and stuff, good luck. Vegan? Almost impossible, I think. You know, because even if you get like a vegetarian miso soup, it's made with dashi, you know, dashi is made with katsubushi, it's bonito, it's fish, right? It's very, it's tough.
In Japan, you have this, I would call it food genre shojin, I guess I'm pronouncing it wrong. But it's this tradition, this hula of Zen Buddhism, cluster cooking that is of course vegan because they're Buddhists. And that's actually very interesting. I booked a restaurant in Kyoto for my trip to Japan. We're going to talk about that on the next episode. And this is a Michelin star place that is a Buddhist cluster. And it's super cheap because like 60 euros, the menu.
And it's vegan. And yeah, I think that approach to veganism, it's not that I'm saying that modern approaches to veganism, in general, I find veganism to be interesting. But this school of Buddhist monk of clusters, I know Eric Rupert has traveled to these monasteries to learn about this.
And just recently, Shinobon Amai published a book with, I think it's American journalists focused only on monastery cooking. And he goes to these monasteries to look for inspiration. And that's something also that I've seen in Japanese chefs, they have somehow this connection with this kind of chef that are monks and chefs. Because there is like, somehow like a monastic aspect to being a chef, you know. And I think that there are parallelisms that can work as an inspiration to each other.
Absolutely. Yeah. There is definitely something very monk like in cooking. Like also just like this outpour of yourself in your dedication and your repetition of your craft. And it's something that is like, it can be, you know, without having like using a term that's very overblown, but it's something that can be very spiritual.
In your pursuit of making something better. And I also always found it fascinating, you know. And like, yeah, like, I mean, this is the thing with this whole subject, right? It's like there's so many branches of it. And there's, you know, the religious aspects of why people are vegan.
There's a health focused aspect. It's just like a general anti-cruelty preference, which again is a whole different subject. Then there's obviously just the people who follow a certain trend, because that is a certain stance is viewed in a certain way at a certain time in the current zeitgeist.
And then there's the sustainability aspect, which for me is one of the biggest discussion points, right? Because you meet a lot of people who say, yeah, I am a vegan. I choose to be a vegan because eating meat is bad for the planet.
And then you kind of go like, well, what about, what do you eat if you don't eat meat? You know, that's also a big question. What kind of vegan are you? Right? Are you like a vegetable seasonal focused vegan? Or are you a, I eat chicken that's pressed out of soy compounds kind of vegan, right?
And that is a big difference because like, I have actually a lot of sympathy and a lot of respect for the first kind, the kind that eats plants and vegetables throughout the year. That for me is like how I feel, you know, like a monastery would cook, right? Preserve, ferment, find ways around normal meat components. But the person that eats like roast beef and chicken that's made out of a million emulsification ingredients and chemicals and flavor enhancers and soy products and byproducts of it.
It's kind of like, don't tell me that it's a healthy and be sustainable and good for the planet because I'm not, I'm not buying that. Yeah. Well, I, I, you also can, can find those kinds of things that are sustainable. Yeah. I mean, you get both like when we talk about alternative proteins, which is like a huge topic and food tech nowadays, you get both. You get like the cheap crap that is vegan. Vegan is not necessarily healthy. It's not one thing has nothing to do with the other.
I mean, you, you could eat like pure sugar and that would be vegan, you know? And, and you also have like, yeah, like proper, nice, sustainable, not, not only traditional products like tofu, but also like, here comes to mind, which is a startup from here from Barcelona. I'm in Barcelona right now that has scaled up all over Europe and they do this thing, this product that looks like, I will say chicken because it has like this texture that feels like chicken.
And I've done this a couple of times that I give it to taste to professional chefs, like, and ask them, what do you think it is? And I've heard everything. I've heard beef, I've heard lamb, duck, chicken, whatever. But nobody said vegan protein. Everybody thought it was like an animal protein. Just not, nobody could really know what it was.
Yeah. And I think like an interesting product to take into account when cooking vegan is all, and this is like a whole universe of ingredients. It's everything around a yeast. You know, you can, you can develop yeast, like, like in many cases, the flavor of chicken, roasted chicken, beef, meat, those kinds of things is created with yeast, right? Like, that are designed and developed just to have that specific aroma.
And you can play around with that. As a fun fact, next time you are like in one of this big markets, big supplier markets, like macro, Metro, and you see like their instant bouillons, like the beef bouillon, go through the ingredients. And most of the time you won't find meat. Okay. Like you see this. Yeast extract, yeah. Yeast extract, exactly. You see like the whole, because it's cheaper. And I mean, they say like a bouillon with beef taste, but it doesn't say beef.
Yeah. And it's funny because the beef bouillons that you find powdered are many times vegan, which is crazy. Yeah, that's really funny. That's like, I think yeast is a super interesting ingredient. And I actually, even though I'm not a vegan chef, I use yeast as a flavor enhancer a lot. I have this thing that I make where I take some fresh yeast and I confit it in butter really, really slowly. And it's a very interesting process because it goes for like different phases.
The yeast like melts, then suddenly it gets really sticky all of a sudden and you cook it and cook it and cook it, you cook all the liquid out and then it's just kind of slowly disappear. Like it slowly gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it's almost like sand. And then it starts to toast to brown and that's when you want to stop it. And it has this insane flavor that's kind of like you've salted.
It has this flavor that's in between like a really dark roasted Danish rye bread and like crispy chicken skin. Super delicious. I used it for like glazing meat. I used to mix it into like whipped butter to go with like the bread. It was super nice. But this is like a whole different subject, right? A topic because a lot of people that I also come across in my restaurant will say I am vegan.
Hence, I don't eat yeast because yeast is a living culture, right? It's a culture of bacteria. And I don't want to eat anything that's made with yeast. Have you come across this or? No, no. I think if you put that filter, then you can't eat anything. Yeah, that's exactly what I think also. For example, mushrooms and the whole world of mushrooms. I know this one of these companies that develops alternative proteins made of mushrooms.
Their slogan is half plant, half animal or something like that. I don't remember exactly because mushrooms are kind of like animals, you know, like so that then you couldn't eat mushrooms theoretically. You know, like if you put that filter, what are you saying that plants don't feel? There is scientific evidence that plants also feel, you know, like.
And I guess that's very I mean, like I don't want to get into this kind of things like trying to scientifically prove a belief wrong because that's nonsense. You know, like exactly like, I don't know, for example, also with Muslims, what when I've told them, yeah, but the wine is cooked. If it's cooked, it has no alcohol and they go like, no, no, no, no, no. But even so, I can have it. I mean, there is nothing to discuss against that.
It's just, you know, like it's a belief and you have to respect it and that's it. But yeah, going back to yeast, I tried like an amazing dish once cooked by John Reggevall, but it was a dish from Nico Romito, who's a super Italian chef. And this was really interesting. He just like fresh yeast just thrown into the oven to roast it. So you have like roasted fresh yeast. I mean, not fresh anymore. It was like and this was kind of like a vegan parmesan.
Super interesting. And he would put this on spaghetti. That was it. Like instead of of parmesan cheese and also like I work in a vegan vegan. And also we also have like a raw vegan menu. This restaurant was led by Jean-Christian Jury, who is the author of Fight on Cookbook on Veganism. And I was and I did that because I was always interested in veganism. And I always and I also like contemplated the idea of becoming vegan, but that never worked out for me.
I actually gained a lot of weight while working there because I would eat like a lot of dried fruits and I don't know, like I wasn't doing it. OK, that's also like a big topic about becoming vegan or being vegan or vegetarian. You shouldn't do that as you feel, you know, like I have a friend who became vegan.
And after I have many stories of people that were going vegan went wrong. Like I have a friend that can't have babies because she became raw vegan very young and she destroyed her reproductive system. That's something that can happen. I have another friend who what happened to her? Well, after a couple of years being vegan, she went to the doctor and they said that she wasn't taking I don't know what kind of pill or vitamin that you should take in that all vegetarians take.
That is something that comes with I think with fish. I have no idea. But she wasn't having that. And when she saw the index of I don't know, like you should have like a normal person who looks like this and you're in zero, you know, like your amount of this kind of nutrient. And she also had like permanent damages for doing it like that way. I mean, you are what you eat. So you should take serious what you eat and what you're not eating because you're not having it.
It's not just like I decide I'll eat tomatoes only every day and that should work out. It's just not like that. So in this place, it was it was a restaurant in Berlin called La Mano Verde. They, for example, I learned many of the tricks that vegans do for many things. For example, parmesan is usually this yeast extract with roasted in that case we used pine nuts. So you have like this powder of yeast and and pine nuts.
Like I said, if you go to industrial companies like Hella or Unilever, these guys have extract yeast of whatever you can imagine of like all kinds of flavors. Super interesting. We would also do like for the raw menu, like raw lasagna with all slices of vegetables, marinated, fermented, dried fruits, made puree. It was quite interesting. It was pretty nice that there were many delicious things.
I remember developing a dessert that I still lose sometimes that is just not mixing silken tofu with with more like chocolate, like just molten chocolate. You just blitz it and you have this kind of pudding. You know, it's like a two ingredient, three step dessert. That's quite cool, actually. Yeah, like I developed that myself. I came to that conclusion. But then I found out that other people have also come to that conclusion because it's like a very common sense thing.
I think people like also nobody taught me that. I just because we were making like other desserts like that, like also like with fruits to make like a creme poulet vegan, these kind of things. And what else? Yeah, also chocolate biscuits using emulsifying oil. That's also interesting. You make kind of like a mayonnaise and then you like a mayonnaise, let's say with using soy milk instead of egg.
And you have like this emulsion and then you pour flour into it and then you have like a vegan biscuit. OK. Or are also whisking aquafaba. For me, that's a crazy thing. Taking the water of the chickpeas and just whipping it until you have a foam. That's also super interesting. You have any favorite vegan dishes that you can think of? I'm trying to think honestly. Like I have seen like things done, especially with like aquafaba and stuff like that.
Where I was like, man, this is really cool. It's like a really great dish. I've recently like I don't cook like that. You know, like I am an advocate for good farming practices and for good quality dairy products. Like I am for that. I don't want to support the big meat industry and stuff like that. But I am an advocate for good farming practices and the resulting product. So I don't spend enough time really like with these sorts of things.
But in the last years I have seen like a few like small even like very simple things. They're not even very tricksy. Like two years ago I ate a very extremely delicious potato puree made with slightly smoked margarine and cold pressed rapeseed oil. And oat milk. And it was very very tasty and it was completely vegan. And it had everything that you wanted. Good potatoes, little bit of fattiness. Just like very beautiful nutty flavor from the rapeseed oil, from the canola oil.
When you hear canola oil you always think of the like just box standard really shitty cooking oil. Well shitty. I mean just very very very desodorized etc. But if you can get very high quality cold pressed intensely golden nutty canola oils and they're delicious and a slight smokiness. Super nice. Yeah especially in German countries there are like super high quality canola oils. Yeah. And linseed oil and stuff like that. It's very very traditional here.
Yeah we would use a lot of that stuff in the vegan restaurant I work. Yeah. But I like there's some sort of things that I've adapted for myself. Also there's this like I have this like new rice pudding recipe. Where I like for me rice pudding like when I make it at home I make it classic. I mean milk you know etc. I make it very simple. Arroz con leche.
But now like for example I wanted to develop this like recipe for having like a little jar like a veg jar of rice pudding layered with jam that you can have on the breakfast buffet. Right. Like cold. And when I'm thinking about making that I'm like well it would be great to make it vegan so that just everybody can have it. Right.
Yeah and I think it's a good like design challenge to make a rice pudding with because you have rice milk. You can also have like roasted rice like the ones you use for tea. You can do many things around play around like you can use these kinds of oil you were talking about just to give it more fattiness. I think yeah that's something cool to develop. No absolutely. And so like instead of making it with milk like you make it with a little bit of you know coconut milk.
But like you don't want it to be too Asian. So you can buy this really nice like rice drink. It's cold. It's basically just like soaked rice. Kind of like horchata. Soaked rice. Lidst. Passed through. And that gives you a sort of creamy sardiness. And it works really well you know. And I think that as much as people hate on veganism or like professional chefs like to hate on veganism.
What I really appreciate is the fact that like the other day we talked about Nouvelle cuisine right. And I still see myself even though I was not part of that movement necessarily. I see myself striving for the same things. I want my food to get lighter to be healthy.
And a lot of techniques come out of the vegan movement that I adapt in my non-vegan cooking to achieve exactly that. To achieve a lighter more digestible healthier less fatty and more balanced approach you know a more sort of biodiverse approach to my cooking. And I think that's really nice.
I one of the dishes I think I can think of that is maybe my one of the best vegan dishes I've had is from from Marcia Taja from Bolivia. She got recently named like from San Peregrinos Latin America 50 best best female chef in Latin America. And she had this dish where she she would use Brazilian nuts. She would make like a milk with that. Not in November. Not in November. Why. No nuts in November. Amazonian nuts. I don't know. I have no idea about the seasonality of those ones. Okay.
Well what's the joke with no nuts in November. Is that a song. Sorry. No not November. No. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I was like yes which by the way it's also like a controversial topic that this nut is called Brazilian nut while the biggest producer is Bolivia. So Bolivians are actually fighting to change the name to Amazonian nut or Bolivian nut. Even Amazonian should be okay. They call it chestnuts like forest chestnuts. That's how they call it in Bolivia. In any case.
Well she would make like a super nice take milk with this and then like something that looked like caviar but it was amaranth cooked in acai. You know acai. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah like super complex flavors but actually I tried to do this in Europe with greens available here. So you would find this acai puree like in Ecuadorian phone centers and amaranth and bio markets and so on.
And doing this with the wrong produce and not the same quality and not the same aromatic profile it was crap honestly. But the one she did it was really really impressive. Really really nice.
Yeah. Yeah. It's like that is kind of what we discussed before you know often you know the limitations that you set yourself as in sort of like I'm not going to be using this I'm not going to be using that whether it's a Nordic cooking I'm not going to be using Mediterranean ingredients or in veganism I'm not going to be using animal produce. And animal products. I mean the natural result of that is often more intense and more focused and a broader creative approach.
Absolutely I think constraints are crucial for creativity. Like if you want to use creativity as a tool right you should have constraints. You should never be like let's be creative. Let's think about anything. It could be anything in the world.
No no no no no you should always narrow it down to a specific goal. For example like a strategic goal with a specific target of users. And then you can always create around that. For example right or like with but not like let's just fantasize about the possibilities of the universe. For me that's not creativity that's fantasy which is not the same. I totally agree.
That's it for this week's episode of potluck food talks. If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and Tik Tok as potluck food talks. The show airs every Monday.