Hi there!
Welcome to The Veggie Almanac. Thanks for joining me on my 2022 mission to cook, photograph and write my way through a seasonal caleidoscope of vegetables, creating one vegetarian recipe per week, for one year. I’m Amelia and I’m a Kiwi who has flown the coop. I now call The Netherlands home.
My worn copy of the Oxford English Dictionary defines “Almanac” as “an annual calendar of months and days, usu. with astronomical data and other information.” The etymology is contested, but the word is thought to mean calendar and has been traced back to the Greek almenikhiaka, or possibly Spanish-Arabic origins (al and manahk). Almanacs are often used to remind gardeners when and what vegetables to plant. This Veggie Almanac is intended to remind us when and what vegetables to cook.
Why the Veggie Almanac? I’ve been calling myself a vegetarian since way before it was fashionable. I must have been around seven or eight when I first started refusing to eat meat. The more I was told I had to eat it, the more I dug in my heels. I hated the taste, texture and idea of it; the sawdust mouthfuls of dry chicken. Suffice to say, I never acquired the taste (or stomach) for meat.
My Mother, bless her heart, went to great lengths to try and dissuade me from my errant, vegetable-loving ways. I recall her telling me sadly one day that I would never get married if I was a vegetarian, because what man would accept a wife who wouldn’t cook meat? Eating vegetarian was seen as a hippy-dippy curiosity in my meat-and-three-veg little town. My hunter-gatherer Step-Father did his best to woo me over to the dark side with freshly caught venison or pork from the New Zealand bush. But my resolve was only strengthened by the fresh carcasses that he would hang in our windowless aluminum garden shed. As I fumbled in the dark shed for my bike one day, my face suddenly brushed the sharp bristles of a wild boar, hanging upside down by its feet. Panting with terror, I ran out into the sunlight. For years afterwards, I would sniff the air tentatively as I opened the shed, checking for the tell-tale tang of fresh blood before daring to go in.
It quickly became clear that if I wanted to eat vegetarian then I would need to cook for myself. So I did, soon also making meals for my family of ravenous teenage brothers and a dancing sister. I progressed from boiling eggs and opening tins of baked beans, to learning how to scale a mushroom carbonara recipe for the dinner party I threw on my sixteenth birthday and grinding spices to make my own curries. There was never much money, so I cooked by looking at what we had in the cupboards and rooting around in the vegetable plot. That still epitomises my approach. Cook what is in season, eat what you have, play in the kitchen.
I’ve lived in three continents in my life, and been a traveller to six. And in each place I go, learning about its food is my happy place. Whether it is watching old women in a bustling Mexican market turn out steaming stacks of tortillas by hand with astonishing speed and agility; cooking colourful Jewish-Dutch food on a vegetarian cooking course in Amsterdam; buying and then cooking cepes (porcini for you Italians) as the first meal in my apartment when I moved to Paris; or that wonderful moment of belonging when the guy at my favourite hummus place in Tel Aviv learned my order (hummus ful with raw onions).
Being vegetarian is not a religion and I’m not here to convert you. If you eat meat, that’s your dice. Having said that, aside from reducing air travel, one of the single biggest actions you can take to fight the climate emergency is to replace the animal products in your diet with fruit and vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, and pulses. As Jonathan Safrar Foer put it: “we cannot save the planet unless we significantly reduce our consumption of animal products”. One study estimated that transitioning to a plant-based diet could reduce global mortality by up to 10 per cent, and food-related emission by up to 70% compared with a reference scenario in 2050. According to the IPCC, up to 37% of global emissions are caused by the food industry. Its 2019 report, handily summarised here, shows that while adopting a fully vegan diet could reduce land-based emissions by a startling two-thirds (up to 8 GtCO2/year), even embracing a vegetarian diet could still save up to 6.4 GtCO2-eq/year. Being vegetarian is practicing kindness towards the planet, towards its other living creatures, and towards yourself.
This project is a way to record my love of vegetarian food in all its richness. Cooking is an improvisation and a dance; a place where different cultures and traditions can meld. I’m not interested in replicating meaty-dishes, or fooling someone into thinking a meal has meat in it. Vegetables are the star of the show here. But I do want meat-eaters to come over for dinner and not to feel like anything is missing.
Whether you’re a committed vegan, a busy Dad trying to feed a family, a vegetarian in need of fresh ideas, or a steak-lover with a new-found resolution to eat less meat, I promise this newsletter is for you. Subscribe and you’ll get a free recipe each week for creative vegetarian meal ideas (with vegan substitutes offered). Cook along with me week by week, or just use these recipes as inspiration for that stray vegetable in the organic box (kohlrabi anyone?).
Thanks for joining. Happy 2022. Let’s cook!
Amelia.
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