[Sca-cooks] Can I...

[Claire Clarke]

-----Original Message-----

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:58:06 -0400
From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Can I...
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>Hello All,
>I have a question:
>Can I remove the meat from a recipe to make it vegan friendly?
>I have an event where I'm head cook & wanted to know as there are 
>vegans & vegetarians...
>please advise.
>thanks,
>Lady Marie d'Andelys

It depends on the recipe.  Attempting to make a vegan main dish out 
of a meat recipe is usually not very successful. Personally I don't 
like trying to use modern ingredients like tofu or textured soy 
protein in medieval cooking.  If it is small amount of meat or meat 
broth used for flavoring in a dish that is primarily plant based you 
should be able to remove it, but it may change the dish.  Make sure 
you test your adapted recipes before the feast.

It's very nice to have a varied menu that allows for everyone to 
choose the foods they prefer, but you don't have to customize the 
menu to people's diets and preferences **unless you want to**.

Speaking as a vegetarian, post a menu with all ingredients, and 
people can be adult and decide for themselves if they can eat your 
feast or need to make other arrangements.  If you choose to cater 
everyone's needs, it doesn't meant they have to be able to eat every 
single dish.  Think about what is left on the menu if someone cant 
eat any one ingredient or class of ingredient. That goes for 
vegetarians, vegans, celiacs, various allergies, and people that 
don't like onions.

There are a number of period vegetarian recipes, but vegan is harder. 
You might look at Lent recipes. If you have a couple of nice 
vegan-friendly grain or vegetable dishes, maybe a bean or lentil 
dish, don't feel you have to have a vegan version of every meat dish.

Ranvaig
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I thoroughly agree. When designing a menu I try to ensure there are at least
two dishes in each course that can be eaten by people who don't/can't eat
wheat, dairy or meat. But I don't deliberately cater for any other allergies
unless I am told well in advance. I do provide a list of dishes and
ingredients (a comprehensive list) on every table so that people can choose
for themselves. In my experience most people with allergies are perfectly
happy with this.

In terms of adaptations, I substitute vegetable stock for meat stock in
soups/pottages (you can get some very good beef style vegetarian stock), and
I always use vegan commercial pastry. I may make occasional other minor
substitutions like making a few mushroom pasties with no cheese. 

Angharad