A Review of Vegan Yum Yum by Lauren Ulm

For the past week I’ve been experimenting with vegan cuisine. A guilt-racked carnivore, I can go for a month without meat and it wouldn’t cost me a thought, but dairy is different. I’ve loved milk, cheese and all things dairy since I was a small child. There isn’t a cheddar or stinky blue cheese that I haven’t loved, so a week without dairy is a challenge of epic proportions for me. However, dairy and I have a completely dysfunctional relationship. Although I savor the moment that cheese or ice cream passes my lips, I know that my sinuses will pay the price for a week. I’ll be clogged up and sniffling before I know it.

My one week experiment with veganism, inspired by Lauren Ulm’s book Vegan Yum Yum, was a revelation to me. I not only survived, but thrived without dairy and meat in my diet.

Her recipe for cinnamon swirl bread is going to become a staple in my kitchen, and a recipe for marmalade tofu, kale and yellow pearl couscous has transformed my skeptical relationship with tofu for good. I get tofu now, for so long I passed it in the supermarket with a look of curiosity and derision. To me, it was a strange rubbery substance that didn’t have a life or flavor of its own. It is transformed by marmalade into something unctuous and filled with taste. It’s a curious combination I never would have thought of in a million years.

Vegan Yum Yum has a huge range of inspiring recipes. The photo of the seitan black corn bean burger is pure, classy food porn that makes its carnivorous rivals in the fast food ads look like cheap white trash. I was worried about what the desserts would be like as I’m usually a cream fiend, but I need not have feared as I fell head over heels for the blueberry grunts recipe. I also finally got to use a market impulse buy, a bottle of rosewater that has laid forlorn for months on my kitchen shelf. I made rosewater lassi and I was suddenly no longer in my small kitchen, I was in a thriving market in Mumbai watching a jumble of colors roll by.

I can’t say for sure if my experiment with vegan living is going to go on and on, but I’m going to try as my not so “sniffly” nostrils are saying, “Thanks for the break, we’ve loving this.”

I passed a cheese counter yesterday and felt an urge to see what was on offer, but I continued walking towards the tofu with a jar of marmalade in my hand and a smile on my face. 

 

Jackie Gorman is a Gemini who loves tattoos, books, poetry, guerrilla gardening and dancing. She is evangelical about cooking, speaking German and knitting.

 

 

 

 

Note: elephantjournal.com received this cookery book for free, in return for a guarantee that we would review said offering.  That said, we say what we want—good and bad, happy and sad.

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Editor: Maja Despot

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