What was then; what is now.

I think it can be agreed that veganism in 2020 (speaking as a non-vegan) is much more exciting than it was 30-40 years ago. I saw a video by Plant Based News entitled "Vegans THEN and NOW" (click here!) and it was pretty illustrative. Featuring footage of plant-based adherents from the 1970's, it showed examples of the kind of food which they would generally prepare; let's just say that I'm not shocked that it took a while to become a mainstream cultural movement. Dishes such as lentil pie and bean rissoles, while potentially good (??), don't exactly provide an encouraging prognosis for a vegan lifestyle.

Although I'm writing about the 1970's as if it was the entry point for veganism into the world, it actually has a much longer history (though somewhat disputed, of course). In his later life, the classical Arabic poet Al-Ma'arri (c. 973-1057) renounced the consumption of meat and animal products. He wrote in a poem, "I No Longer Steal From Nature", about his concerns for animal welfare:

And do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals

or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught

for their young, not noble ladies.

You can find the full poem here, and might I suggest showing it to anyone who suggests that veganism is simply a "new and trendy" fad? I want to mention that I don't say this to enforce any stringent, moralising tones, but it is interesting to note that animal welfare was a concern to some in the year 1000 (see also: "as a non-vegan").

The point of the matter is that veganism has gone through multiple cycles and taken many forms throughout history, but I think what defines it in 2020 is plurality. We're a lot more flexible now than we were 40 (or 1,000) years ago. Veganism doesn't have to be absolute, and there are many more reasons to incorporate a vegan lifestyle, whether that be partially or fully, into your eating habits. It's no longer limiting, with the variety being limited to the range of beans and pulses available to you. It encompasses every culinary culture and has absorbed facets from each, blending into something that is adaptable and, yes, exciting!

So, now I've rattled out the spiel of veganism being dynamic and fun, I have to confess that what I bring you today is not a child of 2020 veganism. It is something that would sit comfortably in a beige hued, 1970's vegan coffee store; one that probably prided itself on selling green tea before it became widely available. While it's not a hashtag foodgasm, it's something that you'll want with a steaming mug of something as the rain lightly kisses the panes of the window; Wholegrain Bran Banana Bread. Wrap yourself in an organically produced hemp throw, introduce your tea leaves and coffee grains to the font of roiling water, and exhale.

Too early on to do another banana bread recipe? We're resetting the scores for Veganuary. Plus, banana bread is my default go-to bake because it is just so forgiving; the first thing to produce the realisation that not everything has to be strict and regimented. Is it too committal to say that it might just be my thing?

Unlike banana bread, I have a much more blinkered history with wholemeal foods. Throughout my whole three years of an undergraduate degree I was convinced that wholemeal rice was far superior to it's white cousin. Oh, just how wrong I was. I ate brown rice perhaps two thirds of the days I was there? Two thirds of three years; that is 730 days. That's not to mention the ten extra minutes you have to spend cooking the rice, amounting 7,300 minutes or 5.07 days of wasted time! This hideous betrayal makes me hesitant to approach the questionable world of wholegrain flour, but I promise it is used here with good reason, working in tandem with the bran to produce a satisfying nuttiness.

But what makes it vegan? Applesauce. There's not much to say about this except that apple sauce somehow helps out the raising agents of a mixtures in a very egg-like way without imparting any flavour stronger than a kiss of mild, fruity sweetness. I think vegan recipes have a reputation for being overly complicated, which they can be for sure, but sometimes the substitutions are actually incredibly simple, as will be evidenced below.

Wholemeal Bran Banana Bread

Prep time: 15 minutes.

Cooking time: 35-40 minutes.

Ingredients

200g of wholemeal flour

25g of wheat bran

70g of apple sauce

3 ripe bananas

80g of brown sugar + 1 tsp

3 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp of vanilla extract

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/4 tsp of salt

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius (180 degrees if using a fan assisted oven) and grease a baking tin.

Peel your bananas and place into a bowl. Take a fork and mash the bananas completely.

When the bananas have been mashed, add the applesauce and mix together with the bananas until combined and somewhat smooth.

Add the 80g of sugar, wholemeal flour, wheat bran, baking powder, vanilla extract and salt into the mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined, taking care not to over-mix. Pour the mixture into the greased baking pan.

Add the tsp of brown sugar and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon into a small bowl and mix together. Sprinkle over the top of the uncooked mixture.

Put the baking tin into the pre-heated oven and bake for 35 minutes. When the cooking time has elapsed, take the cake out and insert a metal knife or skewer into the centre. If it is clean upon removal, the cake is done. If not, put the cake back in to bake for another 5 minutes.

Let the loaf cool in the tin for 5 minutes before removing it and letting it sit on a baking tray. This is fantastic on it's own with a cup of tea or coffee, but is also fantastic when toasted and spread with vegan butter!

Notes & Adjustments

• Extra fruit could be added to this, in particular I considered whether blueberries would be a good addition to the mixture. If you choose to add fruit, I would advise to use 55g of apple sauce, rather than 70g, as it will bring a moistening effect to the loaf. You could also use dried fruit; if so, there is no need to adjust the quantity of apple sauce.

• Chopped nuts would go well here; I think walnuts would be a great addition.

• I understand that not all apple sauces are the same consistency. Most apple sauces that you find in supermarkets are very smooth which is reflected in the quantities specified in my recipe. However, if you find yourself with a chunky apple sauce (like mine), then up the quantity to 85g.

Pushing back against shame

I don't think anyone following the Gregorian calendar will have failed to notice the changing of not just a year, but a decade too! Nineteen into twenty naturally seems like much more of a dramatic progression than eighteen into nineteen, and as such it gives rise to a breed of reflection which is far longer in it's sweep. For anyone around my age (a two and a five are involved somehow), this decade just closed will represent a period of repeated upheaval and re-rooting, somehow combined with a sneaking suspicion that perhaps nothing was moving after all.

Being present on social media during this time is very interesting (notice that we use that adjective when the mix of feelings is too complex to succinctly describe?) I've seen a lot of "ten-year retrospectives" to detail what we have, or even haven't, achieved. I think I've avoided this mainly because 15-year old me might just be slightly incredulous when presented with 25-year old me. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do struggle to fit everything that has happened across the decade into one linear narrative; don't worry, this is not going to be my attempt at doing so!

As well as visiting the past during this time, we also seem to be also be orbiting back around to the future. The month of January seems to be an especially symbolic one, acting as a testing ground for the foundations of future plans we want to lay. This is in the form of the (eek) "New Years resolution". I don't want to talk about these in particular because they are something of a minefield; I want to think about the actually constructive side of all of this.

It's not really a novel thing for me to say that I think that resolutions don't work because they are based around things like deprivation, shame and other feelings that we don't really react well to (no matter how much we might like to). But, that doesn't mean we can't set ourselves challenges that do stimulate us, make us think differently and discover new things, rather than being predicated entirely on what is missing (I'm thinking about a certain unspeakable "D" word which rhymes with quiet).

Okay, so this was an overly grandiose way for me to say that for the month of January, Kitchen Catt will be participating in VEGANUARY. What does this mean? Put simply, every recipe posted here will be suitable for vegans, end of. In the interests of honesty though, I do have to disclose that I am not personally participating (which is fine, we get to set our own parameters). As much as I'm describing this as a "challenge", I have to say that it is very easy to accidentally produce vegan food when you're not thinking about it. I have four recipes already existing (click here!) to prove that.

I do, however, want to use this time to explore the world of "intentionally-vegan" options because, honestly, that is the side of meat and dairy-free cooking and baking which I have the least familiarity with. Today, what I bring to the table is Sweet & Smoky Pulled Jackfruit. Jackfruit has traditionally featured in the culinary habits of South & Southeast Asia for a long time now (it's even the national fruit of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) and it's become increasingly common in European and Anglophile contexts. However, the role it plays is very different to a fruit in kitchens of the latter culture; rather it's remarkably meaty texture allows it to be used a vegetarian and vegan substitute.

The first time I ate jackfruit was in the form of "Pulled Jack Bap" from Bia Vegan Diner (click here! - in particular just to gaze at their pictures) in Norwich back in 2016, and I was predictably taken aback by how strikingly similar it was to pulled pork. Now, I don't believe in scoring vegetarian replacements by how much they resemble their meaty counterparts, but this was something that I felt was truly unique. Despite this, I didn't cook with jackfruit until I moved to London in 2019. This is partly because jackfruit is now more commonly available than it was three years ago.

I'm excited to say that, while I don't see myself as much of a culinary innovator, I feel genuinely excited about the fact that this recipe begins with a spiced (vegan) caramel. I'm sure this has been done before, but I am pointedly refusing to Google it and find out. The reason I did this is because I wanted a the flavours to coat the jackfruit, rather than sauce it in order to ensure the centrality of the texture to the dish. I'm assuming that's what pulled pork is all about, right? I'm not sure what image we have of a pre-jackfruit vegan pulled pork, but I'm sure it's somewhat questionable. I, and legions of food writers before me, are here to definitely change this (let's be real, the job is done for us).

Sweet & Smoky Pulled Jackfruit

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves 2-4

1 white onion

3 cloves of smoked garlic

2 red chillis

2 bell peppers (ideally red and yellow)

1 can of jackfruit (about 250g drained weight)

2 tbsp of smoked paprika

1 tbsp of paprika

1 tsp of cayenne pepper

1 tsp of cumin

2 tsp of balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp of soy sauce

1 tbsp of vegan butter or margarine

1 1/2 tbsp of brown sugar

Small bunch of coriander

1 tsp of Aleppo pepper or red chilli flakes

Coarsely chop the onion. Crush and mince the cloves of smoke garlic and set aside, keeping separate from the onion. Roughly chop the bunch of coriander and set aside.

Slice the red chillis length-ways and de-seed them, before cutting them into thin strips. Cut the bell peppers in the same manner, but don't worry about keeping the strips too thin (otherwise you will be slicing for the entire evening; no one wants that).

Check your can of jackfruit to see if it comes already pulled (mine wasn't - boo). If your jackfruit comes in chunks, drain them and put into a bowl ready to be pulled. The flesh of the fruit is smooth and slippery in places and flaky in others (it also looks very otherworldly) and the consistency means that it's easier to "pull" it with your hands with a tear motion rather than with a fork. If your jackfruit is already pulled, drain and empty into a bowl and see if it is "pulled" enough for your liking. If not, go at it with a small, sharp knife or a fork.

Now that all the ingredients are prepared, you can begin to prepare the caramel. Melt the vegan butter in a large wok or saute pan on a medium-low heat. Once it has melted, add the brown sugar, turn to a medium-high heat and stir quickly until smooth. When this begins to bubble, add the smoked paprika (leave the regular paprika until later on), cayenne pepper and cumin.

When the spiced caramel starts to froth, add the onion and fry for about 2 minutes or until softened. Add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds.

Add the slices of pepper and the chillis and fry for 6-8 minutes, or until the peppers have lost much of their rigidity. Add the jackfruit and stir it into the pan until it is coated with the spice mixture. Stir in the balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, coriander and the extra paprika and turn up to a high heat. Fry everything together for 5-6 minutes, moving around frequently and flipping the pan if you have the confidence!

Once everything is done, serve with white rice and top with a dollop of vegan sour cream or yoghurt and sprinkle over some Aleppo chilli flakes if you can source some (which I so recommend you do); otherwise red chilli flakes are also great!

This could also be served inside of a bun like a classic serving of pulled pork, and I think this would be great with some pickled red onions as well.

Notes & Adjustments

• If you can't find smoked garlic, then it's totally fine to use normal cloves of garlic.

• If you are one of the unlucky few who suffers from a genetic disposition that makes the taste of coriander taste like soap, then it won't matter too much if you leave this out.

• If you want a brighter and fruitier taste, then add 1 tsp of tomato puree after you've added the onion and garlic, and substitute 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar for lemon or lime juice.

Christmas (Part II) - the day we stop pretending

The 27th of December is, more or less, the first day that feels outside of the vague block of time we know as "the Christmas period". Not quite over, but definitely waning; people are going back to work, public transport starts running as usual again and (some) people look ahead to the New Year.

I'm eschewing any public notions of forward resolutions, and looking back over the past couple of days. It's safe to say that Christmas is a complicated time for many people. It took me until the moment I left the office on the 24th to feel the slightest bit festive. Getting the tube and then the train back to my parents' house felt like the busy working-mom from 95% of Hallmark movies who realises that her family life is more important than her high-powered corporate career and instantly rushes home to make hot cocoa for her kids.

My feelings about being with my family are bit complex, and certainly less cutesy (I don't like hot chocolate, for one). I'm not going to go into the nuts and bolts of it all as it doesn't make for enthralling reading but the atmosphere at my parents' home, while not hostile by any means, is strained. It felt less like we were enjoying the day, and more that we were just trying to get through it.

This was all anticipated; I'm well-aware that "spending time together" does not often happen without someone getting mildly annoyed. I'm sure they probably tired of me frequently saying "let's just do the things that don't stress us out". But, then perhaps if everyone had followed my advice then we may not have got out of bed in the morning.

The 27th of December feels like the day you can start talking about this. People who still feel the elusive magic of Christmas need to be protected at all costs. I don't want to pollute anyone's feeling of enchantment with my own apprehension, because if you can come into this time with an excitement approaching that you felt as a child then (quite rightly) you should try to mitigate any negativity coming in. I feel safer to talk about Christmas as a "complicated" rather than a "magical" time when the period starts coming to an end.

What kind of person would I be if I didn't show you these socks? Gifted by housemate-of-the-blog-Rebecca

It's pretty fortunate that we hear a lot more about prioritising your own happiness around Christmas, and not doing things just because you feel like it's the done thing. This is a conversation for another blog, but there is a positive side to all of the above. We often can't get out of bigger situations (e.g. spending the day with family), but we can try to purposely do smaller things that will feel positive. I took a lot of energy to spiritedly narrate a role-playing computer game, which provided us with 45 minutes of laughter. The second tactical positivity-grab I made was to insist of cooking the sprouts. Admittedly, this doesn't sound like much, but it gave me a chance to put my mind to something rather than fermenting in the vague tension.

The challenge was to produce the sprouts in a way that weren't terrible (AKA not boiled into the New Year) and included a few extra elements that would commonly be found in late-December kitchen. It also had to be something that could be acceptably situated within gravy. It was based in the provision of aromatics, acidity, savouriness and sweetness, but in a much simpler way than that implies. A very brief parboil plus pan-frying precludes the sprouts from having a nervous breakdown and chaotically homogenising. I can't promise that the same fate won't befall you, but I can tell you that the recipe below is virtually stress-free.

As a last note, I have to tell you that my father will categorically not eat sprouts unless they are soft and swampy. So, when I put the raw sprouts for the parboil, I had to leave a portion of them in for a further 30 minutes (yes...). As such, this post is in memory of those unlucky few.

Red Wine, Onion & Garlic Sprouts

Prep time: 10 minutes (allow longer if your sprouts aren't pre-trimmed)

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Serves: 4-6 as a side dish.

Ingredients

750g of Brussels Sprouts

1 white onion

3 cloves of garlic

2 tbsps of red wine

1 tbsp of soy sauce

2 tsp of brown sugar

2 tsp of red wine vinegar

1 tbsp of vegetable oil

Salt

Method

Put your sprouts into a large saucepan and add cold water until they are fully submerge. Bring the pan to the boil and let simmer for 1 minute, no longer. This will allow the exterior of sprouts to soften very slightly, allowing them to absorb a greater amount of flavour.

While the sprouts are coming to the boil, finely chop the onion and crush each garlic clove before mincing them.

Warm the oil to a medium heat in a large saute pan or wok, before adding the chopped onion. Fry the onion for about ten minutes or until softened. When you have done this, add the sugar, the red wine vinegar and the garlic and fry for a further 2 minutes.

Add the sprouts to the pan, along with the soy sauce and the red wine and season to taste. Fry the sprouts for 6-8 minutes on a high heat. Once this is finished, taste one of the sprouts to make sure that it is fully cooked to your liking.

Serve the sprouts immediately afterwards or keep in a warm place until you plan on eating them. These will keep in the fridge for about three days and can be reheated either on the hob or in the microwave (however, if you do go for the latter they will soften slightly, but not dramatically). I had the leftovers from mine as part of a bowl of fried rice - which I can heartily recommend!

Apologies again for the sub-par photography. My excuse this time is that it was a steamy, bustling Christmas kitchen in action!

Notes & Adjustments

The recipe above is based entirely on my idea of what you could reasonably find in an every-day kitchen around Christmas time (with the exception of red wine vinegar - but there are substitutions below) so I haven't added too much. Part of the reason for this was that it was just a last minute thing I made based on what my parents had in their cupboards. But I think there are ingredients that could be added that you might find in cupboards/fridges, but are also worth buying for the recipe.

• As promised, you can substitute the red wine vinegar for plain ol' red wine. However, might I suggest that you use a more acidic variety? Although now I've said this, I must admit that I'm not a regular wine drinker, and have no idea what the indicator for this kind of flavour would be. Let's hope that you do (or Google)!

• Mushrooms: I think 50g of finely diced chestnut or sliced oyster mushrooms would be a great addition. If they had been in my fridge at the time they would have 100% been a part of this recipe.

• For a slightly richer, sweeter taste you could replace the white onion with 2 large shallots prepared in the same way.

• Although I haven't put it on the *official* ingredient list, I did add some MSG to this and the perceptible savoury taste did give the dish a boost. However, if you don't have it, then it won't be a particularly devastating omission.