Why Vegans Should Care About "Modernist Cuisine"

Ok, so there's this book that just came out that's got me thinking about the overlap between science and cooking. It's called "Modernist Cuisine," and as far as I can tell, it's pretty much insane. By which  I mean spectacular, incredible, and revolutionary. Perhaps especially so for vegans.

The book weighs 50 pounds, costs $625, comes in six volumes, and took the lab you see above to create. The guy who wrote it, Nathan Myrhvold, is shall we say independently wealthy, partly as a result of his time as CTO of Microsoft. He's also brilliant and driven, and probably has more in common with a principle investigator in a science lab than with your typical cookbook author. Not that I don't love cookbook authors.

Wired Magazine (where I'm temporarily employed) had a fantastic feature in the March issue about how the book came to be. "Great story," I thought. "Mad scientist. Yup. But I'm a little ol' home-cooking vegan, nothing in this baby for me."

Whoa photos. Did I mention
this book has those too?

But then I helped produce a podcast interview with writer and foodie extraordinaire Mark McClusky, said story's author. And in the course of listening to that conversation over and over and over, like you do, Myrhvold's vision started to seep in.

"The kitchen is the lab in everyone's house," McClusky says. His point is that Myrhvold's book may be about avant-guarde techniques like sous-vide hot water baths, stocks made in auto-claves, and shrimp paste extrusions, but it's also about the most basic properties of food and the altering thereof. It's about starch, sugar, protein, water, and heat. Molecular gastronomer or not, you are doing science in your home every day, and this book has new knowledge to offer. Engage with it enough, McClusky says, and "you start to problem solve differently when you're cooking." It's training for the mind.

Still. Me = vegan, modernist cuisine = full of eggs and meat.

My opinion finally tipped as I was Googling around for bizarre molecular creations to shock and awe iTunes users in my write-up of the episode. McClusky mentions "iota carrageenan" off-hand at one point in the podcast, and I needed a specific example of a dish to embody that bizarre jargon ingredient. [Pineapple gel, if you're interested, though I ended up cutting that sentence from my post.]

Here's the thing: iota carrageenan is a crazy, new-fangled, complicated thickener, but it's made from a kind of seaweed called Irish Moss. Where had I heard of that before? Oh yeah, as I was browsing the VEGAN RAW FOOD dessert cookbook from Cafe Gratitude.

Cafe Gratitude, people. Home of the best vegan tiramisu ever to touch these lips. Home of the crunchiest, hippiest, most new-aged California whole-food evangelists who ever were. Cafe Gratitude was feeding me iota carrageenan and I was already loving it!

I've been fully vegan for less than two years now, but I'm pretty confident it's going to stick, partly thanks to the steadfast clarity of Mr. D. Kramer, my partner in crime. That means I'd better settle in for the long haul of delicious food without animal products. That doesn't mean that I, or even we, the collective vegan conscious, already know how to cook all there is out there.  The vegan food landscape is practically uncharted territory, my friends, and Nathan Myrhvold has just handed us an expensive, complicated, hard-to-read, incredibly thorough map! Let us explore!

If the idea of embracing ingredients like iota carrageenan creeps you out, here's a thought experiment that worked for me. First, if you haven't already, go ahead and make a batch of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's homemade seitan. Pretty delicious, right? Now imagine how much less awesome your life would be if you forsook vital wheat gluten because it's rather strange and uncommon in the conventional American diet. Now imagine your vegan life without nutritional yeast. Or agar agar and arrowroot.* We eat strange foods already. Let's embrace it, and move ahead.

Ok now that we've pictured the dark, deprived side, let's look towards winning the future: What Else Is Waiting For Us Out There, Vegans?

As I've been sitting here writing this post for several hours, an audacious thought has sprouted. It involves me, Kickstarter.com, and owning a copy of this book, for the benefit of vegans everywhere. It involves blogging a lot, and maybe a book someday, and lots of experiments. Science for vegans.

I'm serious people. This could be big. Stay tuned, give me feedback, and viva la revolucion!

*Dear vegan: if you haven't heard of vital wheat gluten, nooch, agar, and/or arrowroot, we need to talk. You are missing out! I'm sad for you!!