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I found this article very interesting.

Vegetarian Soul Food

By: Meshelle

I grew up the granddaughter of Mary Alice and Willie Lee Foreman, who were raised on the finest Southern cuisine, also known as soul food. I have eaten offspring of any species that fell prey to the clutches of my family’s patriarch, who unapologetically hunted rabbit and snapped the necks of the same chickens that we fed and befriended. Even our vegetables had to have some animal’s foot, neck, thigh, or toe in it for the dish to be what we knew as “seasoned to perfection.” (If food is supposed to evoke thought, no wonder my mind was always wandering in the pastures.) I suffered from the emotional guilt of consuming generations of flesh, and after years of fried chicken, collard greens with smoked pork bones, pork chops with gravy, and fried fish, I suffered the physical effects, too. I became what I ate—sedentary, slow, and a bit stout.

In college I watched a Barbara Walters television special about the effects meat had on people, such as obesity and high blood pressure. I immediately divorced red meat and its distant cousin, pork, from my diet. That was the genesis of my lifestyle shift. Fast forward six years: I was in the second year of graduate school, a staunch poultry and seafood eater, when I met “Mr. Vegan,” now my husband of seven years. While dating, he introduced me to a vegetarian lifestyle, full of tasty foods that invigorated me and left me satisfied, not catatonic.

I began to see changes in my refrigerator—soy cheese, veggie burgers and sausage, and lots of fresh veggies, but nobody’s lip or ear for seasoning. Instead, there were liquid aminos and seitan (a chewy, protein-rich food that resembles meat and is made from wheat).

I looked up one day and there was nothing in my refrigerator that had once had a pulse. What kind of a root did this Midwestern man put on me? Having family from Mississippi, he assuredly had soul food before. What happened to him? What television special had he seen to send him to greener pastures? He was an excellent cook, and I was smitten by it all. It was my goal to create equally scrumptious meals. I began experimenting, making veggie Salisbury steak and meatless gravy with the veggie burger patties and gravy mix. That was my first stab at it and there were no casualties.

Since then I have offended every member of my family at every meal. I have never madeannouncements at outings about my diet and Inever proclaimed the dangers of meat and pork or any other friend of Old MacDonald for that matter, yet I was considered a public offender. My grandmother wanted to know how I could eat like that. It’s just not natural. She would shake her head disapprovingly as we brought in our substitutes at Thanksgiving and other family gatherings. I can still hear her lecture at our initial dinner when she was introduced to our vegetarian lifestyle:

“What do you mean, you don’t eat meat? Well, get some chicken then. What? You don’t eat chicken? Well, get some fish. What? You don’t eat that either? Okay, well then, just starve because I don’t know what to tell you. You just gonna have to sit there looking crazy then. Get yourself some vegetables. There are greens and lima beans and cabbage. What do you mean, ‘What are they cooked in?’ A little smoked ham and a few necks. What do you mean you can’t have any? Well, you know what? Just sit there! I ain’t never heard nothing so crazy in my life. All you eat is vegetables and ain’t even got sense enough to season them! You ain’t gonna live long like that. You ate it all your life and now you too good to eat my food! Fine then. Sit over there and eat you a bread sandwich. Can you eat that?”

I began to wonder if I had lost my soul for good food. I realized that I did miss the taste of seasoned greens and baked macaroni and cheese. I pledged that I would get my soul back without losing my new lifestyle. I was in this for the long haul and was prepared to recreate my childhood cuisine with a soul-food kick.

I began researching cookbooks about vegetarian soul food, and to my dismay I kept coming up empty. Instead, I found Zen cooking, liquid diets full of smoothies and vegetable juices, and pasta, pasta, and more pasta. There were recipes for Seoul food, leading me into Asian cooking. I was disillusioned and felt like an anomaly. So what does a sista do? Create. That is the spirit of soul food.

My ancestors took the scraps of pigs and cows that were left after the slave masters threw them away and made delectable dishes to sustain them in the hot sun while working on the plantations. They passed the recipes down, perfected them, and they have been recreated all over the world. In the spirit of the ancestors, I created Dishes that Touch the Soul: A Vegetarian Guide to Soul Food and More! My cookbook chronicles my culinary journey and all the spin-off recipes that I grew up on, but with a vegetarian twist.

I have been like a mad scientist ever since, rendering my own version of fried-chicken-style tofu, cabbage and carrots, nondairy potato salad made with Nayonaise (soy mayonnaise), fried-fish-style tofu, baked macaroni and cheese (using soy cheddar cheese), and eighty other recipes.

I have two energetic “veggie-babies,” as Mom calls them, ages 5 and nearly 3. I prepare dinner at least four nights a week and most Sundays. I am currently diving into the world of vegan baking.

It’s amazing what a lifestyle change can do to convert even the most reluctant family. My mom no longer uses amputated parts to “season to perfection” and is a soy-milk drinker. And my grandmother puts her order in for my lima beans and my cabbage and carrots once a week. Who ever would’ve thought it?

—In addition to being a dedicated vegetarian, Meshelle is a touring comedienne who wrote about a home-going ceremony in the September 2006 issue of Urbanite.



Meshelle’s Vegetarian Baked Macaroni and Cheese

10 ounces unbleached or whole wheat elbow macaroni
12 ounces Soya-Kaas mild-cheddar-style cheese
7 ounces shredded Galaxy rice cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons Earth Balance non-
hydrogenated buttery spread
4 ounces vanilla soymilk
¼ cup Egg Beaters
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
Paprika

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook macaroni according to package.

While macaroni is boiling, shred Soya-Kaas cheese and place in casserole dish. Drain macaroni, place on the shredded cheese, and stir. Add rice cheese, soy milk, Egg Beaters, and natural buttery spread. Stir until ingredients are melted and evenly distributed. Add salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle paprika on top. Bake for 40 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes. Serve warm.