cwmoss

‘Every Ridiculous Food Trend Predicted for 2020’

Eater has put up a beautiful (and long) list that culls what many major food publications predict for 2020 with food. Many are vegan or vegan-adjacent, and I’m not going to list them all but these are some of the things I’m excited about too:

  • Aronia berries
  • Ube
  • Spreads and butters like macadamia nut butter and watermelon seed butter
  • Zero-waste
  • CRISPR crops
  • “Less focus on the center of the plate more on the outskirts”
  • “Mexican cuisine will be more recognized as complex and layered – rather than always spicy and heavy”
  • Family-style tasting menus, family-style dining 
  • “Technically illegal” tonka beans (!)

Zero waste really needs to pop-off. As food delivery pushes into a larger and larger portion of how most Americans are consuming their meals, this deserves more focus and energy.

‘IMPOSSIBLE FOODS HINTS AT NEW VEGAN MEAT LAUNCH COMING TO CES’

Impossible Foods could be set to launch its second product next week at the CES show in Las Vegas. And it might not be another burger.

In an Instagram post shared earlier today, the vegan meat brand hinted at a new product joining its lineup.“What’s next on the Impossible Foods menu? Stay tuned, we’ve got big news coming your way.” 

Anything Impossible does has my attention. Their current batting average is 1000%. It’s not surprising that Impossible is releasing this at CES (aka the Consumer Electronics Show) in Vegas. I like how they think of themselves as a technology company over a food company. It’s smart — if only for marketing purposes.

Now, onto what they might announce…

The vegan fish market is much less saturated. Salmon, tuna, or trout would be welcome additions. After the swine flu issues that have been devastating pigs in China, a great pork replacement would be welcome. And there are already plenty of vegan chicken substitutes, but none are the equivalent of what the Impossible is for a beef burger.

My bet is on fish.

‘The Long Beach Post is going vegan for January—and you can, too’

This January, the entire Post team is making a New Year’s resolution; to give up all animal products, like meat, dairy and eggs for 31 days—and we’re inviting you to join us.

We know it’s hard to stick to your resolutions, and you may not have the benefit of accountability buddies like we do around the Post offices, so we’re launching a special short-term newsletter to help you stay motivated.

Doing things like this especially difficult to do cold turkey, so it’s excellent their organization is doing it together. They’ll be able to help each other and share tips, which should make everyone’s life easier—and this whole thing possible.

Veganuary is upon us. Welcome, my new friends!

‘‘Ethical Veganism’ Is a Philosophical Belief, British Court Rules’

Elian Porter for the NYTimes:

On Friday, judge Robin Postle at the employment tribunal in Norwich, in eastern England, ruled that ethical veganism qualifies under Britain’s Equality Act as a philosophical belief and that those embracing it are entitled to similar protection as those who hold religious beliefs.

Under the Equality Act, which was passed in 2010, individuals practicing a religion or holding other belief systems are protected from discrimination in the workplace, if those beliefs are compatible with human dignity and don’t conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

A court ruling that a way of eating should be classified in a similar way to religious beliefs makes sense. For many non-secular folks, a diet is one of the few places where we have to adhere to an ideology—like a religion—every day. Adherence and commitment strike a similar chord too.

‘There’s Only One Vegan Food Truck at Save-the-Planet Talks’

Laura Millan Lombrana and Deena Shanker for Bloomberg:

In spite of Madrid’s December chill, hundreds of climate experts have queued up every day for the past two weeks in front of a bright pink food truck. That’s because it’s the lone vegan-only option available at the United Nations climate conference. […]

“It’s hard to find vegetarian or vegan food around this venue,” said Anil Datta, an observer from Australia in the midst of an hour-long wait in front of the food truck. “It’s an irony because this is COP, we’re talking about raising ambition to fight climate change and reducing emissions.”

This is the United Nations climate conference, not a rinky-dink, hodge-podge event. It shows how easy it is to talk the talk, but most places won’t even try to walk the walk.

‘Golden Globes will serve plant-based meal at awards ceremony’

Jonathan Landrum Jr. for the AP:

The Golden Globes […] is going with a meatless menu for its 77th annual awards show.

Guests will be served a 100% plant-based meal just ahead of showtime Sunday. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association said Thursday that it wants the initiative to raise environmental awareness about food consumption and waste.

‘How This Guy Made the World’s Hottest Peppers’

In all food’s genesis, hidden away, there’s a story of how it brought people together. And there’s something magical in knowing that the Carolina Reaper might not exist if he and his wife didn’t fall in love with his peach-mango salsa.

Beer Snobbery, Corporate Brewery Takeovers, & Recording While Drunk with Podcaster Jeff McAuliff

Episode 8 of the Vegan-Carne Alliance podcast is live.

For our eighth episode, vegan-food lover C.W. Moss talks with beer podcaster Jeff McAuliff. We hear about what he thinks makes a great brewery (12:24), beer-vs.-wine snobbery (20:30), and the dangers of live recording while drinking for his podcast Bev Boyz (32:06).

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”This is small talk purgatory’: what Tinder taught me about love’

I love this CJ Hauser’s piece for The Guardian where she talks about dating now. Over the last year, my life has been lived through the lens of eating, and because of it, everything I read now somehow reads as an analog to food. In this great piece, Hauser has this beautiful bit (with emphasis mine) about a competition where robots attempt to fool humans into believing they’re real people—and how dating can sometimes feel that way:

I knew a little bit about how to proceed with my Tinder Turing tests from one of my favourite books – one I was teaching at the time: The Most Human Human, by Brian Christian. In this book, which I have read five times, Christian goes to participate in the world’s most famous Turing test, the Loebner prize in Brighton. He serves as a human blind, chatting with people through an interface, who then have to decide whether he is a human or a chatbot. The true point of the Loebner prize is to see whether any of the chatbots can convince the judges of their humanity – but as Christian’s title suggests, there is also a jokey prize offered to the human blind who the fewest participants mistake for a robot. Receiving the Most Human Human award was Christian’s goal. In the book, he asks: what could a human do with language that a robot could not? What are the ways of expressing ourselves which are the most surprisingly human? How do we recognise our fellow humans on the other side of the line? And so, as I attempted to find the lovely and interesting people I was sure were lurking behind the platitudes the average Tinder chat entails, I asked myself Christian’s question: how could I both be a person who understood she was online, on Tinder, but still communicate like a humane human being? What could I do that a robot couldn’t?

In the same way Brian Christian wants to be the Most Human Human, I sometimes think about what it takes for a meal to transcend food. There are many questions that play in this thinking. As a writer of books, I used to fantasize about ways of putting my books into people’s hands when they’re most ready for it.

As I think about food now, more questions come to mind. Do we like who we are with? Is it our version of Proust’s tea and madeleines? Have we felt loved or had sex recently, or is what’s on our plate our primary source for satisfaction? Can we make it ourselves? Have we tried to make something like it? Does it conceal time? Is it cheap—but feel like a luxury? Can we share it? Does it make us think of someone we admire?

It goes on:

The chapter I have always loved most in Christian’s book is the one about Garry Kasparov “losing” at chess to Deep Blue, IBM’s chess-playing computer. Christian explains the chess concept of playing “in book”. In short, the book is the known series of chess moves that should be played in sequence to optimise success. In most high-level chess matches, the first part of any game is played “in book” and a smart observer will know which moves will follow which until a certain amount of complexity and chaos necessitates improvisation – at which point the players begin to play in earnest. Some might say, as themselves. Kasparov holds that he did not lose to Deep Blue because the game was still in book when he made his fatal error and so, while he flubbed the script, he never truly even played against the algorithmic mind of his opponent.

In this chapter, Christian makes a brilliant comparison between most polite conversation, small talk, and “the book”, arguing that true human interaction doesn’t start happening until one or both of the participants diverge from their scripts of culturally defined pleasantries. The book is necessary in some ways, as it is in chess (Bobby Fischer would disagree), in order to launch us into these deeper, realer conversations. But it is all too easy to have an entire conversation without leaving the book these days – to talk without accessing the other person’s specific humanity.

And it’s the same with our meals, where deviation and routine mix to create magic—one bite at a time.

Japan’s Vegan Olympic Dreams and Intimate Dumpling Dinner Parties with Chef Kajsa Alger

Episode 7 of the Vegan-Carne Alliance podcast is live.

For our seventh episode, vegan-food lover C.W. Moss talks with Chef Kajsa Alger. We hear about her life and work directing culinary at places like Veggie Grill, and how she’s helping Japan get vegan-friendly for the 2020 Olympic games through the Gunma Vegan Project (15:01), the joy of Mad Misha’s intimate dumpling dinner parties (38:05), and how novels sometimes help menus take shape (52:43).

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