Table Of ContentFor the animals
Copyright © 2012 by Dynise Balcavage ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted
in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to
The Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box
480, Guilford, CT 06437.
Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press Text design: Sheryl P. Kober
Project editor: Julie Marsh Layout: Mary Ballachino Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN 978-1-4930-0343-3
CONTENTS
Copyright
Introduction
New Year Celebrations
New Year’s Day
Chinese New Year
Nowruz (Persian New Year)
Rosh Hashanah
American Celebrations
Martin Luther King Day
Mother’s Day
Memorial Day
Father’s Day
Fourth of July
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Kwanzaa
Festivus
International Celebrations
Vesak
Timkat
Cinco de Mayo
Bastille Day
Earth Day
World Vegetarian Day
Diwali
Guy Fawkes Day
Barbados Independence Day
Religion-Based Celebrations
Candlemas / La Chandaleur
Valentine’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Mardi Gras
Purim
Easter
Passover
Hanukkah
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
Eid al-Fitr
Milestone Celebrations
Child’s Birthday
Grown-Up’s Birthday
Wedding
Anniversary
Funeral
Everyday Celebrations
Girls’ Night In
Tailgate Party
Tea Time
Slumber Party
Endurance Event
Sick Day
Snow Day
Raw Celebration
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Additional Resources
Index
About the author
INTRODUCTION
V I M F
EGAN S A OVEABLE EAST
“Il faut des rites.”
“Qu’est-ce qu’un rite?”
“C’est aussi quelque chose de trop oublié,” dit le renard. “C’est ce qui fait
qu’un jour est différent des autres jours, une heure, des autres heures.”
Translation:
“We need rituals,” said the fox.
“What’s a ritual?” asked the little prince.
“It’s something too easily forgotten,” said the fox. “It’s what makes one day
different from the others, and one hour different from the other hours.”
—from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Holidays celebrate and reaffirm life. Since they help strengthen our bonds with
family and friends—and with our religions, countries, and cultures—they also
reinforce our identities. Holidays catapult us into syncopation: from the
drudgery of everyday existence into full-blown celebration mode, heightening
our senses and waking up our ability to experience joy.
Why not use holidays, both our own and those of other cultures, as a
conduit to affirming life and to savoring and sharing its pleasures? Life, after all,
should be a celebration. And vegan food certainly celebrates life in every sense
of the word.
All this said, I think every day should be a holiday. Actually, if you consult a
calendar—pick your poison: Julian, lunar, solar, Gregorian, Bahaist—practically
every day is a holiday somewhere in the world. In this book, for example, I’ve
included four entirely different New Year celebrations—New Year’s, Nowruz
(Persian New Year), Rosh Hashanah, and Chinese New Year—all of which fall
on different days.
So please, prepare these recipes for all of life’s parties and feasts—both big
and small, both extraordinary and ordinary. A chatty family supper can be a
celebration. So can a meditative bowl of soup enjoyed alone, while
simultaneously devouring a novel and listening to jazz.
It’s important to keep in mind that most holiday recipes are based on
history and stories of days gone by. What’s interesting is that when you make
these recipes, you continue the narrative. You become the storyteller. It’s a
magical time, when the past fuses with the present to lay the groundwork for
the future.
We all have our favorite holidays. Pam, my oldest and “bestest” friend, loves
Halloween so much that she chose it as her wedding day. My sister Babs and
her daughters go gaga for Christmas. As for me, Thanksgiving is my holiday of
choice. I love the concept of gratitude. Most of us have plenty to be grateful
about—something you realize after spending any chunk of time with people in
developing countries like India, or after undergoing or seeing someone you love
undergo an illness. Still, most of us could use a little reminder. I also love the
food and the fact that Thanksgiving’s bounty is, for the most part, veg-centric.
NO HOLIDAY FOR FARM ANIMALS
Despite my love of Thanksgiving, honestly, it’s always sad for me to sit at an
omnivore’s dinner table with a turkey corpse as the centerpiece. Bizarre, when
you think about how immune most of us have become to dead flesh. Animals
have almost become objectified to the point where meat no longer registers as
something that, just a short time ago, was a sentient being that lived, ate, and
slept, just as we do. Sadly, turkeys and other fowl are not protected under
most state anticruelty laws. As a result, most live horrible lives in despicable
conditions and then suffer unspeakable deaths.
I was in Jordan once, during Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic holiday that marks the
end of the month-long fast of Ramadan (which, similar to Easter, breaks the
forty days of fasting during Lent). It’s a joyous, buzzing time. People dress up,
exchange gifts, and enjoy the sumptuous foods with abandon. This holiday also
focuses on the giving of alms—donating food or money to the poor. A common
ritual is to slaughter a sheep and donate the meat to charity. On the morning of
Eid, I saw at least ten fathers and their young sons slaughtering sheep and lambs.
Devastating to witness, especially for a sensitive person like me. And from the
looks on the little boys’ faces, I don’t think they liked it very much, either.
A CULINARY PARADIGM SHIFT: KINDER, GENTLER,
HEALTHIER HOLIDAYS
Once you peek behind the curtain of animal cruelty, it’s impossible to not speak
up about it, through your actions, your words, or both. A culinary paradigm
shift is long overdue. But if you’re not used to a veg-centric diet, changing old
habits and time-honored recipes can be stressful.
Major holidays like Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, and Ramadan are already
stressful enough. We want our celebrations to be memorable and evolve into
treasured family traditions. So we go all out, channeling our inner Martha
Stewart, attempting to subscribe to some media-induced, unachievable ideal of
kitchen god or goddess, instead of preparing simple, festive food that leaves us
with enough time and energy left to actually—gasp!—enjoy the celebration. For
vegans and vegetarians, this kind of stress tends to easily double because we
feel anxious about our plant-based food being judged (or worse yet, ignored) by
meat eaters.
It doesn’t have to be this way. I wrote this book for several reasons:
To provide flavorful vegan holiday recipes
To motivate you to replace cruel holiday traditions with kind ones
To inspire you to make every day a celebration and to learn to recognize
and appreciate all the gifts and blessings in your lives
Bon appétit! And happy feasting.
VEGANIZING 101
As I wrote in my first cookbook, The Urban Vegan, I strongly dislike the verb “to
veganize.” It implies that omnivorous food is the holy grail of the culinary world.
It insinuates that vegan food is inferior to omnivorous food and that we must
attempt to replicate omnivorous recipes to make them match as closely as
possible.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Vegan food is a fabulous culinary
genre in its own right. But in the context of a book that centers on holiday and
celebratory cooking, which, in turn, centers on many traditionally omnivorous
Description:200 life-affirming recips for occasions big and small.
