Crossover Recipes Get an Assist from Mushrooms
Mushrooms are indispensable ingredients in my Lentil-Mushroom Loaf and Mushroom Köfte – crossover recipes familiar to omnivores and vegans.
Most of my recipes are vegan crossover foods.
Crossover foods are those that live comfortably in the in-between. They are bridges that can link omnivores and vegans. They help unite mutual desires to enjoy something flavorsome and embrace cultural connections to comfortable and familiar food. They bring together a desire to eat well without the buzzkill of morality.
Crossover foods take full advantage of a plant’s ability to create versatile foods that appear familiar… have recognizable flavors…even feel like a close relative. But they are not copycats and should never have that expectation placed on them. They are interpretations of recipes or foods with unique characteristics. They are cousins, not identical twins.
Developing plant-based foods to resemble or replace meat-centric food is not new. The transition from 6th-century meat-based diets of northern China to a plant-friendly Buddhist-influenced diet brought the world tofu, seitan (the use of pure gluten to create mock meat), and puréed tubers to resemble ground meat köfte. Creations that must have seemed just as odd to those living in that era as modern-day meat replacements seem today.
Mushrooms, also called ‘chicken of the earth,’ grew in importance with Buddhist monks in China and India during this period. The regular inclusion of mushrooms in the diet influenced Japanese cuisine. It spread throughout Asia and Europe after the Japanese discovered how to domesticate mushroom spores and grow a safe and steady supply of shiitake mushrooms. Ancient Egyptians and Romans were some of the early embracers of mushrooms, describing them as ‘vegetable meat.’
In today’s world, mushrooms are enjoying a renaissance – especially in the plant-based world. Besides their pleasing umami-rich taste, which makes them a popular flavoring, mushrooms provide us with plenty of protein and vitamins, mineral salts – and very few calories. The essence of mushroom – whether whole, minced, dried or liquified – brings a lot of ‘meatiness’ to recipes…and that’s a key element in creating crossover recipes.
My Lentil-Mushroom Loaf is one example of how I approach the concept of crossover foods. I developed the recipe to re-create something I adored as a child – the classic American-style meatloaf. I knew I wouldn’t produce an identical version – that would be impossible. But with the right ingredients, I was reasonably convinced I could invent something that looked similar, had a comparable texture, and even tasted somewhat meaty. The combination of lentils, mushrooms, walnuts, vegetables and a host of umami-rich ingredients completed my quest…and that first bite bridged the gap between my vegan self today and my omnivore past.
Mushroom Köfte served with Matbucha, a spicy Jewish-Moroccan condiment, is another example of my obsession with creating vegan crossover foods…this time to embrace my cultural identity. I’ve enjoyed many variations of köfte throughout the years and in many places around the Mediterranean. I’ve eaten köfte in a spicy tomato stew during a visit to Fez, hot off the grill from a vendor in Jemaa el-Fna Square in Marrakesh, bulgur-enriched köfte in Istanbul and family-style köfte in Tel Aviv. I also ate a lot of grilled köfte smothered with chermoula (a Moroccan salsa) in my early years. It was always food I felt close to, like an in-my-blood kind of closeness. And I wanted to taste it again in a new vegan way.
There’s purity in the enjoyment I feel whenever I cook for friends. Coming together to share a meal, some laughs and a bottle or two of wine – usually with bubbles, helps to marginalize dietary differences that may or may exist. Crossover foods have paved a path that allows us to engage in social life with a clear understanding that it’s only social life – nothing more, nothing less. We unite out of respect and choice, and our individual dietary choices become less intrusive. We come together to enjoy a plate of intriguing and tasty food that happens to be plant-based…and often with a hint of mushroom meatiness.