This is my first post on the new veggie cuisine blog.
I decided to start this blog when I decided to switch my diet from carnivorous to ovo-lacto-vegetarian, for no ethical or health reason: I simply started to visualize what was actually in the plate when I was eating an animal, well, one can dine on different foods.
I have to say that I am gourmand for many non vegetarian dishes and, even though I look quite fit, I love eating, looking for small little tiny deli groceries. Culatellos, prosciutto, salami and cold cuts, the typical just sliced mortadella with pistachios savoured in white just-out-of-the-oven pizza, my mother's dainty tuna fish pasta, relish crispy bacon and eggs sunday morning breakfast when it's snowing, radicchio and crispy pancetta affumicata, meat based BBQs, fettuccine with boar tomato sauce, arrosticini sticks, the taste of the ocean in the freshly fished raw sea urchin pulp, or even just the yummy quick and easy-to-cook grilled salmon steaks, scampi and shrimps, lasagne.... Never had something against this food, not at all! this is just a small list of delis I simply love, and that I'm not going to eat any longer.
More than a great effort and sacrifice, it's a labour of Hercules. I was going hungry as if I quit smoking, and I needed determination, stubborness, and a looots of patience in cooking.
Starting a veggie diet, means cooking, cooking and cooking.
I do am used to multicultural and macrobiotic cuisines, but don't lie to ourself: veggie food taste horrible most of the time, not to eat raw, in any case. So hands on pans, pots, a lots of vegetables, dressings picked here and there from the various world cuisines, and let's try to make veggie food appetizing.
Plus, replacing fish and meat with products available in any grocery, such as veggie balls and soy burgers, is not an option for several and solid reasons. First of all soy burgers do not provide the necessary nutritional intake for a balanced diet, which might be risky for your health; non animal proteins need to be synthetisized by the human body and, if Nature in its absolute perfection thought about that for what concerns meat, we cannot assert the same for vegetable proteins, that's why it is vital to combine foods even if one is on an ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet, which includes eggs, milk and dairy products. You keep feeling hungry, and really hungry if you are a woman with menstruation.
The very first question that comes to one's mind is 'If I don't eat meat, what am I going to eat'?. That's such a common sentence to be the title of a book, best seller in new age and subsequent forms of, sometimes a bit too hippie, holistic trends bookshops. Luckily we are in the era of Internet, and this saved me several tours in veggie bookstores that would have probably turned me into a vegan in a few days or would have made me get mad at myself and at my foolish ideas...after all, I've always been eating meat and now, just because, I'm going to step in the the first fast food restaurant and wolf down all the menus I can! So finding the infos on the Net was very useful.
After some weeks eating eggs, dairy products, soy stew, I googled some recipes and I found an incredible variety of delicacies, easy to prepare if dedicating a consistent amount of time to cooking and finding ingredients often unobtainable in normal groceries.
I found out that veggie diet is based on proper combination of different elements and that proteins really matters. Yes, I know, I should have realised that just reading some pages from the best sellers in the hippies bookstores, but I didn't wat to turn vegan nor to step into the first fast food on the road.
Generally speaking combining cereals and legumes is a good idea, eating fresh fruit and vegetables - careful to the bowels especially for the first weeks - cooking soy-protein-rich food, eat some brewer's yeast and some other elements such as algae, walnuts and nuts, sunflowers seeds, tahini and so on, is not as bad as it might seem.
Starting a veggie diet means choosing a path and go for it: it just becomes a lifestyle that concerns many aspects of everyday life.
Just to give some examples, in one of the most prestigious gelaterie in town I found out that in the peach icecream there was fish glue, so I realise that one has to carefully read the ingredient's list on every product in the shopping list.
I love stiletto and all the wonderful Made in Italy genuine leather boots so perfectly designed and hadcrafted with the mastery that characterize the Italian small and medium handicraft and design companies, but clearly, how can I wear leather if I don't eat neither meat nor fish? I have no intention whatsoever to say goodbye to my stiletto heels, nor to wear Birkenstock, flip-flops, gumboots with a suit, but seen that for the next season my choice will be oriented towards cruelty free products. But what I can do is either wear synthetic fibres very cheap shoes or order a bunch on the net hoping I'll find at least one pair of the size, or I'll have to plan a shoe-shopping-trip to London, where I'll find cruelty free shoes designed by Italian designers abroad, but that's another story. In any case, my diet will impact my lifestyle.
Going back to the kitchen, I myself experimented some recipes found on the Net, adapting them to my personal taste and I thank all the people who posted on the Web their cookbooks, I found useful advices and practical suggestions for a veggie lifestyle in accord with contemporary living. With this blog I hope to be inspiring in some way, and clearly to find easily links and recipes.
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Special thanks to the WR community
