Tahini and Turmeric: 101 Middle Eastern
Classics—Made Irresistibly Vegan. By Vicky Cohen and Ruth Fox. Da Capo. $24.99.
There is always room for another food fad.
While some people pursue food-limiting diets and others take legitimate health
concerns to extremes (such as urging gluten elimination for people with no
sensitivity to gluten), still others look to expand and enrich their chosen
dietary approaches and food interests. That is what sisters Vicky Cohen and
Ruth Fox, both committed vegans of Middle Eastern ancestry, try to do in Tahini and Turmeric. The authors say
these are vegan variants of recipes they remember from childhood, but what will
really matter to the vegans who are the target market for the book is how easy
the foods are to prepare and how good they taste.
Vegetarian and vegan food has become a
great deal tastier in recent years, and the skillful use of spices and other
flavorings is one reason. There is quite a bit of that in this book. “Mini
Spinach Pies with Pine Nuts and Dried Cherries,” for example, include sweet
onion, allspice and everyday salt; “Belgian Endive Salad with Pomegranate and Pumpkin
Seeds” calls on “Maple Mustard Vinaigrette” – which is a recipe itself – for
its flavoring; “Roasted Cauliflower with Green Tahini” uses cilantro, dill,
lemon juice, and agave nectar or pure maple syrup. As usual in cookbooks,
particularly specialty ones like this, there are bounteous illustrations
showing how dishes ought to look when prepared according to the recipes. The
pictures serve not only as temptations to try out the dishes but also as guides
to what the finished products will (one hopes) look like.
As for the specific types of foods on
display, they are divided into sections called “Day Starters and Brunch Nosh,”
“Appetite Teasers,” “Body Warmers,” “Big-Enough-to-Share Salads,” “Dressings
and Condiments,” “Kicked-Up Rice,” “The Main Event,” “Fresh from the Oven,” and
“Sweet Endings.” For those interested in trying some less-than-familiar Middle
Eastern flavors but not fully committed to vegan eating, “Fresh from the Oven”
is the best place to start. It includes “Savory Sesame and Nigella Seed
Fingers,” “Sweet Challah Rolls,” “Abuelita’s Savory Bourekas,” and other
attractive breads. But cooks and bakers need to be sure they have on hand all
the ingredients needed for the recipes – which, in the case of the bourekas (to
cite one example among many), include raw cashews, nutritional yeast, coconut
oil, canned pure pumpkin or butternut squash puree, as well as unsweetened
dairy milk and some more-standard items such as baking powder, salt and
all-purpose flour.
Cohen and Fox begin their book with a
chapter called “The Middle Eastern Pantry” that is supposed to make it easy to
stock up on the essentials needed for the recipes they present. This is helpful
– but will also be challenging for anyone with only a casual interest in trying
the recipes, and especially for such a person who is not a vegan. Baharat,
bulgur wheat, chickpea flour, harissa (chili paste), kataifi, orange blossom
water, pomegranate molasses, wheat berries and other listed pantry items will
not be easy for many people to find – and it makes sense to buy them only if
you intend to make a great many of the recipes in Tahini and Turmeric. Furthermore, anyone who wants to try some of
these recipes needs to be prepared for how complex some of them are, and how
time-consuming a number of them can be. To be sure, more-ordinary recipes can
take plenty of time as well, but these Middle Eastern ones require a level of
care and focus that may make some of them difficult for people who are not
already familiar with food of this type. Tahini
and Turmeric is best for people who are strict vegans – which means a lot
of the seemingly exotic ingredients will likely be on hand already – and who
are primarily looking to experiment with some flavors that likely go beyond the
everyday ones that they usually produce in the kitchen.
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