Vegan Comfort Food

Vegan Comfort Food BY AUDREY ANDREWS

The idea of “love languages” on social media is nearly ubiquitous. Scrolling through any platform, you are bound to see someone humorously, or seriously, describing how they show their affection to their friends, family, or significant other. It would be easy for me to write off “love languages” the same way I do the MBTI or horoscopes—just another personality test with no real purpose beyond a fun icebreaker or sleepover activity. Unfortunately, due to personal experience, I think this idea holds (too much) water.

My mom became vegan to improve her health over a year ago. Because I love to cook for my family, her new lifestyle choice came as a disappointment to me. I could no longer give her spoonfuls of rich butternut squash soup— laden with heavy cream—or tastes of my buttery homemade pain au chocolat. At first, I would forget about her dietary restrictions and make her a plate, only for the meal to be woefully rejected. For a time, I gave up. I was uninterested in her soy-based chorizo or the “vegenaise” she put on her sandwiches. I thought, why try to emulate perfection with the real thing so close by?

I continued cooking for my siblings and dad and paid little attention to my mom’s growing portion of the fridge. The shelves were slowly filled with (less than adequate) substitutes for her favorite foods: vegan ranch dressing, burger patties made from black beans and farro, and Halo Top “ice cream.”

However, while cooking for my birthday last year, I finally realized the full impact of comfort food. I was in our small kitchen, whisking roux to a rich golden brown and grating cheese for the bechamel sauce. My friends were arriving soon, and I wanted to shove my signature homemade gruyere mac and cheese (topped with crispy sage and toasted breadcrumbs) in the oven before they arrived. During the meal, I saw a clear juxtaposition between my mothers’ plate and mine; her mundane spinach salad (with dried cranberries and a sprinkling of hemp seeds) next to my slice of cheesy, breaded goodness. That winter, her comfort food deprivation 30 only worsened. I could see the craving in her eyes as our kitchen filled with the scent of my grandmother’s blonde brownie recipe, as we snacked on brie and crostini, rich foie gras, and the truffles and little wrapped caramels left out on the bar. I felt like I was being deprived too; I missed her comprehensive reviews of what I made, her honest criticism and her genuine praise when I made something especially delicious.

Cooking a meal and making someone a plate is what I would consider my “love language.” It communicates beyond words. It says, simply and on a primal level: “I made this for you, I don’t want you to be hungry. I hope you like it. I love you.”

Thus, I begrudgingly put aside my skepticism of meat alternatives and began a rewarding new challenge. I set out to make comfort vegan food my mom would love, inspired by the dishes she missed the most. I started simple, making a maple syrup-sweetened banana bread (using a flaxseed egg). I quickly graduated to making my favorite complex chocolate cake recipe by using coconut oil instead of butter and applesauce instead of eggs. I made panna cotta with agar-agar in place of gelatin. I started researching, reading a multitude of blogs, and browsing the many carefully curated vegan Instagram pages. I had been cooking since I was very young, but now, I was finally being pushed outside of my comfort zone. Learning about vegan replacements for animal products helped teach me what makes a recipe tick; what exactly makes something taste light, rich, meaty, creamy, comforting? How can I preserve the essentials of a recipe, even when replacing some of the most prominent ingredients with animal-free alternatives? My mom’s—initially irritating— new lifestyle choice became a reason for me to experiment gastronomically and become a better cook in the process.

In my pursuit of vegan comfort food, I made one especially significant breakthrough: liverless pate. Before becoming a vegan, it was one of my mom’s favorite comfort foods, always