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As a vegan Xicana, I know how difficult it can be to eat out, to want to embrace one’s culture and also practice non-violence, or to discuss interconnected oppressions. Welcome to the first issue of Xicana Vegan, a zine with recipes and thoughts for animal-loving Xican@s. Check out veganized family recipes, suggestions for pantry staples, advice on starting a vegan restaurant, and recommended reading. Here’s to dismantling systems of power and making amazing food while doing it!
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Table of Contents Xicana/Vegan.............................4 Vegan Queso.............................6 7- Layer Dip...............................7 Grocery List..............................8 Menudo Recipe........................10 Ordering en EspaĂąol................12 Frijolitos Recipe.......................14 Interview with Rebel Mariposa.16 Fideo Recipe............................18 Recommended Reading...........20
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Xicana: Xi-ca-na [chi-kah-nuh]
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One who identifies as a Xicana/Chicana
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A self-identifying term for an American girl or woman of Mexican descent.
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A girl or woman whose “experiences are rooted in Mexican history, legacy of colonialism, violence, discrimination, and complex class and racial hierarchies against the backdrop of Catholicism and language repression...” Castañeda 1993; González 1999 from Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader
Vegan: Ve-gan [vee-guh n] 1.
One who eats a plant-based diet free of animal products
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A self-identifying term for a human animal who advocates for non-violence, animal rights, and compassion for all.
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“Vegans do not eat, wear, or use anything that came from someone else’s body. We don’t eat meat or drink milk or eat cheese. We don’t consume eggs or honey. We don’t wear leather, wool, silk, or down. We don’t use products that were tested on animals or contain byproducts from their slaughter. And we don’t attend circuses, zoos, aquariums, or any other event that exploits living beings for our entertainment and pleasure.” -Emily Moran Barwick from YouTube’s Bite Size Vegan
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Vegan Queso! By Lucy González (My sister!) • • • • • • • • •
2 c. diced potatoes 1 c. diced carrots 1/2 c. almond milk 1/3 c. water 1/2 c. nutritional yeast flakes 1 tbsp. lemon juice 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. onion powder 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
To give it some pizzazz, I add cumin and chili powder to my queso! (Sometimes I use the pizzazzy queso to make chili mac n’ cheez) 6
*I like having extra queso on hand to make...
7-Layer Dip! Layers: • refried beans • queso • avocado • diced tomatoes (I like fire roasted) • vegan sour cream* • another layer of queso, because, why not? • Chopped jalapeno and green onion (if you want a less spicy version, instead of jalapeno, you can use bell pepper)
*Vegan Sour Cream:
Blend 1 c. soaked cashews with 1/2 c. nut milk, juice of a lemon, splash of vinegar, and salt until it tastes good! 7
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XICANA VEGAN GROCERY LIST
Veggies Greens - spinach, kale, collard greens Peppers -fresh: bell peppers, jalapeno, etc. -dried: ancho, guajillo -canned: chipotle Onion - a variety Garlic Tomatoes Papas Corn, hominy Carrots Calabaza Nopales - Fresh if you can find them in your garden, neighborhood, or produce section. Canned if you can’t. Radishes Lime, lemon All the Fruits! Especially avocado! 8
Staples: Beans, beans, beans! - Dried (cook ~ 2 hours) - Dehydrated (cook ~ 5 min for refried, ~ 20 for whole) - Canned (if you need it now!) Tomato sauce (or just blend up tomatoes!) Vegetable broth Milk - soy, almond, rice, hemp, cashew, etc. Vegetable oil (canola, olive, avocado, whatever you prefer) Corn tortillas Rice Corn chips Salsa Spices & Herbs: Cumino, chili powder (if you’re going for Tex-Mex) Garlic powder Onion powder Cayenne pepper salt/pepper Cilantro - fresh, dried Mexican oregano Splurge: Meat replacements – Soyrizo, Seitain, Tofu (not necessary for a vegan diet, but great for transitioning to veganism or eating whenever!) Nutritional yeast - add to recipes for cheezy nutty flavor Raw cashews - can be used for vegan sour cream and other sauces 9
Vegan Menudo By Elida Bocanegra Ingredients: 2 packages of Tofurkey Original Sausage Beer Brats (4 links) 2 teaspoons olive oil two cartons (32oz) of vegetable broth 2 29 oz. hominy 1 dry guajillo chile deseeded 2 chiles ancho deseeded 1 4 oz. package “La Fiesta� powdered red pepper 1 head of garlic 2 teaspoons dry Mexican oregano Salt to taste 1 cup diced onion 1/2 cup diced radishes 2 limes Soften the chiles in hot water, and put in blender with salt and oil. When ready, strain them. in large pot pour hominy, broth, garlic, chile mix, red pepper powder, oregano, and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and let cook for 40 minutes. While the hominy is cooking, cut the sausages in half lengthwise, and then in about 1 inch chunks. Add them to the pot and continue cooking for 30 more minutes. Serve hot and top with onion, radishes and lime juice. Serves four. Enjoy! 10
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Ordering Vegan en Español at Mexican Restaurants (because we aren’t all fluent and it can be awkward!)
“Soy vegana. No como carne, queso, o leche.” “I’m vegan. I don’t eat meat, cheese, or milk (dairy).” “No como productos de origen animal” “I don’t eat animal products.” 12
“Los frijoles tienen manteca?” “Do the beans have lard?” “Las papas tienen mantequilla?” “Do the potatoes have butter?” “El arroz tiene caldo de pollo? Does the rice have chicken broth?” “Las tortillas de harina tienen manteca?” “Do the flour tortillas have lard?” “Mas aquacate por favor!” “More avocado please!” 13
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An Interview with Rebel Mariposa Owner and creator of Texas’ first vegan restaurant with a full bar! Check out La Botanica in San Antonio, TX. Tell me about yourself! What would you like to know? I am a queer chichimeca tejana working and living mostly in San Antonio where I was born and raised. Why did you choose to go vegan? It was journey of many years to get to a point of being vegan and it started with wanting to be anti-violent. During my college days I was highly active and political on campus (UT-Austin) and connecting dots around violence, poverty, corporate greed and wealth and so becoming vegetarian was a way I could personally do something as a response to systemic violence. How do Xicanisma and Veganism relate to one another for you? For me personally i wanted to recreate my family recipes. we have a family cookbook on my dad’s side and it brings me great joy to veganize those recipes and it keeps me closer to my culture and roots. I was never motivated to cook meat but when I went vegan I began to cook all the time and I reconnected with my tias and thought a lot more about my ancestors and the role of food. It’s also linked to a desire I have to facilitate spaces and meals for tejanos so we can not just continue to be alive but so we can thrive. 16
So many of our ancestors and even us are survivors of a US government genocide on our people and it’s so important for us to be as healthy as we can be to honor our ancestors, the earth & the cosmos and to always keep in mind the generations that will be coming after us. What was it like starting La Botanica? Any advice for aspiring vegan restaurant owners? It was the hardest thing I had ever tried to do. It was scary, fun and exhausting all at the same time. I had to experience and still do a lot of “haters,” people judging me, judging La B, and I had to develop some thick skin real fast. Yet for every one person who might say something negative there are another 100 people saying something good. I had to learn how to be a boss and a leader. That was not easy for me because I spent most of my working years being very independent, taking gigs that let me have a very whimsical lifestyle. With La B it’s more structured and methodical and I had to learn how to see the beauty in grounding oneself. My advice is to get good at believing in yourself no matter what others think, get good at taking risks, and being comfortable with uncertainty. What’s your favorite vegan food/recipe? I am a very simple eater. I love green smoothies, simple meals. Yet I think one of my favorite recipes that I ever veganized was one out of my family’s cookbook for Carne Guisada. It doesn’t get any more Tex Mex than that in my eyes. :) Any last thoughts? Thank you. I am grateful that you reached out to me and gave me space to share a little bit of my story. Thank you Rebel! Keep it up! 17
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RECOMMENDED Decolonize Your Diet By Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel
“Decolonize Your Diet begins with the premise that we are living with a legacy of over 500 years of colonization of the Americas. Throughout the Americas, colonization meant the transfer of land from Native peoples to “Cooking a pot of beans Europeans, the death of millions from scratch is a of indigenous people, rape of revolutionary act that Native women, and the violent honors both our suppression of indigenous ancestors and future languages, religions, and cultures. generations.” We recognize the importance of indigenous knowledge, cultures, Veganism in an and ways of being in the world Oppressive World: A and believe in the need to Vegans of Color dismantle colonial systems of Community Project power and knowledge.” By Julia Feliz Brueck
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“Yes, veganism is a movement FOR nonhuman animals; however, can vegans truly spread their message on their behalf if vegans themselves refuse to acknowledge that oppression is also very real for many humans? In the quest for animal rights and justice, should vegans not take care to not further oppress humans with their movement?”
READING Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters By Aph Ko and Syl Ko “When we make use of the human-animal binary to justify our attitudes toward other species, we are in fact using the very same racial logic that posits the “human” as whiteness. There is already a movement underway in which people from our community call upon members to “decolonize” our bodies, our diets, and areas of activism. But we also need to decolonize the frameworks that govern our concepts...Dismantling racism might require dismantling our patterns of consumption, including our food practices.” “As you read this, maybe you’re Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on asking yourself...:What right does she have to ask me to strongly Food, Identity, Health, consider how my current and Society consumption pattern impacts my By Breeze Harper goal of abolishing race and class
oppression? To ask the ways in which our own American consumption practices are frequently diametrically opposed to our antiracist and antipoverty practices? Let’s go back to the 1700s antebellum South. How many whites angrily asked abolitionists: What right do they have to take away my freedom to have access to cheap cotton and labor? Most of us know that the answer was, No damn right at all.”
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If we claim to be intersectional, yet disregard other species
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then we reinforce the same systems of power that disregard us.
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Look for Issue 2 of Xicana Vegan soon! More to come on contemporary feminist theory, yummy recipes, interviews, and more!!
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@soozgonzalez 28