{"id":38155,"date":"2020-04-15T00:24:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T04:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=38155"},"modified":"2021-02-26T16:04:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T21:04:13","slug":"hold-the-nuts-its-time-we-addressed-vegan-cheese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/hold-the-nuts-its-time-we-addressed-vegan-cheese\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruminations: It’s Time We Addressed Vegan Cheese"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illustration by Erin Wallace<\/em><\/p>\n

I<\/span>‘m not a vegan. I\u2019ve become an \u201caccidental\u201d vegetarian (acci-tarian?) at times due to limited funds and my general fear of cooking meat. But while I respect the reasons people might electively eschew animal products, I lack the fortitude to pass up late night emergency mac and cheese in favor of ethics.<\/p>\n

Physical sensitivity is a different story. People with lactose intolerance and dairy allergies are living in a golden age of dairy-free alternatives, some of which are quite good\u2014I\u2019m a big fan of coconut creamer myself. Non-dairy \u201ccheese\u201d brands like Daiya, Kite Hill, and Tofuttiare readily available in big name grocery stores, and have even become common cheese substitutes at many restaurants. Some brands achieve their goal better than others, serving the texture, flavor, and meltability that dairy-averse consumers crave with passable similarity.<\/p>\n

And yet.<\/p>\n

When my mom was stricken with a mysterious intestinal infection a few years back, she was forced to alter her diet drastically. As a child of the sixties, she was accustomed to eating and cooking mid-century staples like American chop suey, meatloaf, and lasagna. Likewise, my dad\u2019s culinary style is dictated by the three Bs of hearty New England sustenance: beef, bread, and beans. To my parents\u2019 credit, I was force-fed vegetables regularly as a child, but words like \u201ckale,\u201d \u201cgluten,\u201d and \u201cdairy-free alternative\u201d might as well have been another language. So when my mom\u2019s meal options became limited to rice and aggressively steamed vegetables, my parents had to rewrite their entire foodscape.<\/p>\n

My mom\u2019s health is much better today, and now she can rattle off her preferred ancient grains, mylks, and sugar-free dessert hacks with ease. As a lifelong lover of grilled cheese, she\u2019s experimented with a few different dairy-free cheeses that mimic the qualities of her former beloved Land-O\u2019-Lakes slices, finally landing on an acceptable variety that maintains a permanent spot on her grocery list. When asked about her evolved relationship with vegan cheese and how it compares to the real thing, she pauses. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a…reasonable facsimile,\u201d she says, ever the diplomat.<\/p>\n

Dairy-free cheese isn\u2019t exactly new. It was produced in China as far back as the 16th century from tofu and other soybean-based products. America saw a surge in vegan cheese popularity in the 1980s, as the diet craze took off and hitherto-alien words like \u201ccholesterol\u201dand \u201ccarbohydrate\u201d entered the general lexicon. Dairy-free cheeses have faced a similar controversy to nut-based milks, with dairy stewards registering outrage at the words \u201cmilk\u201d and \u201ccheese\u201d being co-opted to describe products that are anything but. These \u201creasonable facsimiles\u201d have received mixed reviews over the years, but improvements in food production technology have done good things for texture. However, because vegan cheese does not experience the same aging process as true cheese and is made sans cultures, the nuances of flavor and mouthfeel are gone.<\/p>\n

With a bounty of subpar options and so few truly great alternatives, I often wonder if it\u2019s worth the effort. After all, most cheese alternatives are only good enough to remind you that you aren\u2019t actually eating cheese. Burgers can be seasoned accordingly to make up for its absence, antipasti can replace a traditional cheese plate, and what is pizza but a bready vessel for any number of non-dairy toppings?<\/p>\n

A friend was recently diagnosed with a dairy allergy, never before having experienced food intolerance in his life. Not quite thirty and otherwise perfectly healthy, he was blindsided. His incredibly proactive partner responded with gusto, filling their fridge with nut cheeses, tofu spreads, and compiling \u201ccheesy\u201d vegan pasta recipes. At a recent outing to a pizza restaurant, however, the pain on my friend\u2019s face as he watched the rest of us enjoy our cheese-covered flatbreads was visceral, almost comical. I asked why cheese mattered to him so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just can\u2019t replace it,\u201d he sighed, watching me disengage a gooey slice from its fellows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You just can’t replace it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":38156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[590],"tags":[9871,23493,7846,23494,3327,18541,23496,23498,23497,1763,23495,5823,2386,23499],"coauthors":[20578],"class_list":["post-38155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ruminations","tag-dairy-free-cheese","tag-daiya","tag-gluten-free","tag-kite-hill","tag-lactose","tag-lactose-free","tag-lactose-free-cheese","tag-land-o-lakes","tag-mylk","tag-new-england","tag-tofuttiare","tag-vegan","tag-vegan-cheese","tag-veganism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRuminations: It's Time We Addressed Vegan Cheese - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta 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