Homemade Vegan

Vegetarianism has a relatively long history in Britain dating to the early part of the 19th-century The Vegetarian Society was formed in 1947and by the 1880s vegetarian restaurants had begun to appear in London. For most vegetarians, the motivation was ethical but food scarcities during the second world war also added to the number of people who were forced to follow a vegetarian regime out of necessity. The Vegan Society was formed in the 1944 by a group of non-dairy vegetarians. Today, the number of committed vegans in the UK is estimated to be close to 2.4 million. Supermarkets sell soya yoghurts, almond milks and tofu sausages. There are vegan options on restaurant menus and airlines. It wasn’t always like this. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, being vegan was seen as a far more radical and counter-culture movement than it is today. Even vegetarians were on the fringes (“It felt like we were a different sect of people,” says Mary McCarthy of her vegetarian family in the 1970s). The vegans back then were ahead of their time: they whipped up their own cashew nut creams, poured tofu into blocks, experimented with recipes for nut ‘cheeses’ and dished up healthy, wholesome, thrifty meals.

This book is a collection of recipes from that era which gives them a proper context by referring to the communities and households who created the recipes and their recollections of what it was like for British vegans back then.