Photo courtesy Bryanna Clark Grogan
What would a global vegan feast look like? Bryanna Clark Grogan, renowned vegan chef and author of countless cookbooks brings the world together with her latest compilation of recipes, World Vegan Feast: 200 Fabulous Recipes from Over 50 Countries. Vegan Mainstream recently interviewed Bryanna, the woman whom Dr. Neal Barnard, M.D., president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine called, “a master of the art and craft of cooking.” Take a look!
Vegan Mainstream: How did you first transition into vegan cooking?
Bryanna Clark Grogan: I’ve always loved to cook. My mother says I was cooking before I can remember. She said I used to hum when I ate too, so obviously I like eating as well. I got really interested in nutrition after my first child was born, but my parents ate very healthfully as well. I started making whole wheat bread, et cetera when I first had kids.
We also read the book called Diet for a Small Planet , which was one of the first philosophical vegetarian books as far as the environment was concerned. We decided we weren’t going to eat any meat we didn’t produce ourselves, so consequently, we didn’t eat very much meat. We weren’t strictly vegetarian, but I was always interested in tofu and seitan. Growing up in San Francisco and frequenting Asian restaurants, I wasn’t totally ignorant of all that. In the early 70s we did the homesteading thing, and raised our own animals for a long time.
About 23 years ago, we moved from our small homestead on Vancouver Island, [in British Columbia, Canada] to a smaller property on a small island, so we couldn’t bring our animals and chickens. My husband died about 6 months after we moved, and of course I wasn’t terribly interested in food for some time after. Eventually, I realized I was eating meat from the store. I didn’t want to do the animal [homesteading] thing by myself but I didn’t want to ask anybody else to do it for me, so I thought it was logical to become a vegetarian. Within a few months I decided that in order to be really consistent about it, I should become a vegan. There weren’t a lot of vegan books around then. There was the old farm cookbook [The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook] from The Farm in Tennessee where they produced a lot of soy foods, and the classic Seventh-Day Adventist cookbook, Ten Talents, as well as a few British books. That was about it. [Ed. note: The Farm is a former 1970's commune, now a cooperative "intentional community" with several businesses, always vegetarian and largely vegan. The Book Publishing Co. on The Farm published most of Bryanna's books.]
I was locally writing a cooking column, so I simply changed my column and started writing about vegan and vegetarian cooking. I never said anything to anybody! Eventually I decided I would write a cookbook because I wanted food that was tastier and more interesting than what I was finding, and I thought there must be others who felt the same. I started writing some articles for Vegetarian Times magazine in the 80s, so when I submitted my manuscript, my publisher had already noticed me. It’s more difficult nowadays because there are so many wonderful vegan authors coming up now; there’s a lot more competition than there used to be. Which is a good thing!
VM: What do you think has changed in the world of vegan cookbooks since you first started out?
BCG: Vegan is more mainstream. You see it mentioned in books and hear it on TV. Sometimes they’re making fun of it, but at least they’re mentioning it! You can get vegan food in most restaurants and vegan ingredients and products even in supermarkets as well as health food stores. There’s much more ease of availability. Some people still roll their eyes, but people are more used to it and few really think you’re a weirdo.
VM: Can you talk a little about your most recent cookbook World Vegan Feast?
BCG: That was partly the result of a cooking newsletter I published for five years called Vegan Feast. It was quite a long newsletter. My husband used to think I was crazy because it would sometimes be 75 pages long! At first, I did it every two months and then four times a year, and I had hundreds of subscribers. It was really fun because, even though it was a lot of work, I would get immediate feedback from people about the recipes. I’m still friends with some of the subscribers. I had to stop [for various reasons]. I had a huge body of recipes that no one but these few hundred subscribers had seen, and a lot of them were international. I had the idea of taking the favorites in the international category and putting them together in a book. Fortunately, John Robertson at Vegan Heritage Press liked the idea and the book was born. He has a good eye for cookbooks.
VM: How did the newsletter come about?
BCG: I’ve always written. It’s always cooking and writing with me. I just wanted to do something a little more challenging for myself and really delve into certain subjects in the realm of cooking and different cuisines. So, I just put it out there on my blog and eventually I got hundreds of people who were very interested. I also gave a 5-day international cooking workshop here on Denman Island and many of the participants were subscribers. The newsletter was a lot of work, but a wonderful learning experience. I have a big family and a job, which made it impossible to carry on with it,but this book was in large part the result of the Vegan Feast.
VM: So, this isn’t your full-time job?
BCG: No, I have managed a small branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library for 30 years. So, books and writing and cooking have all been a part of my life for a long time.
VM: Do you have anything in the works right now?
BCG: Yes, I’ve been threatening to write a seitan cookbook for a long time. I have a big collection of recipes, many of which I developed for the newsletter. The recipes are there, I just have to refine them and put them into the right format. It’s a big transition time in the publishing business now. There are so many new formats coming out. I might just wait a bit and see how things are going, and see which format would be the best for me. But that’s definitely one I want to do before I “retire.” I’ve also been working with David Lee from Field Roast for several years on a book of making Field Roast-type products at home. It’s been delayed, but we’re talking again about finishing it.
VM: Have you done any e-books in the past?
BCG: No, I haven’t. I have bought a few. I think it can be a very good thing. The only problem with it, possibly, including with myself, is if you don’t have an editor. They really do care about how the book looks and the flow; sometimes when you’re doing it yourself, you don’t see those things. Authors would have to be very careful about that and I would as well. But it’s a new year and I feel very energized about doing something new.
VM: What is your process for putting out a cookbook?
BCG: Well, it depends. The last one I just did was a collection of recipes that were already done. So, I had to choose the ones I wanted, having a good selection from different areas. Also, each publisher has their own writing guide that you have to follow. This one was new to me, because I had used the Book Publishing Company’s style before. So I had to rewrite the recipes in [this new] style. It took a good year. There was also some re-testing and shooting the photographs for the book, which was the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life!
When I’m writing just from an idea, I like to do an outline and then collect in chapters all the recipes I’ve already done, or am working on, or that I think I want to produce. I start from the beginning and go through. I usually keep a cooking journal. I write down everything because if you don’t, you can miss out on some good recipes if you can’t remember what you did. For me, actually writing on paper while I’m working is the easiest way, instead of trying to wash your hands and then go to the computer. You basically live with the book. When I did a Chinese cookbook [Authentic Chinese Cuisine for the Contemporary Kitchen], we ate a lot of Chinese food. The same with my Italian cookbook, Nonna’s Italian Kitchen. But everybody’s different in the way they work.
VM: What are some tools you use to promote your cookbooks?
BCG: Well, I’ve had to become moderately computer savvy. I’ve had a blog for six years now and I have a website, although it’s needing an overhaul pretty badly. I have sort of neglected it. That’s another thing I’d like to do this year. I balked at doing Facebook for the longest time, but I opened a Facebook account a little over a year ago. I do Twitter, not a whole lot, but I do postings. I also go to the odd conference and do some workshops. It is quite necessary in this day and age to do the Internet thing, especially if you live in the boonies like I do. I resent it sometimes because it takes up so much of my time, but I’m also very grateful for it at the same time. There’s a lot to learn.
VM: Do you blog a lot?
BCG: I have only been blogging once a week. It was really hard while I was writing the book because there wasn’t a lot of time, but I would prefer to do it more than that. I’m sort of fired up about some ideas I have right now, so I’m hoping I can blog two or three times a week. I just don’t have the time to do it every day right now. I’m working and have other projects and have grandchildren close-by. With a big family you always have some big crisis to tend to. I also want to exercise more. I belly-danced for years in a troupe, but I haven’t been doing much of it lately, so I’d like to pick it up again for fun.
Visit Bryanna’s blog, Notes From the Vegan Feast Kitchen.
VM: What is belly-dancing like?
BCG: Oh, it’s fun! And it’s not as easy as it looks – it’s a good workout! And a bonus is that you get to dress up! You’re with women of all ages, all sizes and shapes, and it’s non-competitive. There are many different forms of the dance, so there is lots of variety and the music is fantastic.
VM: You also have something on your website called an Open Cooking Forum. Is that something you still use?
BCG: Yes, sometimes. That’s another thing on my website that I’d like to move and try in a different format, perhaps connect it to my blog. I also moderate the Beginner’s Forum on vegsource.com, but there are so many forums now, I may move on from that. I take it seriously when people ask me questions. I definitely get back to them and do research for them. Many people email me with questions and I try to be very responsive or at least point them in the right direction if I don’t know the answer. However, I can’t diagnose medical conditions, or plan diets (especially for allergy situations)!
Check out Vegan Feast’s Open Cooking Forum here and browse the entire Vegan Feast website.
