Yesterday was a very mild, pleasant, Misbehaving Tuesday. Not much doing, other than wearing some seasonally inappropriate footwear and making and eating way too much kugel. Some horn tooting: the kugel is really spectacular. I’ve posted the recipe on the food page. This is a nostalgic recipe for me; not only does it bring back memories of gatherings with my dad’s family, but it brings back memories of the appetite I used to have – I don’t make it often because I’m inclined to eat half the pan as soon as it comes out of the oven. (And it involves making a roux, which almost always results in me getting flour and oil in my hair, on my shoes, on the dogs…)
This was one of those recipes for which it was impossible to just substitute an ingredient here or there to make it vegan. The whole process is different, but the result is that it tastes exactly like what I remember my grandmother making. This brings up an interesting point about taste, though: to me, this tastes just like the original, but the original contains just about every dairy ingredient, ever, and dairy tastes gross to me now. I’ve accidentally had dairy products a couple of times recently, and they tasted absolutely rancid (and the smell – yikes). I think of this often when I am working on new recipes, and it is why I rarely try to make anything with a dairy counterpart taste and feel exactly like its dairy counterpart. I just try to make it taste and feel really, really good.
On that note, the change in taste seems to be an even split among vegans. I know just as many people who share my experience, as I know lapsed vegans whose tastes never changed – even after years they were able to go back to dairy without getting ill, and without anything tasting funny. I guess it’s one of those things… the body knows whether we’re better off without it, and all bodies have their own opinions.
