I like subversive shit.
The creativity required to make pepperoni pizza without any bread, pepperoni, or cheese seems like nothing short of magic. I love mental gymnastics.
Mary, with one of her creations, all photos courtesy of her Flickr
I was first introduced to raw food when I had dinner at Mary’s house. Mary was a vegan chef who cut an imposing figure by anyone’s standard: she was 6’3″ with blue eyes, a buzz cut, and a very open, matter of fact speech. We had a friend in common (who eventually ended up going to Romania to translate a novel). On Mary’s calendar: a trip to Burning Man.
One of Mary's salads
On the menu that night: raw tiramisu, raw ice cream (made from soaked and ground cashews), and vegan kim chi pizza. On the side, Mary tried to make a batch of vegan marshmallows, which failed, and had me sample some pickled daikon, a kind of Asian radish.
- Raw calamari – no calamari, no bread, no frying.
- Her raw tiramisu
A raw taco!
For the uninitiated, raw foodism is an ultra-restrictive diet where you can only eat uncooked vegan foods. That means you’re mostly limited to raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts. It’s like somebody dropped you off in a forest and, poor caveman you, fire hasn’t been invented yet.
There was something very sensual about the entire experience – a lot of eating things with your hands, licking it off your fingers, and sharing spoons to taste a work in progress. Mary would always cut something off, or dig something fascinating and improbable from her fridge. Every jar – some dusty, some half-empty – was filled with bizarre, unexpected kitchen experiments.
Stacks of cookbooks filled up her living room. I became infatuated with the ridiculously good looking authors of Raw Food/Real World who appeared just as lushly alive as the stunningly photographed salads.
Sarma, one of the authors of Raw Food/Real World.
Like most extreme diets, (some) adherents approach this insanity with a religious zeal heretofore only seen in that group of dudes back in the 90′s who thought that they should all kill themselves before Y2K. They make some highly questionable health claims.
But I’ll eat their creations because when it’s good, it’s amazing. The flavors are incredibly intense – garlic is spiky white heat, cashews are a creamy revelation, and who knew you could make that with vegetable pulp?
After that initial encounter, I jumped at the chance to try out haute raw food again when I found out about Grezzo, in Boston’s North End.
Check back tomorrow for my assessment of two visits to Grezzo.
Related posts:
Wrangham claims that people can’t really live on raw foods… http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html
Posted by dcc | December 16, 2009, 12:31 pmMan, so that’s the secret to getting rid of that pesky period. Those raw foodies ARE onto something.
Posted by Lingbo Li | December 16, 2009, 2:22 pm