We’ve come a long, long way baby . . .
Who gets the vegan celeb reference?? Yep that’s taken from a Moby song. Once upon a time I could count vegan celebrities on the fingers and thumb of ONE HAND!!! Moby was one of ‘em plus Heather Small and Brian Adams. Nowadays you can’t walk one step through a virtual Golden Globes, Brit Awards or Oscars without tripping over a seitan-lovin’ celeb. They’re bloomin’ everywhere, setting up vegan restaurants, launching meat replacement products, setting up more vegan restaurants and launching yet even more meat replacement products. That wasn’t a typing error btw, but rather my sarcasm. The boom in vegan food has been incredibly helpful for the movement but I’d love to see a bit more variety in vegan businesses. Hey Natalie! Fancy setting up Portman Pensions offering retirement funds that solely invest in vegan businesses??? You could totally corner the market! Whilst it’s not the most glamorous of vegan businesses to set up, it is sure needed.
Picture is of a Moby ferry and has nothing to do with Moby the musical artist. But I find it amusing.
The movement has come a long, long way. Once upon a time plant milk was only found in health food shops. Not a drop was on sale at the supermarket! The amount of vegan chocolate bars could be counted on the fingers and thumb of my other hand. You were lucky if you could find a Rose Elliot cookbook in a bookshop. If you asked for a vegan meal in a restaurant the waiter stared at you like you just went pee pee in front of him. Now I do feel like an old lady telling you how hard we had it in the olden days and how lucky you kids are now. That’s exactly what I’m doing and happy to be able to do so!!!
As a vegan in the 90s, who didn’t know any other vegans, I could not have envisioned such things in my wildest dreams. For years, for decades, the numbers of vegans in the uk didn’t rise and didn’t fall. They stayed the same paltry number. The explosion is beyond anything I could imagine and I regularly pinch myself to make sure this is really happening. Many of us veteran vegans became so used to being the outlier, the black sheep, the one who was ‘difficult’ to cater for at family gatherings, the person whose beliefs were belittled. We did this for so long that this brave new world of veganism still feels incredibly new.
Chef Day, before the creation of The Vegan Chef School
Chef Day filming with The Vegan Society.
Having seen the trajectory of the vegan movement I appreciate what has been achieved but I also see what more we need to do. Whilst Portmans Pensions may have been a wry quip with apposite alliteration it highlights the further work there is to do. We need vegans completely catered for, in the broad sense rather than just the food sense. This means in every single aspect of our lives. And we shouldn’t be paying a premium for it. If veganism is to be accessible that means that the vegan version of anything, whether that’s a burger, an eye shadow, a winter coat, a bottle of wine or a pot of paint, should be as adorable as the non vegan version. No one should have to pay more to live by their principles.
This is why I encourage my chef students on the vegan chef course to consider a wide variety of careers they can go into as a food creator. Often people just think they can either work in a restaurant or cafe or own a restaurant or cafe. But the truth is there are so many different routes and, as the sector grows, that is expanding and continuing to do so. What I find truly fascinating is seeing how students can take the knowledge and skills they developed in their previous careers and see how they apply them to their new careers. I definitely did this, bringing my skills from being an art student and fashion designer/maker to my work.
Ok I’ll step off my soapbox now and continue to think of ridiculous alternative vegan-celeb businesses. Mobys mobility scooters. Jaoquins wig makers. (Woody) Harrelson's harmonicas. Olivia Wilde’s wilderness walks.
My talented chef students