You know how Standard American people generally complain when they go to a vegan or raw vegan restaurant if the food is listed as a BLT sandwich, for example, but it’s really coconut, lettuce and tomato with a cashew and lemon ‘mayo’ on a dehydrated flax and hemp seed bread? They are offended that it would be called a BLT when there’re no dead pigs, even when they know they’re at a raw vegan restaurant and such things would never even be in consideration.
Then you’ve got the extreme opposite; you’ve got raw vegan restaurants that want to designate how unique their creative cuisine is by staying so far away from recognizable labeling that you can’t figure out what the heck you might be ordering when you see the “I Am Supercalifragistic” soup, the Sunlight and Orghid appetizer, or “I Am Flat Out Baffled” entree.
Personally, I don’t care much one way or another. I recognize words as just a language of symbols we humans use to communicate with each other. I take pride in nurturing powerful communication skills, so I aim to understand on whatever level I’m intended to be communicated with on. In the end, the strongest language is flavor – no matter what it’s called, it better taste good.
Funny thing now is, I grew up in such a small farm town that most cultural foods never made it to my community. I hadn’t heard of jalapeño poppers, or gasp: guacamole – until I was 19 years old and living in Chicago. PLUS I had gone vegetarian and vegan so young, add to my sheltered cuisine education a whole set of meat/dairy based foods I’d heard of, but didn’t even know what they were, like calzones (to my Italian Chicago friend, Jerry’s, horror).
So this year, a food I’d never heard of just kept popping into my reality: sliders. Sliders? Probably dead eels or dead fish or something slick. Nope. It’s a bite sized sandwich. Go figure. My first slider ever in life was at Rawvolution in Santa Monica, CA this winter. Sometimes eating a cooked food as it’s raw vegan counterpart FIRST actually ruins the cooked version for you, the raw option ends up being so preferable! I’m so lucky to have experiences from this side of perspective!
Today I came up with my own slider recipe using several home grown ingredients, just to complete my full slider circle. Finally, I feel like I’m not left out of mainstream society’s dietary vocabulary. I’ve just improved upon it, that’s all. Enjoy:
SUMMER SPROUT SLIDERS
Make this one for the 4th of July parties! Follow instructions in the links above to sprout your alfalfa seeds (5 days before) and dehydrate your soft, raw bread (1 day before) first. For sliders, shape the soft raw bread into a small loaf instead of flat slice. Then it’s super simple (my kind of recipe!): cut bread like a baguette into one inch slices. Generously add alfalfa sprouts, sliced heirloom tomatoes and sprinkle with dulse flakes. You can’t go wrong with home grown heirloom tomatoes! Happy summer sliders.
