The other day, I made a vegan cheese thing and it tasted like straight-up coconut.
And then before that, I made a gluten-free/vegan/white-stuff-free pound cake, and it was like chewing on a greasy sponge that crumbled into tiny soft pebbles in my mouth in the worst way you can imagine (but it tasted like vanilla and maple, so there's that).
And then before that, I made a gluten-free gingerbread cupcake which wasn't half-bad, which was topped with a no-white-sugar/only-coconut-oil "frosting" the texture of which was kinda like this: if you put some coarse, stale bread in the food processor to make medium crumbs, then mixed canned frosting into it, with some hair.
I've also had these "raw energy cookies" that my boss made, which aren't cookies at all, because they're much more like truffles, and they are absolutely outrageously delicious.
We sell several varieties of gluten-free brownies where I work, and I swear, I love them more than conventional brownies, and, if you know me, you know I hate chocolate, but one day, I ate, like, three of them (I paid for them, Cyn, I swear).
I made the vegan cheese thing again, minus the coconut oil, and it was really pretty doggone good. Who would've thunk.
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I think a cardinal rule of effort should be:
Don't base your effort on what you perceive to be a deficit in the recipient's experience.
This is why I, as a chef, don't often invest in dabbling with alternative-type recipes or methods, including gluten-free baked goods, vegan "meat" substitutes, or the like.
It's why I, as a Christian, am critical of Christian attempts at mainstream entertainment. Sorry. But I am. I'm a musician with opinions. (waves at you.)
I think that both fall short in parallel ways. And it's not because of the passion of the person/people spearheading the efforts, and not because delicious gluten-free/vegan bread is impossible to achieve, and not because a Christian director/producer/whatever can't create a deeply-connective experience for millions of people of different faiths, or lack of.
I think it's because, often, the creators are playing to the deficit.
I've been testing some alternative-type recipes lately, as I mentioned up there; gluten-free pound cake, soy-free vegan cheeses, raw vegan desserts. The results have been varied: and interesting, and laughable, and sometimes, surprisingly intriguing, leading to other ideas that I've tucked away.
If I were gluten-intolerant, and one of my non-culinary friends baked me a gluten-free cake because s/he loved me, I would be thrilled. I would eat bites of it and be so tickled that a person with little passion for the culinary had gone out of his/her way to make me something that requires lots of effort, expense, and planning (as alternative baking does). I would hardly even care how it tasted, because it would taste like love, and, as schmoopy as that sounds, it's absolutely true.
If I, on the other hand, entered a restaurant, bakery, or other food outlet which advertised gluten-free goodies, I would have expectations in place. These expectations would be borne of my own culinary perspective and artistic process: I would expect that the chef had thoroughly tested these recipes against their traditional counterparts, compared the results, and made adjustments to get the results they wanted. I would expect that the chef be knowledgeable enough in his/her craft in order to know how to make these adjustments. I would expect this chef to compare his/her work and perspective with those of other professionals. I would expect that this chef would be just as anal-retentive as I am in these truths: 1) I will not serve you something with which I am at all dissatisfied, and 2) if I am happy with it, I have lost sleep, spent way too much money on testing, and generally busted my tail repeatedly in order to achieve a result as close to perfect as I can get.
Because why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I want to achieve a result that's as relevant as I can get to the genre in which I'm working? Why wouldn't I want to serve you something that you'll remember for months and drive two hours in order to repeat the experience? Why bother, otherwise?
When I, as a lucky person with a normal digestive system and few food sensitivities (darn you, raw apples), rip open the wrapper to some alternatively-produced goodie proclaiming itself to be just as good as the "real" thing! and I end up with a mouthful of vanilla-flavored sawdust, or a chewy, greasy sponge, or a salty, gritty mess which tastes like tumeric and coconut (not in a good way): I think to myself how utterly disrespectful.
I am offended by it.
And I expect better.
How disrespectful, to bank on the excitement of a person who can't enjoy this treat conventionally, only to serve them something that doesn't at all resemble the picture on the package. How disrespectful, to bank on the dangling-carrot effect; they can't eat cake, so they're gonna be really excited to eat this! they probably know it's hard to make a good cake without gluten/animal products, so they'll appreciate it, even though we all know it misses the mark!
[They know what Hollywood/media/the music industry is like! They'll appreciate that this is wholesome and nourishing! They'll enjoy the taste of barley because it's good for them, and because of that, they'll never miss the luxuriant taste of butter. It says God on the packaging, so Christians have to like it!]
Seriously, how lazy, to gamble that a person's excitement at eating something called "cake" will supersede their ability to know that they are not chewing on anything that resembles a piece of cake (my coworker, Rebekah, and I call this having smart mouth cells. because we're stupid like that). And I'm sorry, but: how lazy, to expect Christians to be grateful for subpar attempts at mainstream relevance within prescribed "Christian" understandings of what's "cool." It says God on it and panders to our whitewashed-jean button-down early '90s sensibilities, so we'll swallow it up and be grateful!
What a wide range of permission you grant yourself to produce subpar work when you play to the deficit. If you market yourself as better-than, for a set of reasons, then your effort is going to be scrutinized across the board, and your claims' follow-through better follow through.
I just think this:
If you're gonna call it cake, it had better resemble meet the standards of what a cake is. It had better be light and fluffy, if it's to resemble a butter cake; it had better be dense and tender and moist, if it's to resemble a pound cake, or springy and fluffy to resemble genoise. If you serve me cashew butter in a crust and call it cheesecake, or if you puree dates and call it salted caramel, I swear.
If you're gonna call it a cookie, it had better crumble, or chew, or cake-up like a cookie. If you call it frosting, it had better be fluffy and sweet and melt in my mouth. If you're gonna call it a baguette, it had better be just that, and it had better not taste like almonds, for crying out loud.
Make it better.
Do it well, or don't do it. Or you risk becoming a parody of yourself.
Do it well, or don't do it. Or you risk becoming a parody of yourself.
I really believe that there are some great alternative recipes and methods out there, if I'm willing to work at learning how to use ingredients differently.
That is all.
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