Ah, Paris! Veganized chèvre chaud

Paris is in fact everything they say it is. The city is just as beautiful as they say, the Eiffel Tower is just as impressive, the bike culture is just as awesome, the food is just as good, the waiters are just as surly. It's fantastic. Paris was my first vacation outside of North America, and I would go back again in a second. It's true: seeing places around the world changes your perspective on home, in ways both fantastic and slightly bubble-bursting. (Yes, bubble-bursting: see the afore-mentioned comment on bike culture. And then ponder North American bike culture.)

The highlight of many vacations is the food. And for Paris this is especially true. Yes, you pay through the nose for everything (unless you learn to shoot espresso while standing up) but everything is fantastic. I went to Paris with my mother, and also with a friend who met up with friends of hers who were in Paris at the same time. She came back from their lunch reporting her friends had said they hadn't had any good food since being in Paris. The three of us shook our heads in disbelief: we hadn't had one BAD meal since coming to Paris. Crepes, salads, gorgeous crusty baguette everywhere—these were food memories that would stay with us long after flying back home.

But after becoming vegan, I started to think all those memories of good food would remain memories, since the French load every single meal up with cheese and ham (and sometimes chopped egg for good measure). I was especially sad about losing one of my favourite meal, chèvre chaud. Literally “hot goat's cheese”, chèvre chaud is a simple salad, with some kind of dressing and the simple-yet-delicious toasted bread and goat cheese on top. It's one of those meals that prove the old axiom: a fantastic dish is often made up of simple ingredients, and becomes more than the sum of its parts.

I wasn't even thinking about veganizing this dish, since vegan cheeses are rarely fantastic, and as a vegan, cheese dishes are something I have learned to modify but never replicate. So when I was at work on Friday, thinking about what I could eat as my pre-gym snack, the thought of my cashew “goat cheese” on toast did occur to me as an option. But only when I started craving the greens I had in the fridge did I realize that greens + cashew goat cheese on toast = vegan chèvre chaud.

And yes, it was delicious. It was almost like being back in Paris, except there were no surly waiters in sight!

Recipes for vegan cashew cheese abound: I'm sure google can help you there. I recommend crusty bread or chewy whole-grain bread, with a simple dressing. And please use green greens (not white, limp lettuce), for maximal texture as well as nutrition—baby arugula or spinach would be a wise choice. Slice off a bit off cashew cheese, put on top of toast, and put under the broiler until warmed. At this point, the last step is to dream of Paris.

Vegan Holy Grail

The vegan Holy Grail is the quest for good cheese-like foods. Everything else is readily available: soy/almond/rice milk, soy yogurt, chick'n patties, bean/soy sausage, even marshmallows... If there's an animal-product product that you're craving a vegan version of, chances are you can find it. Many are at the grocery store, some are at your health food store, and rarely you need to go to a specialty store or order online.

But vegan cheese is something else.

I have bought vegan cheese. The only time I have liked it was when I used the vegan cheese-slice type for grilled cheeze sandwiches. Yes, it's good. But you can't really taste the middle part of grilled cheeze, or even grilled cheese, for that matter--it mostly serves as a gooey texture contrast sandwiched (see what I did there? boo-yeah!) between two slices of fried bread. So it served its purpose in the grilled cheeze--gooey middle layer, check!

Other vegan cheese has proven more challenging. I am told that there are definitely yummy, melty, satisfying pizza-topping cheezes out there. The two I bought were both supposed to melt but didn't, had a slightly rubbery texture, and took away from the food more than added to it. I have pretty much given up my search and accepted lovingly-made pizza topped with olive oil, herbs and assorted veggie items. It's still delicious, it just doesn't have that gooey, melty texture I sometimes have a hankering for.

I can, however, get my cheeze fix taken care of in other ways. For example, vegan mac'n'cheese. Nutritional yeast provides the cheesy flavour, and as a carb-a-riffic pasta dish it was truly satisfying. It's now a favourite!