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Vegan soul food? There’s no such thing! Tennessee food activist and vegan chef Bryant Terry begs to differ. Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen cookbook is a journey into the core of Southern soul food that you never knew you needed to take.
It begins with a poem, complete with musical notes to help you turn it into a prayer, and opens up the world of African-American cuisine – sans lard and deep fryers.
Filling his pages with fresh, whole foods, Terry takes the traditionally meat-heavy dishes of the South and transforms them into plant-based, vegan delicacies. The chef extraordinaire describes it best when he says, “Vegan Soul Kitchen is a real food cookbook for anyone with soul that likes tasty eats.”
The soul of a cookbook
Putting vegan and Southern cooking aside, what attracted me to Terry’s cookbook is the ‘soul’ aspect. Beginning each recipe with a soundtrack recommendation, Terry helps us home cooks feel the rhythm of his dishes.
The personal reflections that he adds to each recipe allow us to step into his world and get a glimpse of his life through his words and his cooking. Together with the soundtrack, the smell of the spices, and the heat of our skillet, we are transported into Terry’s kitchen.
Bite your tongue recipes
I’m tempted to crown Cajun-Creole-Spiced Tempeh Pieces with Creamy Grits as my favorite recipe and leave it at that. But it wouldn’t be fair to the Lavender Lemonade, Baked BBQ Black-Eyed Peas, or the Coconut-Pecan Pralines.
Bursting with flavor, color, and culture, Terry has revolutionized Southern and African-American cuisine, to a degree that even the most die-hard meat-eater won’t be able to ignore. If you have one of those at your next dinner party, I suggest serving them the Smothered Seitan Medallions in Mixed-Mushroom Gravy; they won’t know what hit them.
The old and the new
The best part of the cookbook is that it’s not all about making meat dishes vegan. What it aims to share is a love for soul food. From traditional dishes to modern flavors, Bryant Terry will make your heart sing, and perhaps your cardiologist too!
More from Bryant Terry:
Alisa Nemirovska is a freelance content writer, world traveler, yogi, and, most of all, a lover of food. She is passionate about cooking from scratch and spends a good chunk of her day watching cooking shows on YouTube.
