Lembas Bread for Tolkien Reading Day (Vegan, Soy Free and Gluten Free)
We’re going totally topsy turvy this week! Vegan food! Gluten Free! Oh and Fantasy Friday being hosted on a Thursday but it’s for an important reason. Today is Tolkien Reading Day! Set on March 25th each year to commemorate the fall of Sauron, fans of the Middle Earth are encourage to read or rather re-read this epic saga. Since I’m on a journey of my own with this vegan challenge, it seems appropriate to call upon the fellowship. What did they travel with but the elven Lembas bread–a recipe I had yet to tackle. I’ve seen a few recipes on the net for Lembas bread but one thing has always bothered me: they were essential just short bread cookies or butter cakes. Hardly the sort of thing you take on a long journey. The bread needs to be sweet and delicious but also full of protein, vitamins and fiber. Challenge accepted! I totally would imagine Tolkien’s’ elves as vegans…wouldn’t you? I mean I think the Mirkwood elves in The Hobbit may be depicted as eating meat at their feast scene. I don’t remember those details and I should try to look it up I suppose. I’m sure I will later but for now I’m going to stick with my mental image of the elves as vegans. I could buy that . Except for one thing: pretty sure the elves eat honey. Did you know honey isn’t universally considered vegan? When I first found out, I though okay, it made a modicum of sense—honey is after all an animal product of sorts. It’s produced by insects which aren’t really classified as animals but I can see the logic path that would leave vegans to opposing honey.
Then I thought about it some more and realized that if you consider insects “people too” you basically have to desist from eating anything manufactured. In fact even growing a backyard garden and employing some organic tricks for pest control would mean impacting and killing the insect population should be disallowed. At what point do you draw the line? In a normal day any plant processing your vegan agave nectar is going to kill a thousand insects simply as a side effect of running the plant. Bugs get in the gears; bugs get in the food; bugs get everywhere and they get filtered out. So I can’t really get on board with the anti-honey vegans. The issue of animal-cruelty hypocrisy has been pretty prescient lately when PETA was exposed for “putting down” up to 96% of the animals they “rescued”. Having worked with dog rescues for years I’ve known this for a long time and wasn’t surprised. It’s why I never, ever have supported PETA. Bunch of money grabbing phonies.
One of the driving motivations behind vegetarianism, and veganism, is the issue of animal cruelty. Factory farming practices for animal welfare are abysmal. I don’t think I’m going to surprise anyone by saying that. Most of us are happy to plug our ears, close our eyes and try not to imagine the animal that used to be alive outside that Styrofoam and plastic wrapped non-animal looking pound of protein. Nevermind that cows are kept crammed together in their own feces and fed diets that make them ill. Nevermind that hens are kept so close to one another they peck each other out of anxiety. Nevermind that pigs experience such anxiety in their close captivity that they bit each other’s tails—causing horrible infections. To combat this farms frequently cut off their tails which actually puts the pigs in more pain because nerve endings are exposed but eliminates the pesky, costly infections. And yes pigs DO experience emotions like anxiety. They are highly evolved, intelligent creatures despite the dirty connotations we’ve given them over time. That being said I don’t have a problem normally with eating them because wild pigs are also really fucking MEAN. The tiny, human bred teacup kind people keep for pets might be Wilbur-esque but the sort you find on a farm, the natural version? They’ll eat your kneecaps before you can yell uncle.
I accept that in the natural order of things some animals eat other animals—and that I am one of those predators. That doesn’t limit my desire to see these animals raised humanely and slaughtered as painlessly as possible. I think of this way: torture is often seen as something worse than death. Keeping someone in a state of constant pain and agony until they desire to no longer exist is horrible and overall we tend to object to torture more vehemently than even death itself. I accept this because, as with the honey issue, finding a way to eliminate any negative effect of our human need to eat on other living creatures is impossible. I’m not convinced that honey farming, especially the small scale local level, is particularly harmful to the mental state of the insects. I do buy locally sourced honey and not just because I try to be a locavore, but because eating local honey has been demonstrated to help with allergies—local pollens and all that.
That’s my biggest problem with veganism, and to a lesser extent vegetarianism, if you examine it closely enough you will always find something that is inconsistent with this mindset. Vegetarians who eat eggs, as an example, if they get eggs from factory farms are still supporting the slaughter of chickens. In order to raise hens for egg laying farms will have to hatch thousands of eggs and male chickens, aka roosters, get tossed in a grinder upon hatching. So ovo-vegetarians you ARE supporting this industry unless you buy eggs from small farms that raise their own hens and don’t slaughter baby boys.
In fact…the egg laying hen industry essentially Craster’s Keep of the food world. Anyway that’s why I’m happy to align myself as this new fangled term “flexitarian”. I realize that there will always be some impact from my existing and eating–but I can work to minimize that as much as possible. For that I do applaud those who make the vegan and vegetarian lifestyle choices. At least they are doing something…minimizing the cost. Just don’t get too militant about it and recognize that in the end something, whether its a cow or a blade of grass, dies for us to eat. Let’s give it the respect it deserves and avoid the nasty factory farming practices that really are just unnecessarily cruel and unusual.
Which brings me back to our geeky subject of the day! So what do you think? Would the elves of Tolkien’s world be vegans? I imagine that since they are magical there are ways for the children of the wood to avoid killing even a single bug in the making of their food. If hobbits are the hippies of middle earth, the elves are definitely the vegan no-soy latte hipsters. Sorry Legolas. I’ve made two LOTR/Hobbit recipes already: Beorn’s Twice Baked Honey Cakes and Sam Gamgee’s Potato Dumplin’s… but I still hadn’t tackled the most iconic of all the foods in this world: Lembas Bread.
‘So it is,’ they answered, ‘But we call it lembas or way bread, and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.’
‘Indeed it is’ said Gimli. ‘Why, it is better than the honey-cakes of the Beornings, and that is great praise, for the Beornings are the best bakers that I know of”
And so without further ado I provide a recipe that is Gluten Free, Soy Free AND Vegan* It’s loaded with protein and fiber to keep you full on your journey. My genuine original recipe and I’m incredibly proud of it because it’s INSANELY. FRAKKING. DELICIOUS. One waybread slice is supposed to be enough to feed any man but I definitely went hobbit on these and devoured 4 or 5 though in my defense I cut them smaller than they are shown in the films. Thanks to the high protein of the garbanzo, amaranth and almonds, this bread is not only going to taste good but it will keep you sustained both with carbs for your glycogen reserves and as a complete source of protein.
*I used honey in my version but if you are a non-honey eating vegan feel free to substitute agave nectar instead.
Lembas Bread
An Olivia Original Read more
The internal struggle within geek culture to demonstrate how geeky you really are…. Well it’s been on my mind a lot lately for so many reasons. I was deciding how to decorate my bathroom and trying desperately to find some way to reconcile my desire for a “girly” space with my geekier interests. I was spending way too much energy obsessing over which shower curtain to buy based on how it could accessorize with geekier objects in the room. Eventually I sat back and asked myself what the hell I was doing. I really didn’t want to spend more than $15 dollars on a shower curtain—I’m not actually decorating a home where I plan on living for the next ten years and my lease is month to month. I could be gone at any moment. It’s not a situation where I’m looking to nail art to the walls. I don’t need to spend 75 dollars buying this one shower curtain because it manages to both fit into the more “feminine” styling I want but color coordinates well with lab equipment. Why do I feel like I have to put my geek on display in a room which is really only used to “shit, shower and shave”?
I think the turtles are somewhat special compared to these other shows. Most of the other comic-cartoon adaptations on tv started a few decades before as comics and already had a large following. The Power Rangers part of a longstanding tradition of adapting and repackaging products of Japanese pop-culture to appeal to Western tastes. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the other hand were entirely American conceived during my childhood. I think that’s why so many of the late 20-somethings I know proudly deck themselves out in TMNT gear and nostalgia. It’s ours and it’s pure candy for our viewing pleasure. The series doesn’t really explore deeper social issues like X-Men did and it doesn’t have the kind of heavy drama that Spiderman or Batman did. It didn’t try to propagandize us like Captain Planet did. DISCLAIMER: I’m not saying caring about the environment is bad but seriously let’s at least acknowledge that show was some heavy handed propaganda. Fern Gully too. Nope TMNT was just four radical dudes, who happened to be turtles, fighting crime and eating that American delicacy, the pizza pie. And they were a hit.
Anyway the book release, and main subject for this week’s scifriday post, is actually an urban fantasy book. The aforementioned “
They also have hyper-religious talking mice. Not the Disney varieties mind you; these mice don’t captain tugboats or sew pretty dresses. Aeslin mice spend their time either worshipping their religious figures (in this case our main character) or form hunting parties with some pretty serious hardware to kill other animals for religious feasts. Obviously you’d want to keep them away from the Gorgons. Despite being rodents, invasive of our main character’s privacy and congregants with a fanaticism that the Catholic Church would lust after, these characters are pretty much the most damnable adorable thing I’ve read about in ages. I totally want my own colony because their love for food and my love for baking would presumably go hand in hand quite nicely.
While it’s highly exaggerated in fictional form, there are a lot of real world scary “mad” science things we could be doing today that are prevented only by morality. We could, for example, clone a human being. Today. We have the technology. The implications of such an act are what keeps scientists from doing it. Rumors have emerged from time to time that China has done it – you choose to believe what you want there—but I don’t doubt that someday, someone somewhere, will toss consequences over his/her shoulder and actually make it happen. Which leads to another interesting question about this kind of “fringe” science: if we can do it, shouldn’t we do it since someone else will and at least doing it first means we can control what happens? Oh another delicious, delectable moral qualm that makes for amazing pieces of speculative fiction. I wonder how often this was discussed by the members of the Manhattan project. I really need to read more about that…. Damn it goodreads list, why do you keep growing??
My biggest frustration though with “mad” science is how often things get labeled as “Frankenscience” when the truth is so few people really understand the science they fear. Oh god. See right there? That can definitely be the refrain of someone who is “going mad” can’t it? But it has some truth to it. Like I said I majored in the field of Biotechnology and get very frustrated with people who hold strong opinions on the subject of genetically engineered food yet understand almost nothing about it. These individuals would most certainly call me a mad scientist for supporting certain applications of the technology—or for my personal desire to develop luminescent trees to line streetwalks with. Aside from how freaking pretty that would be, it’s like the ultimate form of green energy. Oh and yes I THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE SEEING AVATAR OKAY? Ironically enough, while we could clone a human being today, developing these trees is still outside our realm as I currently understand it. Many people are familiar with GFP, green fluorescent protein, which could work but requires a black light to be seen. From what I’m aware of, experiments that utilize luciferase (the protein that lets fireflies light up) have failed to produce enough protein to make any impact without overloading the cell machinery and killing the plants. Again though I haven’t looked into this in a few years and I really should read up on it.
“Take a large bowl. Fill it with equal measures of fact, fantasy, history, mythology, science, superstition, logic, and lunacy. Darken the mixture with bitter tears, brighten it with howls of laughter, toss in three thousand years of civilization….and drink… ‘And I will be wise?’ he asked. ‘Better’ I said ‘You will be Chinese’.”
My question in reading was: does ginseng ever get used in food dishes? I am familiar with a South Korean soup called “Samgyetang” which features a chicken stuffed with rice, a bunch of things I was unfamiliar with and ginseng. As it turns out this is a popular soup in Chinese cuisine as well—the Cantonese refer to it as Yun Sum Gai Tong—but since 99.999999% of all Chinese restaurants are American Chinese, you aren’t likely to find it on the menu. Some more authentic Korean spots will have it though but be warned that Ginseng is rather bitter. I tried my hand at making this soup at home inspired by the book and despite my best efforts you just can’t take away that slight bitter bite in the root. On the other hand that’s what means it’s good for you! The soup is supplemented with Jujubes, a sweet red date, ginger, garlic, rice and water chestnuts. I’m so glad I made it too. The weather has been unseasonably warm and over the weekend a cold snap came in to remind everyone that it’s still February and not to get so cavalier about winter ending. The day the cold hit I ran to my kitchen to get to soup making. My poor roommate came down with a fever literally the day after I brewed a batch of this stuff so I’ve been shoving it at him every time he emerges from his bedroom. It’s entirely selfishly motivated—I don’t want to get sick!
My week got pretty hectic the last, aw hell, the last month has been pretty hectic and so my post for Sword & Laser’s January book pick is late…. I guess there are worse things that could be late though, like say my period, which as I tried to explain to the good doctor was impossible unless I’m carrying the next Christ child but that’s a whole other story. This month I actually managed to read, and finish, the book selection for Sword & Laser. When I say read I should say devour. Old Man’s War is a fantastic fun scifi read from John Scalzi and it was also the inaugural download on my Kindle from Christmas. I’m glad I didn’t pop my e-reader cherry with something I found to be miserable (The Stress of Her Regard was my second download and I’m trudging through it on principle) and instead I whipped through this book in less than a week. Teenage me scoffs but adult, working with no free time me is impressed so shut up pompous teenage Olivia. Go hang out with 21 year old Will Wheaton and wane poetically about nerds and Nietzsche.
What you find out is that the human race is embroiled in a violent, bloody war of colonialism that makes Manifest Destiny look like a tea party. In our defense, at least this time we didn’t start it, but we sure as hell don’t intend to lose either. 99% of the conflicts are solved with bloody, bloody mutilating deaths and it turns out that most of the old farts who get a new lease on life end up dying during those teeny ten years of enlistment fighting an array of fantastically un-human like alien races. There are moments of gory terror, but for the most part the fight scenes are comical, right down to the depiction of Perry smashing an opposing force of Lilliputians that kind of fail at the hand to hand combat portion of one planetary squabble. This particular moment, though darkly funny, also makes you pause and wonder why so many people are so willing to fight these land wars. Doesn’t anyone object to the horror, the gore, the needless death? Scalzi manages to perfectly sum up through your journey with Perry why the CDF grunts keep fighting: each other. In the end it’s the bond between brothers and sisters of the military that makes them fight regardless of whether or not the cause is right, whether or not they individually believe in the cause (and some don’t) they fight to defend each other. The writing beautifully sums up the psychology behind military brotherhood without forcing the reader to agree.
