THE END OF THE RAW VEGAN DIET

Yes, it's finally over. I shall write about it in more detail when I have longer. In the meantime, here is the video of my post-diet lunch in the Hawksmoor. Life-affirming would be an understatement.

PS Don't be alarmed by length of video - it's half that length with music at the end. That's just how I roll.

Saf, Curtain Road

The one fillip to this bizarre experiment (and it is becoming, day by day, more bizarre) was the knowledge that Saf, the respected raw vegan restaurant in the east end, was just around the corner from my flat. The consolation that I was not the only person in this city who thought the concept of such a diet was anything but ludicrous offered me solace in those darker moments when I found myself seduced even by the lusty, crass allure of the kebab shop opposite. Let me tell you, that nondescript gobbet of flesh might as well be a rib of wagyu beef when, at midnight, you realise that you have eaten nothing hot, nor proteinaceous, nor truly delicious, for 10 days.

Of course, I had received mixed reviews about Saf. Some said it was wonderful, some said it was dire. (I'm not sure why I just wrote that. Surely the term "mixed reviews" intimates that opinions differed on the subject, so quite why I had to emphasize this in such a tautological manner I don't know. It must be the lack of protein. (NB lack of protein may lead to short temper and attention span)). But somewhere that so gauchely serves nothing but raw vegan food is always going to cause some controversy, and so off I went for lunch, in the hope that this eternal nightmare of salad and fruit (I'm afraid the will to 'try new things' disappeared along with my will to live) could be tempered by a lunch that was more remarkable than what I had been eating for the previous week. I wasn't entirely disappointed.

The restaurant itself sits on Curtain Road, just off Old Street. A long, clean room with a conservatory at the end, it is a pleasant space, but on this occasion it was also a very empty space. Perhaps Wednesday lunchtime is never the most rollocking of shifts in any restaurant, yet it struck me that Saf was plugging one small demographic. Of the estimated 180,000 vegans in the UK, let's reckon there are 15,000 in London (a generous assumption; surely most of them live in the woods). Then let's assume that of that 15,000, 1500 live in the catchment area of Saf (a more realistic figure - vegans tend to migrate to Hackney). Of that 1500, the number of them that are going to shaft £30 on lunch midweek is, well - there were about 5 of us in there.

I started with the beetroot ravioli with cashew herb ricotta (pictured above). It arrived quickly, as well it should have done, being raw (though there was some suspicious sizzling coming from the kitchen). It did not arrive, however, with the asparagus, carrot and fennel salad, balsamic figs and pumpkin oil, as promised by the menu. Instead it was accompanied by a pile of celeriac remoulade. This went completely over my head, as I had forgotten what it said on the menu (did I mention short attention span?), and so I piled into it uncomplainingly, being a big fan of remoulade anyway. The first mouthful was like nothing I'd ever tasted before, and as such was rather alarming. My recollection of the menu being as it was, the lump of stodge gluing together the two slices of beetroot was a complete mystery, and like putting any mysterious matter in one's mouth, unpleasant. Yet it won me over. Whether this was down to the rich meatiness of the filling, or my fetish for beetroot in any way, shape, or form, I don't know, but the dish was a great success, and as fulfilling a thing as I had eaten for some time.

Next I ordered a Pad Thai of courgette noodles with enoki mushrooms and mung shoots. Once again the menu had misled me, there being no mung shoots, replaced instead by manges tout (though this deception also escaped my notice until I looked at the menu later that day). It was pretty standard nosh for an experienced raw vegan like myself, consisting of those staple flavour-boosters of chilli, sesame, lime and coriander. It did, however, come with the added nudge of chipotle sauce, its rich smokiness adding a great deal of interest to an otherwise familiar plate. But something smelled fishy. Literally. And it was making me gag. It transpired that this rancid piscine whiff was coming from the seaweed that lined the bowl. It was like eating raw vegan food whilst someone wafted last month's sushi under my nose, and it ruined any enjoyment of an otherwise tidy and well-conceived dish.

So, as pleonastically predicted, Saf is a bit of a mixed bag. There is no doubting the inventiveness of the food, nor the skill in the not-cooking. For a vegan it is a triumph that such an impressive restaurant exists. But strip away the context and focus on the food and the food alone, and there is little that sticks with me besides the stench of seaweed clinging to my nostrils and the memory of the waiter's insistence on calling me 'mate'.

The perils of raw veganism and alcohol

I have a confession to make. I have not stuck completely to my raw ve-guns. This is what happened. I went to a friend's for dinner last night, already hungry from a day's disastrous eating - a lunch of thai coconut soup went awry when I had the mexico idea of trying to blend raw carrot and ended up with something like a cold curdled curry. The soup actually had potential. Coconut milk, ginger, chilli, lime zest and juice, coriander, grated carrot and cucumber. It tasted good - its texture was not. Later that afternoon, passing a grocer, I scooped up an apple - a bad apple, it turns out. I have always said that the definition of disappointment is biting into a furry apple. On this occasion that crunchless mouthful was less a case of disappointment and more one of abject despair.

So I was famished. But my transgression didn't come in the shape of food. No, I was tricked, heartlessly, mercilessly, wonderfully, into drinking bourbon, the sweet brown liquor slipped surreptitiously into a simple but delicious cocktail with cranberry and lime (Nic's invention, so says he). Bourbon is cooked, I was later told, and so I had technically slipped up. Technically. But I was not about to start feeling guilty - 9 days had passed and not a morsel had passed my lips that wasn't kosher. I was, however, about to start getting horrifically pissed. It transpires that drinking on an empty stomach is not a wise venture, and by the end of cocktail number one I was already feeling oiled. 5 hours later I was playing the piano in Last Days of Decadence on Shoreditch High Street. In my head I sounded like Rachmaninov. I probably sounded more like the submissions for the under 7s piano competition at Ripon Cathedral Choir School (there is some hazy recollection of chopsticks being wheeled out at one point). I certainly had a rip through my piano staple, Neil Young 'Till the Morning Comes'. Unfortunately when the morning did finally come, I found myself nursing the most almighty hangover since the fall of the Berlin Wall. If you did happen to be in Last Days last night, I apologise for ruining your evening.

While veganism might have stilted my own musicality last night, it certainly worked all right for some. Here is my ultimate vegan playlist, with Spotify to boot:

Meat Is Murder - The Smiths
Close to Me - The Cure
Get Gone - Fiona Apple
Porcelain - Moby
Monty Got A Raw Deal - R.E.M.
Lime in da Coconut - Harry Nilsson
My Sweet Lord - George Harrison
Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
Don't Get Me Wrong - The Pretenders
Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor

Spotify playlist: Vegan Vibe: http://open.spotify.com/user/jteramsden/playlist/35LZEwuBebIEHaxUbnT5KA

Raw vegan experiment - Week 1, done.

'Glosoli' - Sigur Ros

Raw vegan experiment - Day 6

'Music For A Nurse', by Oceansize

Raw vegan experiment - Day 5

'The Golden Age' - Beck

Beetroot salad with yogurt, lemon and cumin dressing


Serves 2

3 beetroots of varying varieties if you can find them
A pinch of ground cumin
1 tablespoon (soya) yoghurt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
A handful of parsley and chives, chopped
A shallot, peeled and sliced
Salt and pepper

Peel and slice the beetroot. Stir together the cumin, yoghurt, lemon juice and olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Arrange your beets on a plate and garnish with herbs and sliced shallots.

Raw vegan experiment - Day 4

'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' - The Smiths

Cold cucumber soup



If you try and pretend that you are indeed eating soup, and not just a big bowl of tzatziki, then this is really rather delicious. Perfect for a starter in the summer. Next summer.

Serves 1

A quarter of a cucumber
4 tablespoons soya yoghurt
1 small clove garlic, peeled and crushed
A handful of mint, coriander and chives, chopped
A good squeeze of lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Grate the 'cumber into a bowl. Stir in the yogurt, garlic, herbs and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and chill for an hour or so. Remove from fridge, check for seasoning and adjust with salt or some fresh tears, and eat.

Raw vegan experiment - Day 3

Couscous salad with cherry tomatoes and chilli


I'd never done couscous using cold water, and I have to say that I was not convinced it would be a success when told about it by my mate Dave. I'm thrilled to say that not only was it great, I actually preferred the texture to couscous done with boiling water. So there.

Serves 1

A handful of couscous
150ml water (or thereabouts)
A few cherry tomatoes, halved
1 chunk of cucumber, roughly chopped
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
A good handful of mint and coriander, chopped
Juice of half a lemon
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Stick the couscous in a bowl and pour over the water. Leave for 15 minutes (the couscous, not the room - it's not that coy).

Fluff with a fork then add your other ingredients, seasoning with salt and pepper and olive oil. Devour like a crazed animal.

Banana and blackberry smoothie



Makes about a litre

3 bananas
A big ol' handful of blackberries
150g oats and seeds
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons soy yoghurt
200ml orange juice
Dried berries - raisins, cranberries, woteva

Stick everything but the dried berries in a blender and, you know, blend. You could sieve it if you are worried about having bits in your teeth for a week (I personally consider the detritus between my molars a cheeky mid-morning snack).

Chill for an hour and pour into a glass with a handful of dried berries on top.

Raw vegan experiment - Day 2

Gazpacho

Makes 2 large portions, serves 4-6 as a starter

2 large tomatoes
300g passata
1 red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
1/4 cucumber, roughly chopped
1/4 red onion, roughly chopped
1 small clove garlic, roughly chopped
1 red chilli, deseeded and, you guessed it, roughly chopped
A handful of herbs - parsley and basil, a little rosemary
Salt, pepper, sugar
Olive oil
White wine vinegar, about a tablespoon



Peel the tomatoes by putting a cross in the top with a sharp knife, then leave them in boiling water for a minute. The skin should then come straight off. Quarter them and remove the seeds.

Put the tomato flesh, passata, cucumber, onion, garlic, chilli and herbs in a blender. Season with salt, pepper and sugar and add a dash of olive oil and white wine vinegar. Blend.

Chill for an hour in the fridge and serve with a blob of pesto.

Raw vegan experiment - Day 1

Tagliatelle of courgettes with pesto and black olives



It might seem a little pretentious to be calling this 'tagliatelle', but for all intents and purposes the courgette was a replacement for pasta.

Serves 1

A big handful of basil leaves (no stalks)
50g pine nuts
1 crushed garlic clove
Juice of half a lemon
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
(N.B. - you will have pesto leftover. I intend to plonk mine in some gazpacho)
A few black olives, roughly chopped
2 small courgettes
Tarragon vinegar

Make the pesto by whizzing together the basil, pine nuts, garlic and lemon juice. Blend in olive oil until you have a loose-ish consistency. Season with pepper and salt.

Take a vegetable peeler and peel the courgettes down into strips. Toss through the pesto and olives, add a dash of vinegar, and serve.

Rocket and beansprout salad with chilli lime dressing



Again, genuinely tasty, though would have benefited from having a whacking great chargrilled steak sitting proudly atop it.


Serves 1

For the dressing
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon sesame oil (not strictly allowed, I since discovered, though just painting an honest picture. Replace with sesame seeds if being strict)
Dash of soy sauce
Dash of fish sauce (both technically fermented, I believe)
1 red chilli, finely chopped (I wouldn't recommend using a habanero as I did. A little too pokey)
1 small clove of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon chopped coriander
A pinch of sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
(NON-VEGAN RECOMMENDATION: I have done this dressing before with yoghurt and it's delicious that way too)
For the rest then
Rocket leaves
Beansprouts
Some finely sliced red onion
A few coriander leaves

Make the dressing by whisking together the ingredients. Taste and adjust with a little more oil, sugar or lime juice if needed.

Assemble the salad leaves, sprouts and onion, and drizzle over the dressing. Garnish with a few coriander leaves. Try not to cry yourself to sleep.

Raw power

Today I start a two-week raw vegan diet and I'm beginning to wonder why. It all started a few months ago when discussing raw veganism with Frank 'Aloe Vera Frankie Baby' Bryant. Frankie told me that it was a diet that he had done often, and that it had the most extraordinary effect on him, not only making him healthier of body but also of mind and spirit. A child once came up to him in the street and hugged him, seemingly due to the spiritual energy vibrating through his very being. In a somewhat Thatcherite manner (and therefore not particularly raw or vegan), he needed only 4 hours sleep a night. There were clearly benefits to such a diet.

But come on - raw and vegan? Just raw I could probably manage, quite happily living off sushi and salads for a couple of weeks. Were it only vegan I might get by as well (only for those two weeks, mind). Toast with tahini and jam for breakfast, vegetable curries and pastas and the like...it would be very doable. But both at the same time? This ain't going to be a picnic (and quite frankly, what would a picnic be without a pork pie and a doorstop sized hunk of cheese?).

But I like a challenge, and seeing as I'd been doing a bit of writing for a vegan magazine called Off The Hoof (whilst remaining firmly ensconced in omnivorous territory), I decided to mix business with displeasure, and embark upon this fortnight of gastronomic insanity, all the while recording its effect on my mind, body and soul.

The implications on the mind and soul will, I imagine, become clear as time progresses. There are all sorts of lofty and wafty theories out there in the ether, suggesting that I will reach spiritual enlightenment, and that my connection with Mother Earth will intensify holistically, her bounty and succour becoming one with me, as I chomp through everything she has to offer without even bothering to cook the stuff.

As for the body, there are two schools of thought. Although I am doing this principally as an experiment to challenge both my willpower and culinary creativity, I'm not going to pretend the supposed positive benefits to my health won't be a bonus. Should the experiment be a success, I will have increased energy, better skin, and better digestion (sounds ominous). I should also lose some weight (a brief perusal of the last few posts should indicate that this can only be a good thing), and my risk of heart disease will decrease. I have a feeling that two weeks is not going to have a huge effect on my heart, though as someone once said, every little helps.

The bad news then. I am likely to suffer a detoxification reaction involving headaches, nausea, and cravings. Considering I crave meat and cheese at the best of times, God only knows the level of longing that will be pawing at my (supposedly composed) brain after a few days of this. I am also likely to be deficient in calcium, iron, B12, protein and calories. So quite where all this 'energy' is supposed to be coming from I'm not sure.

But it's the anthropological arguments that I find most fascinating. A vegan (and raw vegan at that) would argue that our ancestors ate everything raw, and therefore so should we. They have clearly never heard of the theory of evolution. Our ancestors lived in caves, wore loin cloths, communicated in grunts, gnawed at raw flesh, interbred, and then died somewhere in their twenties. Not the greatest yardstick by which to conduct life in the 21st century.

As the brilliant Jeffrey Steingarten points out in his equally brilliant The Man Who Ate Everything, neanderthal became homo sapiens when he worked out that a grilled mammoth steak tasted and digested better than a raw one. Health improved, brain power developed, and the neanderthal ceased to exist, remembered only as an idiom for crudeness and vulgarity. Sort of like Jordan, only better looking.

What Steingarten also explains, is that the notion that 'raw = healthier' is not only utterly misguided, but actually often contrary to the truth. Many foodstuffs are harmful until cooked. We've just about worked that out with things like potatoes and rice, yet continue to extol the virtues of raw spinach, broad beans and broccoli. It doesn't seem to make sense.

Nevertheless, in the coming two weeks I shall try to make sense of it, and will keep a day to day video diary of my progress on this site.


In the meantime, any suggestions for good raw vegan recipes (surely you have hundreds of them?) would be much appreciated.

Agony Lout

A new initiative -



Get in touch via email, comment, or even by sending me your own videos, and let's make blogging a two-way experience.

Coeur blimey!

The monthly freezer lottery has always been cause for intrigue and mystery. Yesterday, however, it made the leap from such a level to one of utter bewilderment and, ultimately, elation. For this indiscernible lump of meat that I had pilfered from home God knows when had been the subject of head scratching for quite some time. There were varying theories. (Please don't think me foolish or ignorant, though I may be both - something frozen is much harder to decipher than something fresh, that's why the yardies keep bodies in freezers). One theory was that it was a lamb's neck. Not wildly idiotic. Sure, it was a little stouter than a lamb's neck, but we were ball-parking. Perhaps it is shin of beef, we ventured. Again, possible, though unlikely. It looked somewhat offally, and yet it wasn't a kidney, and it certainly wasn't liver.

"Well it's something edible," I said to my sister as I pulled it out of the freezer on Sunday evening, "and whatever it is, we can eat it tomorrow night."

It was with a mixture of trepidation and excitement that I opened the fridge door yesterday morning to see what was in store for supper. We had friends coming, see, and while somewhat tickled by the prospect of serving a giant bollock to people who had probably eaten far worse at Notting Hill Carnival that day, I wasn't particularly enamoured by the idea of chowing down on that particular gland myself, much less so working out how to cook the bloody thing. But it wasn't a bollock. It was a heart. A sinewy, fatty, wobbly heart. A once beating heart. My own heart was suddenly beating rather faster than before. I was exhilarated.

But what to do with it? I consulted my latest cooking hero, Henry Harris, for inspiration. Henry is the chef at Racine in South Kensington, a restaurant at which I have eaten only once, but whose steak tartare will remain forever seared on my memory as the finest I have ever devoured (beating the first one I ever ate at La Coupole in Paris - a dish I had ordered erroneously as an ignorant 14-year-old, in the belief that I was going to be fed a cooked steak. I didn't regret my mistake). Henry's advice was, inevitably, sound, unpretentious, and made me salivate just reading it. He suggested: "stuff it with breadcrumbs, anchovy, garlic, rosemary, lemon zest and chilli". It was the word 'stuff' that got me. Anything that is stuffed is delicious, n'est ce pas?

So I set to work after a lunch of leftover mac and cheese, dividing the ventricles (that's right, ventricles) and working out how I was going to slip this behemoth of a ticker past some potentially fussy guests. On the one hand, I decided, it would be pretty outlandish to serve unsuspecting visitors some 'beef' before savagely revealing, like Titus Andronicus, that they had in fact just wolfed down an ox's heart (or, in T.A.'s case, their own children). But I didn't much fancy the other option. To go in all guns blazing and telling the bastards what was on the menu in advance would only make them prejudiced, and much, much less likely to enjoy their dinner. So I told them it was beef, and that they had to guess which cut it was. The freezer game began anew.

"Shin?"

"Nope."

"Neck?"

"Nope."

"Bollock."

"Bingo!"

"Really?"

"Nope.....it's actually heart."

Natalie's face fell; her fork, now half way to her mouth, fell with it. Then something wonderful happened. For only the briefest of reflections led our collective to reason thus: it tasted good before we knew it was heart, why should this recent enlightenment change anything? I suppose you could use this reasoning for something rather less savoury, such as eating a dog, but I think in this case my logic stands. As Brits we are irrationally squeamish about food. Bollocks and brains I can kind of understand, but besides that I don't really think much should be avoided. I guess that's all I've got to say on the subject. Anyhoo, here's what I did. Ta Henry.

Braised Ox Heart with Polenta and Salsa Verde

Serves 6

1 Ox Heart, about 1.5kg
50g breadcrumbs
A handful of parsley
2 sprigs of rosemary
Zest of a lemon
1 red chilli
6 anchovy fillets
12 rashers of streaky bacon

1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
Half a bottle of red wine
500ml beef stock

For the salsa verde
A big handful of flatleaf parsley
1 sprig rosemary
A small handful of tarragon
A shallot
2 plump cloves garlic
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
4 anchovy fillets
1 tablespoon capers
5 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of a lemon

For the polenta
200g polenta
1.5 litres water
100g grated Parmesan
50g butter

Salt and pepper and all that jazz.

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Finely chop the herbs (first removing the stalk from the rosemary), the chilli (first removing the seeds) and the anchovies, and mix with the lemon zest and breadcrumbs, seasoning with salt and pepper. Gingerly open up the heart between and press in the stuffing. Wrap securely with the bacon.

Peel and slice the onion and squish the garlic (leave the peel on). In a large saucepan heat some olive oil and soften the onion with the garlic, until lightly caramelised (seasoning first, of course). Add the heart to the pan before sloshing over the wine and stock. Bring to the boil, pop a lid on top and slip into the oven. Cook for 4-5 hours.

Meanwhile crack on with the salsa verde, finely chopping the herbs, shallot, anchovies and capers, and crushing the garlic. Mix together with the mustard, lemon juice and olive oil. Season with pepper (no salt, due to the saltiness of the anchovies and the capers), cover and refrigerate until needed.

45 minutes before you're ready to serve, bring the water to the boil with 2 teaspoons salt. In a steady stream, pour in the polenta, whisking continuously. Stir for 10 minutes, then cook for a further 30, stirring regularly and topping up with water as and when needed. Remove the heart from yon oven and rest.

Stir the butter and Parmesan into the polenta and taste for seasoning. Serve with slices of heart, a dollop of salsa verde, and a watercress salad. I'd show you the snaps, but I've only gone and lost the friggin laptop lead.

So would you try this recipe? Honestly? I'm curious to know. I know that I wouldn't have necessarily searched out a heart for my tea, but I'm thrilled I did. A lesson, I hope, that I - that we - should all be more adventurous in the kitchen.