The book, The Inspired Vegan, is a cookbook that specializes in vegan recipes.It’s author is Bryant Terry who has authored and been part of creating multiple cookbooks like Vegan Soul Kitchen. Bryant Terry is also a food justice activist, which can be seen as in this cookbook, when he says he is “contributing to one of the most hopeful movements of the 20th century–food justice!”(xvi) in the prologue of the book. 

The Inspired Vegan was published in 2012. Veganism was getting high praises during this time from people like Ellen DeGeneres. Making vegan recipes needed more, but also advertising it to the people that enjoy watching Ellen DeGeneres’s show. The main audience of the book are the main audience of the show, middle class and up families and people who would have the time to make the majority of the recipes.  While the time may be important to make these dishes, the skill level does not need to be high to make these. It can be seen that it does not need to be high because the author takes time dedicated to talk about deepening the flavor of dishes, good fats, salts and acids. All beginning early in the book, pages 4-7 about the topics. 

In the beginning of the cookbook, Terry covers a little bit on health. He talks about good fats and how to use them.  But he also assumes a lot about the people reading the book, he says “if you are reading this book, i assume you already know about the immense health benefits that come along with consuming dark leafy greens such as collards, kale, spinach, and swiss chard”(15). So the topic of health is covered enough to give people and idea that these are healthy.

The ingredients and techniques used do not lead us to really anything interesting time period wise as they are all newer methods, coinciding with the publishing date of 2012. But the ingredients do lead us into the type of audience that Terry wants. Him saying that the “vegetables that i grow in my own garden and food i buy from my local farmers market influence the recipes in this book”(xix) show that he wants people to use the same, or should want to try to. The people who have the ability to use these same ingredients would make the audience more of a middle class one. These would also be more suburban receding families because they would have more space to grow these ingredients and have an ability to go to farmers markets that are fairly local.

One interesting thing about The Inspired Vegan is that the recipes have soundtracks and books with them. Bryant Terry could be seen as attempting to reach an audience that either call themselves enlightened or are attempting to be.  In his prologue he says he hopes that “ you will be equally informed about black and brown kids starving in the hood, animals being brutalized in factory farms, and tomato pickers being exploited in Florida” (xix). This is an interesting topic to attempt to cover while in a vegan cookbook, because to me it seems as though it must step outside the bounds of general cookbook recipes to cover this. The people who would enjoy these are people who like to distinguish themselves from others, while most would be satisfied with just the recipes, this reaches those who want to feel enlightened.

The author in his prologue wants people to use food from local farmers markets and want to avoid the use of canned food. Terry even says “if you are cooking up quick home cooked meals during the week and you don’t have a lot of time, it’s fine to use good quality canned beans”(21), but before this it was assumed that the reader wouldn’t use canned food.  The cookbook has an introduction for each type of food. So if the food is southern food, Terry discusses on a few pages before the recipe why he chose this type of food and why it’s important to him. And he also does this for his south Asian food. While his southern cooking is not exactly the soul food we a

ll know, he addresses this by saying in his introduction of it that he “Wants to challenge people to move beyond obvious ingredients and dishes and discover the hidden narrative of African American cooking”(41). But this hidden narrative reaches back to the idea of cooking enlightenment, because he doesn’t want you to just use different ingredients, he wants you to know about why soul food is like that as well. Most of the people that would be reading this book may have experienced soul food, but not the extent to understand soul food.

The biggest topic that we’ve covered in class that Terry also covers is food identity. Terry writes about the book and gives it music and a book to go along with it.  Helping people identify to the food more. He wants the recipes to be welcoming to those making them, and he wants them to feel a part of it by using the music with it.  The identity created with the music is one of enlightenment, or idealism. That if you are cooking some type of food it you should be connected to it.

 

 

 

Citations:

Terry, B. (2012). The inspired vegan. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Lifelong.

staff, f. (2019). Vegan Diet: How to Get the Nutrients You Need – familydoctor.org. Retrieved from https://familydoctor.org/vegan-diet-how-to-get-the-nutrients-you-need/

Recipes, S. (2019). Sol Kissed Recipes – The Sol Kissed Vegan. Retrieved from http://www.solkissedvegan.com/recipes/