The day before the holiday, Stepmom called: "Plans have changed, dinner is local, can you make it and bring a "corn pudding?" A rare recipe request from her... Anxious to please, I said, "Sure!" never having made one. Then I discovered that it's butter, cheese, milk, and eggs (oh yeah, plus corn & cornmeal). Some social and culinary lessons learned:
(1) Don't Be Afraid to Veganize a Recipe (but, Plan a Backup)
I did research on the Internet, and found that there were generally two types of corn pudding. "Traditional" American (with as much dairy and eggs as you can pack in, and "Indian," which is more of a desert). Unfortunately, Mom's response to my voice msg. inquiry was "traditional." I almost called and asked for different side dish, but decided I'd still give it a try. The trick was not only going to be the substitutions to make it vegan, but I needed to do it in a crockpot (decided to do a Cranberry Chutney or Compote of sorts in another crockpot --- simple, lotta latitude for amount & type of ingredients, done it before, good backup if the corn pudding failed).
The ingredients I ultimately used (combining elements of a conventional oven recipe and crockpot recipes found online via Googling) and in some books: a corn muffin mix (2 boxes) that, although with ingredients I can't pronounce, appeared to be vegan (I was desperate), Tofutti Cream Cheese (rather than making my own.... Tofutti's was probably thicker), Spectrum Canola Oil Margarine (had a very buttery taste, no whey), canned creamed corn (which is just corn with cornstarch and water... jeez), canned corn (no time to make it all fresh), Ener-G egg replacer, buncha sugar, water, salt, and Vanilla Soymilk.
It worked... the biggest unforeseen downside was having to "babysit" the cooking more than I'd anticipated to insure the mixture "set" properly. I winged a lot of the ingredient amounts and, unfortunately, didn't keep records due to a general state of personal panic.
(2) Never Forget to Read All Labels
I was stunned to see that the Jiffy Cornbread mix boxes (most often recommended in conventional recipes), stacked in 5' lots at the conventional grocery store (no time to get to a "Health Food Store") contained "lard." Yucko. I usually make my cornbread and muffins from scratch, anyway, so this was quite a surprise.
(3) People Change At Their Own Speed; Give 'Em a Break
Bless my Stepmother.... going from obvious distaste that I was a vegetarian years ago (and forgetting I was vegan this time around), she made sure that ALL the vegetable dishes (not counting the stuffing) were vegetarian. This was a first. I thanked her thoughtfulness, and figured I'd work around it in a stealthy way. Unfortunately, one of my sisters told her in front of me, it wasn't all vegan, and I told Mom no problem... there was ample food.
The issue is recognizing that people do try to accomodate and when that happens, really needs to be appreciated. That she did what she did was an amazing change from the past, and it should have been respected by my sis. I'll be talking to her about this later. In my earlier less tolerant years, I would have been, well, less than tactful. It's important to realize that people grow at their own speed. During our "pre-chow down" prayer and "what are we thankful for" go around, I complimented her consideration in front of everyone.
(4) Don't Tell People it's Vegan until AFTER They Try Your Dish
This was REALLY COOL. For the first time, I said NOTHING about what was in or "not in" my recipe, although a couple of family members told me earlier that corn pudding was a favorite dish from their childhood. Man, was I nervous. As it turned out, I lucked out: the pudding was a big hit. Then, midway through dinner, I let the family know it had NO dairy, eggs, or butter, ("By the way, y'know that pudding you've been devouring... "). They were stunned. This approach had much much more impact on them then I'd ever seen before. Instead of having potentially negative pre-conceptions beforehand, they tasted & judged the dish on it's own merits. Biggest lesson I learned that day and an approach I plan to use from now on.
(5) Set a Good Example, and Wait Patiently... it May Take Years
One of my sisters, to my surprise (she does a lot of yoga and gives her new kids soy milk) had no turkey on her plate... I inquired, and she told me in private that she was experimenting with vegetarianism this past year, and she noted how much better her meditations were. I talked a bit about crockpot cooking as a solution to help her deal with daily mother stuff, and gave her a copy Howard's book "No More Bull" (with the over 100 vegan recipes).
As it turned out, the family wanted to finish what was in my crockpots for breakfast, so I said I'd pick them up in a week or so. The next day I found out by phone that she wanted to borrow one of the crockpots. "Of course!" I replied, smiling to myself, thinking that the dinner was quite the vegan success.
Heh heh heh....next step: send her some links to veg'n crockpot recipes (which I'll post on this blog when I do).
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