Some Ingredients for Voyaging Vegetarians

Credit: Janette Watson
 

I believe that for all these years, although I didn’t realise it, I was eating a WFPB diet.  "A what?" you ask.  A "wholefood, plant-based" diet.  In fact, after being regarded as anything between rather weird to freakish for the past 45 years or so, I now find that I am a Trend Setter. Of course, in the late 60s and early 70s, when Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Sea Shepherd and so on were founded, many of us aimed towards minimising our actions that damaged the planet and wanted to avoid the excesses of industrial food. Plant based and whole foods were simply a logical extension of this. Sadly our views did not prevail and it’s taken half a century for the ideas to become mainstream.

A lot of people take up the concept of vegetarianism or veganism without really thinking it through. Obviously, a diet that eliminates animal products presents more challenges than an omnivorous diet and for that reason, it’s important to extract the most nutrition you can from your food. Eating white flour, refined sugar, polished rice, etc is not a good thing in any diet because fibre is important for a healthy digestive system. The other problem with refining so many of our foods is that we lose out on the micronutrients: the vitamins and minerals that play an essential part in our diet. Indeed, these highly-refined foods not only fail to deliver good nutrition, but they actually lead to many of our modern diseases; it’s not without reason that they are considered ‟pure, white and deadly”. In spite of the advertising, the missing nutrients cannot necessarily be replaced by supplements and taking too many supplements or taking them in the wrong proportions, can also lead to health issues. Our bodies have evolved to scavenge what we need from natural food: they are still perfectly capable of doing so. To this end, the best we can do is eat a varied diet, but in fact the Western diet is extraordinarily limited compared with that of the average hunter-gatherer. So too is the diet of the voyager, of limited means, lacking refrigeration and sometimes unable to shop for fresh food for days or weeks at a time. However, from my own experience, this seems to be more of a problem in theory than in practice: I enjoy the best of health, rarely get an infection, am an acceptable weight and have no need for any medical interventions. So a low-budget, vegetarian/vegan diet can obviously work. I like to try new things and I suspect it’s good to do so, to add more variety to one’s diet, but in truth I rarely think about the nutritional aspects of what I’m eating: I’m far more concerned about what it tastes like!

Flour: I always use 100% wholegrain flour, also known as wholewheat and wholemeal. There are many good nutritional reasons for eating wholegrain flour: it has more protein, essential B vitamins and wheat germ (which contains vitamin E), for a start. It’s also rich in fibre. However, the overwhelming argument in flavour of wholegrain flour is that it tastes better. There is simply no comparison between food made from the sterile, bleached, fortified powder that most people have been brainwashed into accepting as flour, and food made from the Real Thing. In fact it’s so different, that many people find it takes some getting used to. You need to be a little bit careful when purchasing in some places: labelling isn’t always very clear. Wheatmeal flour, for example, has most of the bran removed and if you buy ‛wholemeal’ bread mixes, the chances are that they will include about 30% white flour.

There was a time when wholemeal flour tended to be more expensive than white, strange though that might seem. However, these days it’s usually about the same price. If you find it difficult to adapt to wholewheat flour, I suggest you start off by adding a small amount to your white flour and then keep increasing the proportion until you get to appreciate the additional flavour and improved texture of wholemeal food. Most of my recipes can be made with the white stuff. As I use cup measures, the substitution should be straightforward, cup for cup. However, the bran in wholewheat flour may absorb more water than the pure starch of white, so you may need to use more of the latter. Different brands of wholewheat flour are milled differently and you will find that this too can affect your baking. When you use a new type of flour, mix your first dish with about 20% less than the recipe calls for and see what it looks like, before adding the rest. If you’re new to cooking, this may sound a bit worrying, but in truth, it’s only with bread that I’ve found that the different absorbency of flour seems to be much of an issue. Another thing about whole grain flour, again because it’s unrefined, is that it doesn’t keep as well as white flour. Hot climates are the worst and it will only usually last less than six months in the Tropics. It’s easy to tell when it’s gone off, even before it smells stale: the texture changes. It starts to clump together becomes flat and doesn’t hold air. You’ll know what I mean when you come across it. You also need to be aware that wholewheat flour is more subject to insect infestation than refined flour: insects aren’t stupid! If you buy it in bulk and in a warm climate, add a piece of toilet paper that has been soaked in meths/alcohol to the container, before sealing it. I don’t know how such a tiny amount of meths works as a repellent, but it does.

 

Gram flour, aka chickpea flour, garbanzo flour, besan:  While vegetarians who rely on eggs and dairy for a lot of their food may not use this very much, it is a flour much used by vegans, and also in Indian food.  (And, surprisingly to me, is found in Italian food, too.)  Gram flour has a much higher amount of protein than wheat flour, and if you want a nutritious thickening agent, that doesn't include flecks of bran, this is a great flour to use.  It doesn't take as long to cook as white flour, in sauces although while it's cooking, it often forms alarming lumps initially, it usually ends up creating a lovely, smooth sauce.  You can add it to bread, although I haven't tried and is often also used when making seitan.  Vegans use it in scrambled 'eggs' and omelettes.  I find the former far to dry, but am getting closer to an acceptable batter for an omelette, although I cannot imagine flour and water, however cunningly blended and seasoned, is ever really going to replace lightly-whisked eggs.  

Legumes: For vegans, for those vegetarians who prefer not to rely excessively on animal-derived food and for those who are watching their pennies, beans (aka legumes and pulses) are the basis of many meals. Thankfully, the old idea that you have to eat ‟complementary proteins” at each meal, is no longer held as a tenet of faith. Our bodies are actually very good at getting the nutrients they need. However, even if you’re unconvinced, all you need to do is to take ½ cup of beans, serve with ½ cup of rice, pasta or potatoes and you have all the proteins you require in one meal. Some foods that are becoming more popular, such as quinoa and amaranth contain all 9 essential amino acids anyway. In spite of the fact that most Westerners eat too much protein, many new to a vegetarian diet worry that they won’t be getting enough, so quinoa and amaranth can be added to your diet for reassurance in this matter. Legumes are really good food, with complex carbohydrates, dietary fibre, folic acid, iron, zinc, potassium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous and thiamine. Not bad, eh? I strongly recommend building your meals around them. Because they are somewhat bland on their own (although I could cheerfully sit down and eat a bowl of chickpeas, dressed with lemon juice, olive oil and black pepper), we tend to cook them with a variety of vegetables, herbs and spices. Perhaps surprisingly, herbs and particularly spices, are apparently full of Good Things which will also help to keep you healthy.

Beans are made for boats and were a staple in the days of sail. Their ease of storage and compactness are a purser’s dream. One cup of dried beans will provide four healthy servings. A 4 litre (1 gallon) container contains 64 servings. Compare this with the weight and the space required for the equivalent in cans. Beans have a long shelf life of at least a year and are readily available and inexpensive in most places. However, the other problem with refining so many of our foods is that we lose out on the micronutrients: the vitamins and minerals that play an essential part in our diet. A new variety may be a little different from what you’re used to, but most legumes of one size can be substituted for another of similar size. Whereas when you are buying an unidentified piece of meat you may end up with an unpleasant surprise, beans won’t let you down. Yes, they do need water for cooking, at a ratio of two parts of water to one of beans, but few boats are so short of water that this is an issue.

If you keep beans for a long time, and particularly in a hot place, they will take longer to cook. I recommend that you don’t keep them for more than a year. The only ones that I have found become impossible to cook are split peas and they refuse to soften. Split red lentils don’t appear to have the same issue, and nor have the various dal that I have on board, but it’s probably worth being more careful with these than whole beans.

Undoubtedly the best way to cook any whole legumes is in a pressure cooker. Admittledly, when they are split, they cook so quickly that it’s hardly worth it and the very small varieties, such as mung beans and lentils, can usually be cooked in about 30 minutes on the stove top, especially if you soak them first.  Most beans need soaking, but there is no need to soak them overnight.  I have found that the best method is to measure what you need into a bowl and then pour twice that amount of boiling water over them. In cold weather you can put them in the pressure cooker, again with twice their volume of water and just bring them up to pressure: that way they stay hot longer. After an hour they’re ready to cook. You can use the water you soaked them in, although some people prefer not to.  At sea when a bowl might slide, use the pressure cooker method.  Again, leave for an hour. And if you’re desperately disorganised, you can use Cathy’s Method, although it’s rather wasteful of water. Put the beans in the pressure cooker, with twice their volume of water, bring to pressure and cook for 1 minute. Let the pressure reduce naturally. Drain the beans and return to the pan with 2 parts of water to 1 of beans. Bring up to pressure and cook as normal.

I’ve given the pressure-cooking times with the description of the individual bean; it assumes a ‛standard’ pressure cooker of 0.9 – 1.1 bar (12 – 15 lb).  Not every pressure cooker manufacturer provides this information and you may need to experiment a little.  Apparently Indian pressure cookers come with a whistle that you can use to time your food. They sound quite wonderful, but I have yet to come across one.  Cooking beans conventionally, takes a lot longer.

There is a prevalent conviction that beans produce excessive intestinal gas, but I suspect this is only experienced by people who eat them rarely.  Moving to a wholefood diet that contains a lot of beans and fibre is a very different experience for your gut, if it is used to lots of meat and refined food.   However, your digestive system soon adapts and you have the added advantage that you diet prevents prevent constipation, which is often a problem for sailors on long passages.

In fact, beans are a healthy food and presently the darling of any magazine, book or website that discusses diet (or for that matter, Earth Overshoot, Climate Breakdown, Mass Extinction, or Inequality, because they add nitrogen to soil, use only a fraction of the land required to grow animals, need very little water compared with raising animals, and can be grown in many countries for both local consumption and export). They’re satisfactorily filling and can be made into soups, salads, stews or burgers, depending on your whims and the  weather. You can use them in an elegant quiche or a hearty hotpot and, best of all, these wonderful, versatile, efficient bundles of food are cheap. This means that you’re able to spend more on delicate fresh fruit and vegetables when they’re available – luxuries to the voyager, after a long passage.

Beans are great seagoing food, because they’re so easily made into one-pot meals in a pressure cooker, in rough conditions or if the cook feels squeamish and not that keen on cooking. They require very little attention in storage and result in minimal rubbish. If you can’t find enough inspiration in the recipes on this blog, to provide interesting and varied meals, based on pulses, then you’re not really trying. And of course, there are a million more recipes on the Internet.

Beans come in an assortment of shapes and sizes and in a surprising variety of tastes and textures. I make no apologies for saying that you can consider them a direct substitute for meat. Admittedly, you can’t chuck a cup of kidney beans into the frying pan for ten minutes before serving them on a plate with some potatoes and carrots, but for much of the time, cruising people are eating meals like pasta with sauce, or stew, for which pulses are ideal. There are so many that it’s hard to know which to mention, but I’ll give a brief description of the legumes that I use and that you're most likely to encounter. 

Black beans are a staple in Brazil. They are much smaller than red kidney/pinto etc and are oval- rather than kidney-shaped. They are much loved by new vegans and seem to be used extensively in burgers. As might be expected from their South American origin, they complement tomatoes, avocados and chilli peppers. Less predictably, they also seem to go very well with cabbage. They require soaking and cooking for 10 to 15 minutes.  They're generally easy to find in cans.

Black-eyed peas are very quick to cook, because they don’t need soaking. They’re usually quite small and are beige-coloured, with a black ‘eye’ on one side. They have a slightly sweet, nutty flavour and, cooked correctly, a pleasantly firm texture. Because they provide a dark brown coloured stock, they enhance the appearance of stews and curries. You can substitute them for haricot/navy beans in many recipes. Cook them for 10 minutes in a pressure cooker.

Butter beans/Lima beans These are flat in section, cream-coloured and truly kidney shaped. They come in several sizes: I particularly like the baby ones, but the large ones are splendid in a winter stew. These beans cook to a soft and floury consistency and are especially suited to rich-tasting sauces like ratatouille, where they soak up the flavours. Cook them for 10 to 15 minutes in a pressure cooker. Small ones sometimes don’t need soaking; in which case cook them for 15 minutes. You can also buy a small, green variety, sometimes knows as flageolet beans, which are apparently harvested before they are completely dry: hence the delicate colour. These look very pretty in a cream sauce or quiche.  Butter beans are commonly sold in cans in the UK, but are not always easy to find elsewhere.

Cannellini beans These are like large haricot (navy) beans and are popular in southern Europe and North America.  You can use them interchangeably or instead of butter beans.  They are a little more floury than haricot beans and are superb at absorbing flavours.  Cook them for 10 to 15 minutes in a pressure cooker.  They're often found in cans and jars.

Chickpeas/garbanzos are possibly my favourite and are, of course, an essential element of hummus. (Hummus bin tahini translates to chickpeas with sesame spread.) They look like cream-coloured hazelnuts and can either be cooked to stay firm or softened almost to a purée. They have a distinctive flavour, which for some reason seems to be made to go with mushrooms, olive oil, tomatoes and garlic (not necessarily all together!). They’re also good in pilau and curries.  They always require soaking and need cooking for 15 to 20 minutes at pressure. They come in a variety of sizes and given the choice I would go for larger ones. Bengal gram/kala chana are a less common, Indian version. They have much thicker skins and hold their shape even after 30 minutes at pressure. I adore them in curry, but can imagine that for some people they would be an acquired taste. Chickpeas are commonly found in cans and jars.

Lentils, split (red) are the skinned and split version of small, brown lentils. They make excellent sauces and dal curries and superb soup. These don’t need soaking and take 10 minutes in a pressure cooker, but it’s hardly worth the effort as they only take 25 minutes, cooked conventionally. All split legumes are inclined to froth up when they’re being cooked. A tsp of cooking oil will usually prevent this, but it’s another reason not to cook them in the pressure cooker.

Lentils, whole come in two basic types. The larger, flatter types, known as green and brown lentils, have a slightly different taste and texture from the smaller ones (from which the split lentils come). These smaller ones have skins colours varying from light brown to black. The green-grey speckled ones, known as French lentils (and appellation controlée and much more expensive as Puy lentils), are my personal favourite. Spain and Italy have their own similar varieties with brown skins. The black ‛beluga’ lentils seem to take more cooking, but are very exotic looking. All are delicious and interchangeable in recipes. These pulses are excellent for pasta sauces, in fact, you can use them wherever a meat-eater would normally use mince. They can be cooked so as to keep their shape and texture, or right down to a purée. These don’t need soaking and take 10 minutes in a pressure cooker and from take 35 to 45 minutes, cooked conventionally.

Mung beans and urhad dal (which look like black mung beans) are popular in Asian and some East European countries.

 

Red kidney beans are another of my favourites. They are, of course, excellent in a chilli sauce – sin carne – so much so that they’re often known as chilli beans. However, they can be used in ‘dry’ dishes with rice and vegetables and make a delicious burger substitute in the form of refritos (see recipe). They range in colour from rose pink through to very dark maroon, and although known as kidney beans, are circular in section. Their flavour and texture are subtly different from the similar speckled pinto or borlotti beans. Pinto beans are pink, with brown speckles and borlotti beans are a sort of rust colour with grey speckles.  Sadly the speckles disappear when cooked.  Red kidney beans are an essential ingredient (along with black beans) of many South American recipes; these often have minimal meat in them and can easily be adapted to a purely vegetarian form. Kidney beans always require soaking and need cooking for 15 to 20 minutes.

 

Peas, split If I’m doing a lot of cold-weather sailing, I’ll make sure I have split peas on board. They make delicious soup and are good in other recipes, particularly dal curries. For some reason they seem to deteriorate much faster than other pulses until they become impossible to cook down to a ‘mush’, even in the pressure cooker, especially in warmer climates. They can become so hard that they simply refuse to soften, even after half an hour in the pressure cooker!  I haven't found that this happens with other split legumes, so given the choice, I would go for chana dal (split chickpeas), mung (moong) dal (split mung beans), also known as petite (yellow) lentils or toor dal (split pigeon peas), which are all better in dal dishes, anyway, assuming they are available. However, you might want green split peas for soup. Split peas don’t need soaking and take 10 minutes in a pressure cooker, but as mentioned above, are inclined to froth up. They only take 30 minutes, cooked conventionally. 

Peas, whole I have come across three varieties, fairly frequently: marrowfat, blue and pigeon.  Often, in bulk food stores, they are simply sold as whole peas.  Marrowfat peas are much larger than the others and are the ones that are commonly used in British 'mushy' peas, which you either love or loathe.  However, as one who loves mushy peas, any whole pea cooked long enough will break down to a delicious 'mush'.  Cooked in this way they can also be used to make excellent burgers, which need no binding agent, once they have cooled.  For those who miss their fish and chips, a mushy pea burger, seasoned with salt and vinegar is a good substitute - assuming of course, you like mushy peas and vinegar!  All whole peas are delicious in curry and I find they make a pleasant change from chickpeas.  Pressure cook for 10 to 15 minutes for firm peas and 20 minutes for 'mushy' peas.  'Mushy' peas are commonly found in cans in Britain and in the 'foreign food isle' in English-speaking countries. 

There are numerous other varieties of beans - apparently well over 500 - each with its own particular characteristic: experiment and find which ones you like. They look so attractive that they’re difficult to resist. The main problem is finding enough space and containers for 20 different types of pulse!

If you buy your beans in bulk, in a warm climate, assume that they have weevil eggs in them. You can eliminate the problem of their hatching out into adults with the sheet of toilet tissue, soaked in alcohol, trick. I strongly recommend that you do this in each of your storage containers. Weevils, if they get established, are a nightmare. 

 

Of course, neither vegetarians nor vegans rely solely on legumes. But voyagers don’t always have ready access to cheese and eggs, so often end up eating a largely vegan diet anyway. Nuts are a wonderful food, but are frequently expensive and I tend to use them more as a condiment than as the prime ingredient. They don’t keep that well in the Tropics – Brazil nuts and walnuts in particular, soon become stale and rancid.  If you want the basis of your main meal to be made solely from fresh vegetables, you would need a lot of them and in many places the variety islimited, the vegetables are not that fresh or they are expensive.  Beans make a good basis for your provisioning.  Once you’ve learnt to use them and realised just how versatile they are, you’ll be hooked.

 

Oil: I like to use olive oil with plenty of flavour.  This usually means Extra Virgin, although I am well aware that there is a lot of fake EVOO about.  If the one you usually buy isn't available, and you want to buy in bulk, I recommned buying one bottle of one that looks appropriate, taking it out of the shop and tasting it before buying more.

I also use pure, undeodorised coconut for curries.  It adds a delicious flavour and is usually cheaper than olive oil.  It can be difficult to find and the problem is made worse by the fact that coconut oil has become very fashionable for the health-conscious, which is pretty bizarre seeing that it has about the same amount of cholesterol as lard.  I don't recommend using it if you feel you should avoid cholesterol.  Because these people use it instead of other oils, they have demanded coconut oil that doesn't taste of coconut, which is not what I want for my curries.  Hoever, and Asian grocer will usually sell just simple, refined coconut oil.  It goes hard in a cool climate, so if you buy some in a bottle, it is worth while decaniting it into some sort of tub.  

Both e.v.olive oil and coconut oil can go rancid; if you decant into the same container, make sure it's thoroughly washed with very hot water before refilling it.

There are a zillion other varieties of cooking oil.  If your budget doesn't stretch to olive oil, sunflower oil is probably the best bet.

 

Salt: Because of the prevalence of high blood pressure, many people seem postitively scared of salt.  However, sodium is necessary for our health and we all need to eat up to a teaspoon of salt per day.  Another factor that we need to take into account is iodine.  This isn't found in many vegan food, with the exception of seaweed and indeed, even farmed food that you might expect to contain iodine, such as beef, may be deficient due to the way that soil has been depleted of its nutrients from intensive farming.  The best way to ensure having sufficient iodine is to use iodised salt.  I know a lot of 'healthfood' addicts shy away from anything with additives, but this is one we should embrace.  1/2 a teaspoon of iodised salt a day will give you all the iodine you need.  If you use seawater for cooking, bear in mind that there isn't that much iodine in what you are using.

 

Sugar: I don’t use sugar; I don’t like the flavour of white sugar and prefer to ingest at least some nutrition with my calories. Since living on my own, I have no sugar on board the boat, because I don’t make cakes, puddings and so on any more. I make the odd thing sweetened with honey, however. I realise most people enjoy a sweet treat, so am recommending what worked for me in the days when I did make sweet things for my skipper. I used to use brown sugar, honey or treacle/molasses. 

 

Brown sugar is a bit of a minefield, because all too often it is simply dyed white sugar. The real thing should be labelled Raw, Demerara or Barbados sugar: it is stickier than white and smells (and tastes) distinctly treacly. It also contains useful amounts of iron, calcium and thiamine, which can allow you to feel less guilty about your indulgences. Sugar is much more bulky than liquid sweeteners and if you spill a bit, it gets everywhere. The recipes therefore, nearly all call for honey or treacle/molasses (both of which contain valuable minerals), which can also be used on toast, pancakes and porridge, and are lovely in hot toddies.

 

I find the 'official' vegan attitude towards honey less than logical. While I agree that some commercial apiarists mistreat the poor creatures, shipping them around from one area to the other to fertilise mono-cultural crops, generally speaking, beekeepers love their charges and care for them, ensuring that they’re well fed and healthy before they go into hibernation. I don’t know any vegan who refuses to eat food that has been fertilised by bees from commercial hives, so if you are going to exploit that aspect of the bee, you might as well eat honey: I doubt many beekeepers would keep them just to help fertilise crops. This is, of course, my own opinion and you may beg to differ. In which case, please feel free to use sugar in the recipes where I use honey. I don’t use either Agave syrup or maple syrup. The first wasn’t generally available (or even known about!) when I used to bake and the second I found too expensive and that the strong flavour is a bit overpowering.

 

Vital wheat gluten: This strangely-named product is produced by washing flour until all the starch has been rinsed out. What is left is just about pure gluten, and in spite of so many people being convinced that they are gluten intolerant, this is actually a very nutritional and useful ingredient. It is high in protein, and when added to wholemeal flour, makes it easier to produce a better loaf without requiring a lot of kneading. 1 tbsp of wheat gluten to 1 cup flour, makes a great difference to the texture of the bread. Its other use is to make seitan, which is often used to mimic the texture of meat. A lot of people are trying to reduce their meat intake to a minimum, to release land presently used for pasture back to wilderness and to reduce the amount of methane produced from our farm animals. Giving up meat can be hard. I haven’t eaten a piece of meat for at least a decade, but even so, I think the comparison is perhaps a bit extreme. However, the texture of seitan certainly makes a pleasant change in my diet and is wonderful in something like a curry. It can also be used to make very acceptable sausages and burgers that can be flipped on a grill with the same confidence as the meat equivalent, unlike most bean burgers. I also have a wonderful recipe for chorizo, which tastes as good as that you can buy. The advantage of using seitan is that you can fill in some of the gaps in your veg(atari)an diet, without spending a lot of money or, for that matter, buying highly processed food. It’s also very cheap, if bought from a wholefood outlet. (I dare say it’s packaged in plastic and sold for a ridiculous mark-up in the ‛health food’ section of supermarkets.

Yeast extract: Marmite, Vegemite and Our Mate are almost unknown in USA. The merits of the various brands are passionately disputed by Brits, Aussies and Kiwis. It can be rather confusing. Marmite is British, but the name is also used Down Under for a product that looks and tastes (in my opinion) like slightly sweet axle grease. If you are a (British) Marmite aficionado and in the Antipodes, you need to look for Our Mate (say it with an appropriate accents and it sounds like 'our mite'. Geddit?) It comes in a ‛proper’ Marmite lookalike jar. Vegemite comes from Oz and both are essentially yeast extract, although Vegemite also contains some sugar. Yeast extract gives a warm brown colour and some extra flavour to dishes and is often a healthier alternative to stock cubes, which are often loaded with unnecessary salt, sugar and MSG. Yeast extract is a natural source of B vitamins and there is a rumour that if you eat enough, it puts mosquitoes off biting you. I have to say that in spite of ingesting fairly large quantities of it, I’ve never noticed that it makes any difference. Mosquitoes still manage to home in on me in vast hordes. To avoid accusations of favouritism, I use the phrase ‘yeast extract’, which can be read as either Vegemite or Marmite/Our Mate. Marmite is also made in South Africa and I consider it to be the closest to the Marmite I was brought up with in England. It is also sold in some places in New Zealand as S.A.Mite. (You will gather that the makers of the dreadful stuff that they make in NZ are – perhaps not surprisingly – very antipathetic to the Real Thing getting a foothold.)

Yeast extract spreads from smaller manufacturers, can often be found under a variety of names in supermarkets and a lot cheaper than Marmite. They are probably worth buying as a stock base, although I haven't found a decent-tasting one for years.