Hippycore Krew – Soy not Oi! Volume 2 (Active Distribution)

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Hippycore Krew – Soy not Oi! Volume 2 (Active Distribution)

It's great when an idea takes on a life of its own. Soy not Oi! Vol 2 employs a cast of thousands over more than 300 pages in a loud, proud collective vegan punk voice. Hippycore Krew split the book into traditional sections, with Maximum Rocknroll-style columns on veganism. Its recipes always maintain simplicity, accessibility and achievability

Brilliant ideas pour from its pages – from braising carrots in tarragon and maple syrup, to Jerusalem artichoke gnocci, to pushing out the boat with a lime and coconut cheeezecake on a gingersnap crust. And it serves as a practical go-to guide for vegan cookery tips, like making your own seitan, egg replacers or pressing tofu.

Articles like Freegan in Brooklyn, canning tomatoes, or making your own deodorant and even anti-fungal footpowder certainly push the envelope. As does an exhaustive chapter on home brewing.

Volume 2 follows its predecessor by 25 years; the original span out of the 1980s anarchopunk movement when punk vegan cookbooks were a rarity – the Hippycore Krew used DIY means of production and the postal system to give vegan ideas a global reach.

But rather than being pragmatically vegan, Soy not Oi! Vol 2 often perches itself on the fence, allowing a shared space for vegans and non-vegans and to open fresh debate about cruelty-free life-style choices without taking a more pragmatic, and exclusive, approach. However, this middle ground is a a sign either an unwillingness to condemn or fear to fully commit.

That said, Soy not Oi! Vol 2 explodes with ideas and explores territory no other vegan cookbook has dared to venture. We await Volume 3 with baited breath....

Available through Active Distribution

Joshua Ploeg – This Ain't No Picnic (your punk rock vegan cookbook) [Microcosm Publishing]

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Joshua Ploeg – This Ain't No Picnic

If punk is about painting a big picture on a limited canvas, then this book is punk as fuck. Whether these recipes work for you or not (and I'm just suggesting here that a coffee pot curry or zippo lighter s'mores will not), This Ain't No Picnic is full to bursting with energy and enthusiasm – you can't help but get involved. “Punks get innovative when missing ingredients, gear or an oven” Joshua says, “now you can too.” This Ain't No Picnic doesn't present clear solutions, rather it's a riotous, chaotic, colourful roadtrip with a raucous, boundlessly positive travelling chef at the wheel.

For punks who have had to cook on the cheap, on the road or on mind-altering chemicals, this is jam packed with brilliant ideas. For example, Joshua has provided a hilarious chapter on cooking (quite literally) on the road: Alongside dashboard kale chips and soaked Thai noodles, the potentially lethal Engine Block Casserole comes with a warning – “Should take an hour or so driving around,” he says. “I don't mean tooting round town either. I mean a real drive... And if you fuck it up, well don't blame me because no-one should ever cook on their engine!”

Or how about the chapter on improvisation: Credit card chopping makes sense if you're putting together an Italian salad sandwich, and stovetop pizza is an efficient way of heating and cooking together. Ideas for a spinning out a bag of flour and little else is perfect sense for when the money isn't coming in. Joshua even devotes an entire chapter to dumpster ingredients. And why the fuck not?

Joshua gets a friend to introduce each chapter, and in true DIY spirit, each friend has a role in the punk community around him. And to emphasise the point, each chapter comes with a playlist, which ranges from mainstream classics to obscure local punk bands.

Whether you pick up This Ain't No Picnic for cookery tips, recipe ideas of just for its mad sense of fun, this book is a milestone in punk rock vegan cooking.

Available through Active Distribution

The Vegan's Guide to People Arguing with Vegans

Brilliant and highly original non-vegan argument against veganism heard at work today:

"I couldn't live on a vegan diet - I need something I don't have to chase around the plate."

Celia Granata: Mama Tried: Traditional Italian Cooking for the screwed, crude, vegan and tattooed (Microcosm)

Traditional Italian food is much, much more vegan-friendly than mainstream cookery lets on – it holds simplicity and emphasis on fresh ingredients, and often without the focus on meat at the centre of the plate.

Mama Tried draws mostly from fresh ingredients, and leaves the reader to go and find local, seasonal fruit and veg. Cecilia rarely reaches for substitutes for animal products; with the exception of seitan stew with porcini mushroom, vegan goat’s cheese (using unsweetened vegan yoghurt), or tofu skewers. Throughout, Mama Tried strives for the simple and achievable – sweet and sour onions, “aphrodisiac” asparagus or the excellent tomato and olive bread rolls.

Cecilia badges herself as a vegan tattoo artist, who grew up cooking with her family in Italy.

With a librarian-like love of organising, categorising and menu-building, Cecilia presents exquisite ideas for dinner – try potato croquettes, Sicilian vegetable stew and fresh fruit tart, as well as exceptional stand-alones such as frittatas or chilli pepper truffles. Now based in California, Cecilia has oodles of ideas for burgers, which are countered by heaps of summer and winter salads. Sometimes Mama Tried verges on the bizarre (strawberry risotto anyone?), but often the sublime (tiramisu or “Not Nutella”!).

With a clear, fun, design from a tattoo artist’s hands Mama Tried sits equally on the kitchen bookshelf or coffee table. If I've a criticism of this excellent book, it's the absence of photography – a I'm sure food fans would much prefer to see the results of her labours.

 (available through www.turnaround-uk.com)