The Homemade Vegan Pantry: The Art of Making Your Own Staples

"Yes. Her first vegan cookbook came out in 1990. It was called the Now and Zen Vegan Epicure and it was based on recipes from her restaurant and her bakery that she had in San Francisco. Miyoko has a really interesting story. She grew up in California, went vegetarian quite young, moved to Japan , was vegan and started to sell vegan pound cake made with okara, which is a by-product of tofu making. Then, in 2012, she put out artisan vegan cheese. She really brought how to make different cheeses with nuts, as well as tofu, into the mainstream of vegan cuisine. She brought a little bit of fermentation into vegan cheese making and that really changed the game in 2012. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . In 2015, she put out The Homemade Vegan Pantry , which tells you how to make things like butter from scratch, meringue from flax seeds, stock, mushroom soups—things that you can make in a big batch, have in your house and that make your daily life a lot easier. But it also covers veggie burgers, granola, rolls, baguettes, veggie dogs, and yoghurt—all these things you’d go to the store to get, but she tells you how to make it from scratch. That’s her—her book and her work. She’s really now known as the CEO of Miyoko’s Creamery, which is a non-dairy butter and cheese company, mostly based with cashews. But in terms of her cookbooks, what she really did is show that you don’t have to buy things, you can make things. Miyoko is a lot more minimalist than Isa. The difference in their approaches is interesting. Isa’s is a very east coast, New York style and Miyoko’s is a very California style. Miyoko is like, ‘Look at these beautiful ingredients’. And Isa is like, ‘Here’s flavor and here’s how to cook for every holiday’. But Miyoko’s Homemade Vegan Pantry changed people’s minds about what it looks like to be vegan, and what it means to do vegan cooking from scratch. I think people assume that being vegan means restriction and it means a lot of processed foods. Miyoko goes against that grain, especially in this book."