Vegetarian Ranchwife

I have vivid memories of my family’s first Thanksgiving with a turkey. After watching my parents reaching into a dead bird’s body cavity, my sisters and I swore we’d never let them touch us again. I was six or seven years old and my entire life our family had been largely vegetarian.

We were Seventh-day Adventists, a Christian denomination that formed in the late nineteenth century. An early member, John Kellogg, father of breakfast cereal, influenced leaders to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. I’ll hold back on a full geek-out on vegetarianism in religious communities. For those who are interested, you can read Ronald Numbers, Prophetess of Health: Ellen G. White and the Origins of Seventh-day Adventist Health Reform (University of Tennessee Press, 1992); Jeremy Rapport’s article “Eating For Unity: Vegetarianism in the Early Unity School of Christianity” (Gastronomica, 9:2, Spring 2009). Or you can watch the very funny 1994 film, The Road to Wellville, starring Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Broderick, Bridget Fonda, John Cusack, Dana Carvey and Colm Meany. It’s pretty much the same thing.

In the late 19th century, adopting vegetarianism was a counter culture move for religious communities. Such a radical break from the typical American diet required significant energy into finding alternative menu items. The Adventist medical community in Loma Linda, California pioneered a Vegetarian cuisine, putting forward different nut loaves as meat substitutes. The 1988 cookbook, Quick and Easy Cooking, puts forward the Special K Loaf as the centerpiece of “The All-American Family Dinner.” Two pints of cottage cheese, a cup of chopped walnuts and a 12 oz box of Special K cereal, and you have a vegetarian answer to meatloaf.

As a substitute for the Thanksgiving turkey, my grandmother, made Schmu, some kind of gluten roast that cooked to a beautiful glistening golden brown that resembled a turkey, but, as my dad describes it, had the texture of an old tire. Luckily, my own family adopted a Cashew Loaf for our vegetarian Thanksgivings, a dish that remained central even after we added turkey to the menu.

My mom picked up the recipe in Thailand, where my parents were missionaries in the late 1970s. The recipe my mom wrote out for me credits Sunee, our family cook while we lived there. As I look over the recipe, the nuts, bread crumbs, eggs and gluten, it clearly originates in 1940s or 1950s Loma Linda.

Sunee must have gotten the recipe from a missionary family before us, still, she left her Thai fingerprints on it. The original almost certainly didn’t use Marmite, but whatever it used for flavor (my guess is George Washington Broth), Sunee couldn’t find it, so she used what was available. In Adventist cooking, gluten is one of the main protein substitutes, and several food companies arose to manufacture it. In Thailand, however, Sunee made her own. She’d start with a dough, that she would rinse and soak, then rinse and soak, until you washed all the starch out and were left with only the gluten. Sounds like a crazy amount of work.

I made Cashew Loaf on my own more than twenty years ago for my first Thanksgiving with Kem. He had PTSD from the loaves at our Adventist college’s cafeteria, but he tried it and liked it. He’s not giving up his turkey, but he wants Cashew Loaf on the table somewhere between the mashed potatoes and green beans.

I have my own substitutes. I’m not going to make my own gluten, but silken tofu works. My local grocery store doesn’t carry Marmite, so I use Better than Bouillon. My mom declared my cashew this year “excellent,” so I’m doing something right.

My kids have strong ties to their Wyoming ranching side. That’s where we live; it’s what we do. All three are committed carnivores. The Cashew Loaf on our Thanksgiving table offers a small tie back to my own family history.

Me, my mom, and a Cashew Loaf