Vegetarian for Life

International cuisine with Age UK

Posted by Ollie on 02/05/18 in VfL News and Events

I have just finished teaching a 6-week cookery course at the Age UK Finchley hub, with the theme: International cuisine.

Over the weeks, we created meals inspired by flavours from around the world. Highlights included Vietnamese-style fresh rolls and dipping sauces; Mexican style chilli, vegan sour cream, guacamole with fresh tortillas; and North African inspired root vegetable tagine with a herby wholemeal cous cous, and vegan yoghurt sauce.

The participants were eager to learn, with varied culinary abilities and different dietary habits. We had a gentleman who had spent most of his life in the army. He was, as you would expect, great at getting things done efficiently and diligently, working well with the others in the group, often organising them or reprimanding individuals if they fell out of line! He loved meat but was consistently surprised each week with the fabulous plant-based meals we were creating.

Also in attendance was a fascinating woman named Pamela. She was over 40 years a vegan and very proud of it. Always on time, brimming with self-confidence and bringing her own ideas, she also brought her own knife to each lesson, a huge cleaver that she used, much like a Chinese chef, for multiple chopping styles and mixed uses. I didn’t think I could teach her any new vegan ideas, but she loved the cauliflower rice that we made one week and especially liked the fresh rolls, endeavouring to pick up rice sheets on her next visit to an Asian supermarket and make them again.

I received great feedback, with people stating that they will "definitely be making that again!" and, "The class was very interesting, I enjoyed all aspects". Another comment made in class included: "I didn’t know it possible to make food this good with such simple ingredients!"

After we polished off the chilli in week 6 some of the class were scraping the bowl for more. For me, that is the best compliment of all.


Comments

Notify me of follow-up comments

Switch to dark mode Enlarge font size