From Vegetarian Weirdos to Vegan Heroes — a 40-Year View | Chef AJ LIVE! with Nava Altas
3385 DELICIOUS DINNER RECIPES to support your weight loss: https://www.chefaj.com/5-delicious-low-fat-dinner-recipes
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TO GET THE BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737133407?tag=onamzchefajsh-20&linkCode=ssc&creativeASIN=1737133407&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.1GNPDCAG4A86S
When Nava Atlas’s first cookbook, Vegetariana: A Rich Harvest of Wit, Lore, & Recipes, came out in 1984, there were perhaps a dozen vegetarian cookbook authors in mainstream publishing. It was a time when merely being a vegetarian made you a weirdo. While the term “vegan” had been coined in the 1940s, the concept was still scarcely in the conversation in the 1980s.
Today, there’s so much vegan everything — cookbooks, blogs, social media channels, eateries, products, and more. With all the negativity in the world these days, this evolution to a broader acceptance of veganism in one generation is something to feel good about. We’ll chat about how the cuisine and culture have changed in this time — from the perspectives of animal rights, the environment, and the availability of ingredients that go into the delicious food.
With this long view, and having gone vegan twenty years ago, Nava recently revised and updated Vegetariana, still one of her best-known books. Now, for the first time, it’s completely vegan. Notably, she also added lots more female voices to the quotes and anecdotes that embellish the book (did you know that Rosa Parks was a vegetarian for forty years of her life; and that Coretta Scott King was vegan for the last ten years of hers? Or that Louisa May Alcott’s family started a plant-based community in the 1800s?).
Vegetariana was Nava Atlas’s first book, originally published in 1984. Since then, she has written (and often illustrated) many vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, including American Harvest, Plant-Powered Protein, 5-Ingredient Vegan, Wild About Greens, Vegan Holiday Kitchen, and Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons.
Nava also creates trade and limited edition visual books on women’s issues, including The Literary Ladies’ Guide to the Writing Life and Secret Recipes for the Modern Wife. Her interdisciplinary work is collected and exhibited in museums, and universities around the country. Visit her websites, The Vegan Atlas https://theveganatlas.com/
and Literary Ladies Guide. https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/
Nava lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York State.
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VIDEO CHAPTERS
00:00 Guest introduction and Nava and Chef AJ discuss her first book
09:25 Chef AJ Q & A
14:00 Nava opens up her book to show prominent vegan women throughout history
15:15 Nava shows pre-made dishes and discusses them with more Q & A
39:16 Recipe discussion and viewer/Chef AJ Q & A
58:08 Final thoughts and show wrap