Historical April 1983 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Some things never change. Somewhere this evening it’s likely that you’ll find a parent coaching the kids to eat their carrots or some other dreaded vegetable destined to be pushed to the plate’s edge, get fed to the dog, or wind up in the garbage disposal. Like most kids, I had to be coached, especially when it came to turnips, squash or asparagus.
While I still don’t like turnips or squash, through the years I reformed and acquired a taste for asparagus. I also decided that vegetables in general weren’t so bad after all. They’re cost-effective eating, healthy, and taste pretty good if they’re cooked and seasoned the right way.
The Birdseye frozen vegetable folks have a pretty good handle on that, I must admit. I’m a real fan of their Japanese and Italian-style vegetables, but their prices are a little steep.
So what’s a mother to do?
One common cure for the vegetable blahs, I’ve found, is taking a vegetarian cooking class. Admittedly, I’m just about as carnivorous as ever, but the vegetable complements to our meals have become more palatable — even more interesting.
The class proved to be a real source of enlightenment for a carnivore like me, and other members of the class for a variety of reasons.
But where can you find such a class?
At Hamilton Community School’s evening adult education program.
The class is taught by Kenneth Clark, a cook at Sunshine Inn, a Central West End restaurant which specializes in foods cooked with fresh and natural ingredients.
While the restaurant doesn’t serve an entirely vegetarian menu, a large number of items offered are vegetarian. Class sessions are always different, explains Clark, because different students bring different expectations about what they hope to attain from the instruction.
During the first class, Clark carefully listens to what students would like to learn how to make, then customizes a four-week cooking program to meet their needs. It’s not always possible to cook up everything because of the class time limit of two hours.
For example, we expressed an interest in making cheese cake, but there just wasn’t time.
However, we did get to make cream of potato soup, spinach quiche, and some really good carrot cake.
We also made other dishes like Sesame Tempeh and egg fried rice, which rate four stars in my book.
To vegetarians, tempeh (a soy protein meat substitute) is probably nothing new.
But before class I had never heard of it.
We also discovered tofu, a soy cheese product used a lot in vegetarian cooking.
The idea of cooking with soy protein and cheese products didn’t sound too appealing at first, but our taste buds later told us otherwise.
For example, in Sesame Tempeh, the tempeh is cooked in a wok with onions, carrots, brocolli, cauliflower, bean spouts, green pepper, mushrooms and spices, • placed over cooked rice in a casserole dish, and topped with melted cheese. Such a dish can be served as a meal in itself, but can also be used as a good side dish. Clark places a heavy emphasis on cooking vegetables in a wok, a shallow but wide Chinese-style pot with a high lid that sits on a metal ring about two inches above the stove burner. Wok cooking is energyefficient and allows you to cook vegetables quickly before they have a chance to get mushy and lose vitamins.
Because little cooking oil is required in a wok, vegetables prepared in such a way are lower in calories than if they were wallowing in butter sauce. There’s a lot of room for improvisation
[Source ends here; no continuation found.]
Original photograph caption
Original photograph accompanying “Look Out Birdseye.” The Paper, April 1983, page 8. Participants are not individually identified in the caption; photographer not credited.
Originally published in The Paper, April 1983.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: The supplied final page ends with “There’s a lot of room for improvisation” without a conclusion or continuation label. The available text is preserved with an explicit source-ending marker; no conclusion was invented.
Original source: SD_Times1983_04.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
