Spicing up breakfast: Smith College seeks help from Humane Society with its vegan pledge

NORTHAMPTON Inside Smith Colleges Chase House building on a recent morning, several campus chefs could be seen working diligently in the kitchen, even after the usual breakfast hours in the building had ended.

These food experts about a dozen who work at the colleges Dining Services department pored over recipe books featuring unique menu items and prepared ingredients that differed from the norm, such as mayonnaise made from chickpeas, a granola bowl mixed with maple syrup and muffins cooked with peppers and Beyond Meat sausage.

Their goal? Spice up the vegan, plant-based breakfast menu offered to students as part of a wider campus pledge made six years ago to ensure that more than 50% of its entree items are plant-based. A particular challenge in that initiative comes in the form of breakfast and brunch items, which are often associated with assuredly non-vegan products like eggs and pancakes.

Breakfast and brunch is always a tough meal to incorporate really delicious, nutritious, plant-based food, says Patricia A. Hentz, director of residential dining for Smith College Dining Services.

Thats why the college brought in two chefs from the National Humane Society to lead the training, which Hentz says is very progressive for our industry of college food service. She believes Smith is the first college in the country to work with the Humane Society on this type of training program.

When youre trying to veganize food, whether its for allergy or cultural reasons or just personal preference, breakfast is tough, said Dorrie Nang, who works for the National Humane Society as a food service innovation specialist. Our chefs have 18 recipes that they just released in July, and were doing them here for the first time.

The recipes have origins from all corners of the world, from a custard-based French Toast to a vegan version of shakshuka, a North African dish usually made with eggs and tomato sauce.

We have a global background, and so does Smith, said Mohamed Alqamoussi, a chef with the Humane Society who helped coach the campus chefs on preparing the recipes together. Its good for students to try other foods from other cultures.

In addition to ensuring that foods have a diversity of culture and flavor, another challenge for making vegan cuisine is ensuring that the food is also healthy for people to consume, Alqamoussi said.

A lot of vegan food isnt necessarily healthy, he said. Just because youre saving animals doesnt mean you should have to harm your body with oils and processing and all that.

For example, although vegan versions of mayonnaise can be made using several oils, Alqamoussi instructs the Smith chefs to use a version made from chickpeas to create a healthier blend.

And instead of using a fake meat substitute for a breakfast taco recipe, the chefs use lentils, which arent as processed and cost less to purchase.

Another challenge for the chefs in preparing vegan meals knowing which ingredients are and are not vegan. The chefs recipe for a cranberry pecan granola bowl calls for maple syrup as a coating, rather than the more usual ingredient of honey.

Because its the byproduct of an animal, a true vegan will not eat it, said Moises Torres, a chef at Smith who specializes in vegan and vegetarian dishes. Ive found that out the hard way.

The chefs developed the final dishes over the course of the last two months, continuously sampling and giving feedback to each other before settling on the final ingredients.

The dishes were first served to students on Thursday morning at the Cutter and Ziskind houses, with plans to gradually incorporate them into the menus across the school.

We test recipes all year long, but we wanted to really focus in on the plant-based foods, and especially on breakfast, Hentz said.

The introduction of more plant-based foods is part of an overall push by the college for greater sustainability, an initiative that also includes a $200 million geothermal project to power campus buildings. The college signed a commitment in 2015 to reduce meat consumption by 5% each year, with a goal of achieving more than 55% of its entrees to be plant-based by 2025.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.

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