Raw in the Dark of Night

I’ve never been given to food fads–I was the militant non-vegetarian at my mostly-women’s college–but somewhere amid the high-fat, top-of-the-food-chain splendors of Christmas, I sort of got fed up with it (and, yes, the fact all my nonstretch pants had gotten tight.) and my thoughts drifted to raw.

For those of you who ignored it , Raw-foodism is one of those fringy food fads for those for whom veganism isn’t extreme enough. And yet it piqued my curiosity the way veganism never has. While veganism strikes me as about denial, raw-food veganism is so out there that it inspires a certain creativity in its lead practitioners. Its extreme limits force a rethinking about food.

What then could be better for the new year than a new start. And so on New Year’s day I loaded up on walnuts and dried apricots, finally cracked open Juliano Brotman’s glossy “uncook” book (and egofest) Raw and set about soaking and sprouting. For this is what I first discovered about raw eating–if you want to get past nuts and berries, it takes planning–a lot of it. Yes, you can eat grains–once you sprout them. Same with beans. You can create grain lumps that stand in for bread and crackers with a dehydrator, but it takes 12 hours (or more) instead of one.

Still it’s been interesting–though I will never ever make raw garbanzo hummus or raw garbanzo anything again.