I was also interested in the “becomes more widely available” bit. Surely the ingredients for a vegan meal have been around for many centuries. Or is this a reference to greater availability of factory produced processed vegan food? Which I have less interest in eating than factory processed omnivore food.
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Same here. Tell me about it. How can the same words have such disparate meaning?
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Husband has remarked that I have “a too highly developed sense of the absurd.”
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What are your top 5 delicious vegan foods?
I eat vegan foods, but I wouldn’t describe most vegan main courses as delicious.
The vegan dishes in my repertoire that I consider delicious are:
Curried apricot coconut lentil soup
Vegetarian Greek stuffed vegetables
Mejadra
Vegetarian borscht which I deveganize with a big dollop of full fat sour cream
Imam bayildi
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Gaspacho with EVOO garlic bread
Veg. chili (with chocolate and peanut butter)
Ratatouille
Caponata
Pasta with EVOO, garlic, salt and PEPPER
Refried beans with hot sauce (just finished a bowl)
Vegetarian taco : tortilla, beans, rice, lettuce, avacado, tomato, red onion, cilantro, salsa
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Denise and Auspicious, you both just described my life with my mechanical engineer husband!
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I’m going to assume you want vegan main courses here. In which case:
Three bean curry
Pasta puttanesca (but only when we find we’ve no anchovies in the cupboard)
Lentil & Root vegetable casserole (we do a different version where beans are subbed for the lentils
Bulgher wheat pilaf with chestnuts & fennel
Lentil burgers (although you do have to stretch your imagination for this to be really “delicious”)
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The reason I mention vegan mains, is that I consider fresh corn , peaches, watermelon, strawberries, cherries, mangoes and tomatoes , off the top of my head, to be delicious vegan foods.
I would probably still top most vegan bean dishes and vegan Mexican dishes with sour cream, crema and/or cheese. Or top other vegan things with Hollandaise. Or tzatziki or raita.
I suppose I could find vegan Mexican food tasty if I had guacamole nearby to sub for the crema or cheese.
I do like lentils without dairy. I add balsamic vinegar to Greek-style lentils.
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The refried beans I like are fried in lard!
I know myself well enough that I’d top your pasta with parm, Romano or pecorino.
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Here are five in no particular order. I haven’t mentioned dishes that others already have:
“Smashacado”: Smashed avocado half, doused with chipotle powder and sprinkled with coarse salt on toast or pita
Red lentil soup with red pepper paste—my riff on the New York Times’s Red Lentil Soup With Lemon
Roasted butternut squash salad with arugula, pomegranate seeds, and fancy balsamic—riff on Ina Garten’s Roasted Butternut Squash Salad
Potatoes with Onions, Tomatoes, and Sweet Pepper—from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
Braised green beans, Greek-style—there’s a thread about this
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We share this tendency, I see.
I do like tahini sauce—for me that’s tahini thinned down with water and a little lemon juice—on some things such as pumpkin kibbeh. But I buy that kibbeh because I haven’t figured out a good recipe yet.
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I think your list is “food.” ‘Vegan’ to me implies a degree of religious fervor. sigh That perception on my part is certainly consistent with @alexjohn’s post - noting s/he dropped in, lobbed a rock through the window, and has not been heard from since.
I just did some Google diving. From apparently credible sources (mostly those promoting vegetarian and/or vegan lifestyles) it looks like 0.4% of Americans claim to be vegan (N.B. this may include my difficult niece who claims to be vegan but eats chicken fingers and mac & cheese). Worldwide the number looks like 0.1%. Veganism seems to be more common (if less than half a percent counts as “common”) in first world countries. Interestingly nearly 10% of Americans report they have spent some time as vegetarians (no numbers on veganism) but returned to an omnivorous diet.
There is some credible research that indicates (not proves) that there are some significant shortfalls to a vegan diet including to cognition. The science is far from settled.
There really isn’t any question that plant-foods are more sustainable than meat. That isn’t the end of the story. Animals we eat for meat will eat things we won’t. The climate change argument is specious as most plants raised for food have a bigger carbon footprint (and other pollutants lost in the shuffle) than the impact of intestinal gases of cows and sheep.
I definitely take exception to “insanely delicious.” Given a choice between a ribeye steak with sauteed mushrooms, a baked potato with sour cream, and steamed garlic broccoli vice a bowl of lentil soup/stew I know what I’m going to choose. Jeepers.
I don’t believe that vegan foods are more available. Labeling is more common. Broccoli is no more vegan now than a hundred years ago.
Soylent Green.
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There are few fruits and vegetables that are not delicious in their own right, to my taste, assuming they are eaten at the peak of their condition. I’ve no interest in strawberries in January, or corncobs outside of autumn. And, of course, given the right (vegan) cooking, the deliciousness is increased.
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I am talking about corn in July and August, strawberries in June.
Yes, plenty of foods need tweaking to taste good.
I really haven’t enjoyed much vegan food. I do like a lot of ovo lacto vegetarian foods.
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I make slowcooked Greek style green beans 2 or 3 times a month. But they are a side dish, not a main! They go nicely with lamb or roast chicken 
Other Greek sides that are vegan that some people might upgrade to mains:
Gigantes with tomato and dill
Kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters, some vegan recipes are out there)
Santorini tomato fritters
Spanakorizo
Briam
Veg stuffed grapeleaves
Greek Lent offers a lot of vegan dishes. But since they are recipes for Lent, there sometimes is some sacrifice in terms of deliciousness.
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Well, sure. Lot’s of things taste great slathered in butter or smothered by cheese. But we are talking about what can be considered quite tasty, a word I hate, without these.
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And it was a first post. Not spam, but not conversational 
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Yep, I love asparagus in the spring. Corn on the cob (here it’s a July/August thing). Peaches, tomatoes in the summer, etc. Everything has a season in which it tastes best. I’m an omnivore, but I enjoy vegetarian as well. And Philly has some great vegetarian restaurants
Mushrooms are pretty good year-round.
Vegan cheese . . .an abomination!
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No converts yet. Cold call conversion to veganism doesn’t appear to be working, but almost any Original Post can start a conversation on HungryOnion.
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