Wednesday, Nov 24, 2010 2:01 AM UTC

When the turkey took revenge, I took to vegetarian gravy

After a Thanksgiving of food poisoning, I swore off the bacteria-ridden beast and came up with this bird-free gravy

By Bellwether Vance

more
- All Share Services

Topics: Thanksgiving, Guest Chef, Vegetarianism and veganism, Food, Life News

Early November 1999, I was driving down a rural highway on a sunny afternoon. As I rounded a corner, I was startled to see a wild turkey trotting across a cotton field — faster than you might imagine — heading toward the road. Math was not my best subject, but given my speed, the turkey’s speed and our projected paths, even I could calculate that we were a bloody word problem about to happen.

At the moment his body should have been hitting my windshield and exploding like a grotesque feather pillow, he flew back a few paces and I whizzed by without hitting him. “Stupid turkey!” I groused. “You almost got yourself killed!”

A few weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day, I did something almost as stupid. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been when handling the turkey (you know — wash your hands frequently, use a designated cutting board, disinfect surfaces …) and I spent the night singing whale songs into the deep, mysterious hole at the bottom of the toilet. The next morning, I was in the emergency room.

The CDC estimates that in the U.S. there are 76 million food-borne illnesses per year and over 5,000 deaths. Bacteria-laced poultry is the leading source of food poisoning. So there were others like me in the E.R. that morning, women and men with mint-green faces, wretchedly hunched over cramping bellies, clutching an assortment of decorative bathroom trash cans under their chins. One trash can had mockingly happy Disney characters on it. After a miserable, interminable wait, I was given IV fluids, Phenergan and another deliciously heady medicine that had me nattering on about how creepy it is that Mickey Mouse wears gloves but no shirt.

It was pretty easy to give up turkey after that. The next Thanksgiving, I brought a Tofurkey to the family gathering. It wasn’t bad, just a little eerie in its fleshy texture, and in general, if I look at a food product and envision the manufacturing process — a large vat, gelatinous slurry, an extruder — it’s an appetite turnoff. When it comes to the Thanksgiving feast, meat substitutes are unnecessary. There are always plenty of meat-free offerings among the casseroles and side dishes. I’ve never gone hungry.

The most difficult adjustment has been editing recipes to suit a less-than-adventurous crowd. When you remove meat from your diet you have to replace the flavor with other ingredients. Sometimes those ingredients are unconventional, even weird, and Thanksgiving seems to bring out the traditionalist in everyone. They want the same green bean casserole, the same sweet potato soufflé, the same stuffing. If I’m being honest, seeing the same spread year after year is reassuring, comforting. My mother and my mother-in-law are still with us, still healthy, and on Thanksgiving, the kitchen is still their domain.

This year, I’ll bring a bowl of vegetarian gravy and a big salad with homemade dressing and croutons. I’ll join the matriarchs in the kitchen, chop pecans for the stuffing, set the table, make sure the bread doesn’t burn. I’ll wash my hands a lot, and remind them to do the same! And I’ll be oh-so-thankful I’ve had one more year as a “kid.”

Bellwether’s Vegetarian Gravy

I promise you won’t miss the pan drippings! If you’ve ever had a vegetarian gravy or stew and the flavor was “thin,” lacking umami, the missing ingredient is nutritional yeast. It’s a staple in a vegetarian pantry. I add it to soups, stews, gravies, pot pie and shepherd’s pie fillings. You can buy it at any health food store, just be sure you don’t pick up brewer’s yeast by mistake.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup sweet onion, finely minced
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1¾ cups vegetable broth (or one 14.5 ounce can of Swanson’s Vegetable Broth)
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
A small pinch each of sage, thyme and marjoram
Kosher salt and fresh black pepper to taste.
¼ cup heavy cream

Directions

Measure the 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast into a small bowl and cover with a bit of very hot water. Stir until smooth and set aside.
In a heavy skillet, heat the olive oil and the butter over medium heat. Sauté the minced onion until it is soft and slightly brown. Sprinkle the flour into the pan and stir to combine with the oil/butter/onion. Cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly.
Time to break out the whisk. Whisk in the nutritional yeast. At this point it will look dreadful (clumpy and oddly colored). Don’t worry! It will come together once the broth is added and whisked smooth.
Slowly whisk in the vegetable broth. Whisk continuously until the mixture is bubbly and thick.
Add the soy sauce, and the herbs. Be sure you taste the gravy before you add any salt. Both vegetable broth and soy sauce can be significantly salty. Add pepper liberally.
Lastly, add the heavy cream and heat through.

Note: To make mushroom gravy, add a cup of chopped mushrooms to the oil when you add the onion. To make tomato gravy, add a large tomato, finely diced, to the pan once the onions are translucent, and cook until the tomato is softened before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.

More Bellwether Vance.

more
- All Share Services

The week in 10 pics

close X

Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin
Recent Slide Shows

28 Comments

RSS Feeds

Get Email Updates

SALON

When the turkey took revenge, I took to vegetarian gravy

After a Thanksgiving of food poisoning, I swore off the bacteria-ridden beast and came up with this bird-free gravy