Brave New Meal is a guide to cooking without animal products, with an overarching message of eating healthy and less wasteful meals with fresh, seasonal produce and pantry staples.
Organised in clear and useful sections, Brave New Meal is a handy guide to vital vegan kitchen staples and recipes for essentials such as pesto, pie crust, dressings, and cheese alternatives. The recipes are hearty, fun, and flavoursome, and I didn’t miss the meat!
The breakfast section includes rolls, pancakes, scones, and a scramble alternative. There’s a carrot and rice soup, snacks and sides section such as pistachio herb rice and swiss chard puttanesca. Some of the most fun recipes are found as main dishes, including beeteroni pizza, Nashville hot shroom sammie and chipotle pumpkin tamales.
However, more than just the recipes are unique in this cookbook. The writing and methods are profanity laden, bordering on aggressive. While it’s easy to overlook a swear word, it gets challenging when the instructions become vague or unnecessarily wordy. Cooking is often an opportunity to unwind and learn, but Brave New Meal feels somewhat intimidating. In 2020, author duo changed their name from Thug Kitchen to Bad Manners after criticism that the word ‘thug’ is assigned to black people in an attempt to dehumanise them. They apologised and rebranded.
While many of the recipes are great and the distinctive style could be overlooked, it is definitely not to everyone’s taste. That aside, Brave New Meal has some delicious and unique vegan recipes.
Reviewed by Amber Sawyer
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