This segment was originally published on May 6, 2024
Welcome to another episode of Eating the Past. I'm Laura Gelfand, and on today's show we'll consider the punk side of plant-based eating.
Listeners may not be very familiar with punk. Perhaps you only know it through snarling images of "The Sex Pistols," or closer to home, the hardcore band who stayed in your college apartment after a gig and trashed the place,
So, you may be surprised to learn that there is a strong historical connection between the punk movement and vegetarianism.
On this show, we regularly talk about cookbooks in USU's Merrill Cazier Library, but I'm going to vary this a bit by talking about a couple unusual cookbooks in my own collection,
When I married my husband 18 years ago this week, he brought into our shared life two cookbooks entitled "Soy Not Oi" and "Soy Not Oi" Volume Two, self-published by a collective known as the Hippie Core Crew in 1989.
The first of these books is essentially a zine that was typed up on a crappy typewriter, collated by some kids, then stapled and sold at record shops and gigs. It includes fairly primitive cartoons throughout, and a collection of vegan recipes contributed by punks primarily from Arizona.
In addition to recipes like "build biscuits, not bombs,” “Bring back Black Sabbath bean casserole,” and “punk walk stir fry,”contributors recommend punk and hardcore songs that they think best suit the cooking of their dishes.
The book also includes reflections from a few of its contributors about why they became vegan. For example, Todd from the band “Pollution Circus” writes that I am a vegan because I cannot support the exploitation of any creature. It goes against one of the main aspects of my belief system as an anarchist, that of freedom and liberation.
What these books reveal is the bridge that goes straight from hippies living in communes in the 1970s to punks living in squats in the 1980s. It may not seem like they have much in common, but the interest in macrobiotic and then vegan food serves as a kind of continuum between them.
This all may sound pretty esoteric, and I admit that the connection between the foundational nature of Punk's institutional critique and concern for animal rights is one that I'm currently exploring in a book project, so it's of particular interest to me.
But that said, I have a hard time working up much enthusiasm about recipes like the one for nutritional yeast gravy that consists almost entirely of margarine, nutritional yeast, and flour.
But it's interesting to consider how far we've come. There are now so many plant-based alternatives in almost every supermarket. It's actually pretty easy to avoid eating animal products if that's what you choose to do.
Tune in next week for even more food for thought. Join us for eating the past every Sunday at noon, right before the splendid table on your UPR station.
