faux-mage

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The origin story …

When the winter of 2020 rounded the corner and deemed outside dining potentially unpleasant and surely uncertain, we had to close the restaurant—again. The magnitude of the impact resulting from the year’s upending tragedies had taken its toll on everyone. I needed a culinary distraction from the COVID roller coaster’s unrelenting and shape-shifting demands. Was there any unexplored culinary territory intriguing enough to absorb my attention for a meaningful length of time, simultaneously allowing me to step away from this seemingly unending saga?

We have always had fair amount of requests for vegan options at the restaurant—I mean, we live in Northern Cali, right? One of our well-traveled “foodie” friends and devoted diner at The Pig is vegan. Weekly construction of an alluring five-course vegan tasting menu option every week had become an inspiring challenge.

The world of vegan cuisine wasn’t brand new to me. We had been creating those options for a long time—but one area that always seemed to be lacking was the “cheese” department. I purchased a few books in order to expand my very limited knowledge of making vegan “cheeses.” All of the recipes in these first few books offered “quick” method “cheese” substitutes that incorporate ingredients such as nutritional yeast, miso, and vinegar to try to resemble the complex umami flavors like those found in their cultured counterparts. But these ingredients, while healthy and delicious, cannot rival the flavor of true cultured cheese. Being an omnivore, I envisioned a fuzzy rind, creamy yet tart crottin; an earthy, barnyard flavored epoisses; a complex, satisfying “burrata.” Little did I know at that moment that this world of cultured, plant-based cheese does actually exist, and it had all of the substance I needed to embark on a new culinary journey. So, down the rabbit hole I went…

The story of Alice in Wonderland depicts a kaleidoscopic and ever-changing journey. So, for me, does creating plant-based, cultured cheese. The rewards of embarking on this adventure has already provided more fulfillment than my original desire for a temporary distraction.

However, there is another equally important component that I’ve had to consider in this exploration: could these cheeses be made from mostly or wholly locally sourced ingredients?

Thanks to the existence of Mendocino Grain Project, I began to ferment every locally grown grain I could. I observed different characteristics between locally grown quinoa and wheat grains such as Hard Red, Sonora, Duram Iraqi, and Seashore Rye. They all bubbled with lactic possibilities! One fizzy grain potion was bright and fruity, another was earthy and grassy, and some were more buttery and yeasty. My chef instincts kicked in, and I began to envision the possible affinities these ferments would have with local plant bases from walnuts and chestnuts, to legumes and pulses.

The Garde Manger station became a laboratory. No longer outfitted with all of the ingredients for salads and desserts, the new mise en place was hygrometers, pH meters, salinometers, and spreadsheets to record data and observations. This project equally stimulated both the right- and left-brain hemispheres.

The Chef in me reveled with the first “bloom” on a Camembert inspired nugget of pureed cashews. I was humbled and elated by the minutiae of small technical details I learned while making the first few renditions of vegan “burrata.”

Over the months, I finally felt comfortable with the consistency and safety of the recipes. I began to substitute some of the cashews for local ingredients such as butter beans, cranberry beans, and quinoa in the “Camembert” style cheese. I began to ferment the grains longer to see what level of “tang” tasted best. We blind tasted friends who never once suspected that the “cheeses” on the board weren’t made from dairy, that in some cases said it was the best cheese they’d ever had! Finally, we did a comprehensive tasting of 5 batches of cheese, from a young, 10-day aged to a 7 week old. We compared our cheese to other popular brands. We were astounded with the results.

We are delighted to offer our collection of “Faux-mage”: our own line of delicious plant-based, cultured cheeses made with intention and care right here in Mendocino County using many local ingredients! We hope that this delicious alchemy has a nourishing place on your table.