Food

Thanks. I am sure I will get to cheese substitutes one day, but so far I haven't been able to bring myself to.

No worries, it's not very important to do that. It's just that a lot of people who go vegetarian or vegan want these substitutes in a straight swap. It's the sort of processed food they're used to (of course, as a vegan you can eat only junk if you want), it means that they don't have to be too imaginative about how they adapt their diet, and all in all it's a bit like saying that you want your bike to have four wheels and an engine. For instance, I used to drink a lot of milk, but I've hardly ever touched soya drinks because I think that most of them taste revolting. On the other hand, I do like vegan ice cream, which isn't really a 'substitute', as it's better than dairy ice cream (try it if you don't believe me). I also like vegan yogurt, although that is still less successful than dairy yogurt, but passable. It'll all improve over time, anyway, as new procedures and ingredients are discovered. I just hope it won't stray into too much chemistry and still be moderately natural in conception.

I thought I'd miss cheese terribly, especially since I love cooking Italian food so much, but I've found it amazing how quickly your tastebuds adapt. I'm starting to think that it's used as a bit of a crutch in a lot of cooking to disguise a lack of flavour.

That's certainly true. Your palate changes really quickly. I recently got some Bute Island Scheese, which they attempt to flavour like dairy cheese--Redwood Cheezly is much more subtly flavoured (some might say that it doesn't taste of much, and they wouldn't be far wrong). But I really didn't like the Scheese, as it reminded me too much of dairy cheese. There are also those vegan all-you-can-eat buffet places in London, which do various meat substitutes, most of them quite nicely flavoured, not really tasting like meat, but there is a kind of prawn substitute, shaped like prawns, tasting really fishy, which I don't like at all. It reminds me too much of fish corpse, and I really don't want to eat that shit any more.

Anyway, that old 'so what do you eat?' question is now fairly pointless, as a two-second Google brings up millions of vegan recipes.