Vegan Food, Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show 2018

Orlando, Fla.—There were vegan food options at this year’s Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show. The reason why, in part, was because they launched a concurrent show called the Healthy Food Expo which featured vegan food and drink companies, farmers and other green companies. I interviewed six vegan food products companies that were attending the show.

Teese Vegan Cheese Alternative, Florida Restaurant
& Lodging Show, Orlando, Fla.
Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

Teese Vegan Cheese alternative is sold in long log-style packaging, made with pea protein and available in four flavors (mozzarella, cheddar, creamy cheddar and nacho sauce). It is wheat-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, soy-free, palm oil-free, gluten-free and tree nut-free. I had the nacho cheese flavor over corn nachos and it was delicious. Unfortunately it is only available through distribution companies on a wholesale bases. 

Pero Family Farms Organic Snipped Green Beans,
Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show, Orlando, Fla.
Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

Pero Family Farms® established in 1908, grows local sustainable vegetables at their Boynton Beach farm. At the Florida Healthy Food Expo they showcased several produce items including organic Snipped Green Beans™ that had been pollinated and bred, the natural way, with the help of bees, in a field, under the warmth of the sun. You can find their tasty beans at many grocery stores in Florida including Publix.

Oumph! plant-protein, Florida Restaurant &
Lodging Show, Orlando, Fla.
Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

Oumph!™ Is a Lake Worth, Florida, based company. It is a plant-based protein made with soy. It was founded by Chef Anders “The Duck” Linden of Sweden.  Launched several years ago in Europe, vegan Chef Linden wanted to make a versatile vegan protein item that consumers and chefs could use in new, delicious ways. Oumph! is gluten-free, dairy-free, kosher, non-GMO, eco-conscious, and vegan. I found it to be very delicious and addictive.

If you live in Europe, you can find Oumph! in several grocery stores. But if you live in North America, you will only find it at local restaurants, as it is only sold wholesale. 

Matcha Love by Ito En Ltd., Florida Restaurant & Lodging
Show, Orlando, Fla. Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

Matcha Love™ by Ito En Ltd., a Brooklyn, N.Y., based company sells green tea macha products. Macha is a varietal of Japanese green tea that is most commonly ground up into a powder and used in cooking, baking and beverage making. It has high antioxidant properties.

I tried the culinary grade mocha at the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show. It was very bitter and I understood why it is mixed with other ingredients. According to Ryan Glosniak of Ito En, Matcha Love also comes in a first flush ceremonial style that has a lighter, more delicate flavor. Both can be purchased online through Amazon or at Whole Foods Stores. 

The Vegan Knife, gluten-free vegan chocolate
Birthday cake samples, Florida Restaurant &
Lodging Show, Orlando, Fla.
Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

The Vegan Knife , a Naples, Florida, based company makes vegan, gluten-free boxed baking mixes. The founder and owner of the company, Julie Butcher, created this line of vegan products after getting diagnosed with several allergies that stopped her from eating desserts. All her mixes are gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and wheat-free. You can buy her tasty treats online directly from The Vegan Knife or at some west coast Florida stores like Lucky's in Naples and Sarasota.

The Ice Cream Club's Coffee Almond Fudge non-dairy dessert,
Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show, Orlando, Fla.
Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

The Ice Cream Club, a Boynton Beach, Florida, based company, has been making artisan ice cream since 1982. All of their products are kosher and free from artificial colors and flavors. This year, at the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show they launched their non-dairy frozen dessert line made with coconut milk. 

My favorite of three flavors offered at the show (coconut almond fudge, coffee almond fudge, and strawberry) was the Coffee Almond Fudge, it was extremely creamy and I couldn't tell it was made with coconut milk. Unfortunately, at this point in time, these non-dairy frozen desserts are only available wholesale to companies.

I look forward to seeing what new vegan food items will be at next year's show.

Wild Beach Peas Plants And Their Culinary Challenges

Cooking with wild foraged produce can be tough but rewarding. Wild beach pea plants and pods look like farm stand (domesticated) bought peas. They have the same flowers, the same leaves, the same pea pods and even the same tiny peas inside. They also smell like domesticated peas when you snap one of the pods in half and take a sniff. But this is where the similarities stop.

Wild Beach Pea plant on northern Maine coastline
Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

Wild beach pea plants are tough, and I don’t mean their attitude, their stems are more like twigs and their leaves are more like cardboard (even in spring when they are young). And the pea pods are more like little wooden boats than the melt-in-your mouth snow pea style pods you find in grocery stores. 

But I guess they have to be tough because they grow along Northern Maine rocky shorelines that are licked and bashed by frigid ocean waters (even in summer). And they have to endure fog that is a common weather event.

Each night of my vacation, in the wilds of the northern Maine coast, I cooked a vegan dinner with at least one wild foraged ingredient. The hardest and yet tastiest were from the beach pea plant.

I harvested the leaves, stems, and pea pods. I chose not to harvest the flowers because I wanted to leave something for the local bumblebees to forage on (they already had a tough life).

High heat fried wild beach pea leaves and stems,
Northern Maine,
Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

My first attempt of cooking with them involved frying, leaves and stems, over high heat. I thought I could break down their cellulose faster if I shocked them with the temperature of the pan. I also fried green bell peppers, celery, garlic, and a premade brown lentils and quinoa mix. 

I was wrong. 

The dish was delicious made with beans and other store bought vegetables but the beach pea portion was a more catch and release style of eating. You caught them in your mouth, chewed for more time than you thought necessary and then released them into a napkin or piece of paper towel. 

Low heat fried wild beach pea leaves with
garlic, Northern Maine.
Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

Not one to give up easily, I tried frying them again, with just the leaves. This time I used a medium temperature pan and slowly cooked them, with garlic, thinking they would soften if I spent an hour gently cooking them down into an edible, succulent side dish. 

I was wrong. 

The leaves were translucent but they were just as tough as in the previous meal and had the same catch-and-release eating experience. Fortunately there were other vegetables like spinach, celery, mushrooms and red onion. 

Vegan soup stock made with wild beach pea pods, leaves
and stems along with kitchen trimmings,
Northern Maine., Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

The next, and last time, I used them was to make a vegan soup stock. I used the stem, leaves and inedible pods. I put them in a big pot of water along with kitchen trimmings (I had been collecting for five days) of mushroom stems, onion outer skin, ends of broccoli, carrot heads...etc. I thought that at least this way I could capture the flavor of the beach pea plant.

I kept stock at a low-boil for 3 hours. At the end, I strained out the vegetables and beach peas and was left with a brown colored liquid.

I was right. 

Tiny, wild-foraged beach pea plant peas,
Northern Maine. Copyright 2018 by Helen A Lockey

The stock was delicious. And it made such a yummy base that I threw caution to the wind when I made my soup and added some beach pea plant peas thinking they would add a little sweetness.

I was wrong.

They were very starchy and high in tannin, which left my teeth feeling unpleasantly squeaky.

Fortunately the soup had a lot of other delicious ingredients to off set this culinary misstep. I used shredded beets, shredded turnips, shredded carrot, red beans and olive oil to balance out the tastes of the soup. The fragrant, earthiness flavor of the rest of the beach pea plant still came through to turn the soup into a gourmet treat.

Cooking wild beach pea plants is a challenge but making them into a soup stock is the best way to experience their wild delicious flavor. 

And now I know what I know, I would use them again. 

Florida Cocoplum A Yummy Native Fruit

It’s cocoplum season again in South Florida. What are cocoplums you may ask? Well one thing they are not is a new type of coconut or plum. Instead they are a type of Florida native shrub (sometimes tree) often used in landscaping. This time of year they produce a round fruit with a thin outer skin, sticky inner flesh and a huge seed. If you are a slightly adventurous eater and like to consume seasonal, local food then these are the fruit for you. 

Native Florida grown cocoplum bush with edible purple skinned fruit,
West Palm Beach, Fla.
Copyright 2018 by Helen A. Lockey

The downside of cocoplums is that they often contain more seed than fruit. This detail might make you reluctant to spend too much time harvesting them but when you find a perfect, sweet, juicy one it makes it worth the hours of searching. 

The outer skin of the fruit can vary in color from pale yellow to red, and even purple. The white interior flesh can have a mouth feel that varies from dry to chewy to juicy to slimy and sometimes very mealy. The shiny leaves of the shrub have an almost oval shape to them and often feel waxy.

If you source the fruit near the beach it might be a bit saltier than ones sourced further inland. The plant like to grow in sandy soil.

And as always with wild foods, make sure you know the source very well, and that the plants have not been sprayed with any chemicals. If you are unsure about the identity of the fruit, check with an expert before eating it because you don't want to end up with a tummy ache or worse.

For those interested the botanical name of this plant it is Chrysobalanus icaco. And a good source of expert plant identifiers can be found through the Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service Master Gardener at Mounts Botanical Garden in West Palm Beach. 

If you find some safe, untreated plants and fruit, pick only what you will consume and leave the rest for the animals in the forest.