VEGANUARY WITH OUR HEAD CHEF
VEGANUARY: the global campaign to try plant-based food for January and beyond is coming to Louma, spearheaded by our head chef, John Long.
Don’t worry the famous Louma sausages (plus all other meats, dairy and fish) will still be on the daily Louma menu. ‘What I also hope to show is how fun plant-based cooking can be and encourage people to try something different,’ says John.
‘During January, instead of one plant-based dish available at supper we might do two, plus one with meat or fish. Or I’ll do more plant-based specials – perhaps a starter and a dessert, alongside our more typical menu. Our customers should always be able to eat the food they want when taking a special break. Especially because Louma is, at its heart, about celebrating all the great food we produce.
‘Although I think vegan dishes match any other dish – or I wouldn’t have them on the menu,’ he adds. ‘It’s celebrating the vegetables we grow. Here, you can absolutely taste the difference. The best way you can eat a carrot is to eat a carrot. The baby carrots we grew this year were so delicious we were just serving them fresh from the garden, and they tasted amazing. Yet so few people just eat them like that. Compared to cooking, boiling, it’s never as good.
‘Eating food in its whole, unadulterated form, is always the best way. There are things that can pull out the other flavours – for instance, combining or aligning it to something else can make it taste even better. But don’t hide its essence.
If plants are the umbilical cord to nature, then we should appreciate them in all their complex glory.’
Vegans are Inventive
With more than 100 varieties of fruit and veg grown at Louma; mushroom plugs sprinkled throughout our woods; and plants like elder tucked into hedgerows, John and his team are never short of plants for their dishes. And they love experimenting.
‘There’s a scallop dish I make from mushrooms, presented in a seaweed basket with cucumber pearls that people rarely guess isn’t actually seafood,’ John says. ‘And a chocolate and beetroot cake that you’d think would taste far too earthy and heavy, given all the beetroot it packs in. Instead, it’s so smooth and velvety, really pulling out the flavours of the chocolate, and the colour’s fantastic – deep browns and purples. I’ve served that for years, and no-one ever has any idea it’s purely plant-based without looking at the menu.’
Other dishes you’ll see in January include scrambled tofu with shakshuka for breakfast, or dahl and flatbreads. Lunch is often plant-based, with our profusion of salads fresh from the garden. But how about trying a cashew-cream pizza, seitan (sounds like Satan!) kebabs, made from vital wheat gluten but tasting just like chicken, or even vegan sushi. ‘I have a friend in Newcastle, who runs a vegan restaurant called VegAnatomy’ John says, ‘and she makes the most incredible sushi, often from watermelon. I’m really looking forward to making more of it.
‘There are so many other things you can do too. Use sesame seeds in pesto, instead of parmesan. Oat milk is a great substitute for normal milk as it’s neutral, not too sweet.’ Cheese is harder to replicate, John admits, and is the one thing he really misses. ‘But I can do without butter. You can always use oils instead. And I love a bit of tahini spread on my toast in the morning.’
A Personal Choice
John decided to go fully vegan seven years ago. ‘It’s not just about food, it’s a whole life ethos. I’ve always massively loved animals, rescuing anything that I think needs help. I’ll never let spiders or flies be killed in the house. I’m a big softy at heart.’
However it was a comment from his partner, Georgia that convinced him to try. She is also Louma’s head gardener, and one day she asked him why, for someone who so loved animals, he still ate meat. ‘I thought about it. And the next day I was vegan.’
The couple met thirteen years ago in France, working in a hotel in a ski resort. (Georgie used to work front of house in hospitality, before retraining as a gardener.) ‘It wasn’t an option over there,’ John explains. ‘There’s not even a term for it. Especially in the mountains, it was all meats and cheeses.’
Back in the UK, however, it’s never been easier to eat a plant-based diet, and last year more than 25 million people took part in Veganuary globally. (Not bad for a campaign which began in 2014 from a kitchen table in Yorkshire.) 2025 is set to be even bigger, with campaigns running in Latin America, Germany, the USA, Malaysia, Peru and Canada.
Be kind to the planet – and everything on it
“What’s so great about cooking at Louma is that it enables me to align my personal beliefs with my job, more than I ever thought possible.”
As a working farm and vineyard, not only do we care passionately about the soil in which we grow our produce, but we also want our animals to live their best lives possible. ‘I might be vegan personally, but I still love cooking with meat, fish and dairy products,’ John says. ‘However, previously, when I ordered my meat from a supplier, I’d have no idea of the life the animals had led.
‘Here I see the cows grazing in the lush fields, I visit our chickens to collect fresh eggs. We had a lamb that was attacked by a fox on her first day, so I took her home and was bottle rearing her at night. The staff were keen for me to do that, which showed just how much they prioritise animal welfare. Now they’ve agreed to have her as a forever sheep – otherwise I wasn’t going to bring her back! But I’ll also always love cooking every kind of dish. The pork tenderloin we’ve been making recently has been amazing – with couscous salad, salsa verde, lots of micro herbs from the garden. When you sous vide the pork it’s as tender as butter. I know the world as we know it is never going to be completely vegan. So it’s about maximising animal welfare and minimising the environmental impact of the food we produce.
‘At Louma we’ve made a genuine commitment to the planet, which is reflected in everything we do. I think it’s brilliant that we’re doing Veganuary, because we all really care. For me, what’s so great about cooking here is that it enables me to align my personal beliefs with my job, more than I ever thought possible.’
‘My hope is that our guests will try things they might never have considered, forming positive memories that they’ll take home with them; hopefully encouraging them to incorporate more plant-based options into their diet. If everyone opted for just one plant-based meal a week it would make such a difference to the planet. What I want to show is that it can be fun and delicious too.’
John’s Tips for Plant-Based Substitutes
For almost every animal-derived ingredient and product, there is now a vegan alternative. This means that a vegan meal can look and taste almost exactly like a non-vegan one; it just doesn’t come with the same environmental impact.
- Mushrooms are just the best! There are so many textures and flavours that can be used to replicate meat dishes. You can do pulled pork, calamari, scallops, sausages, even steak. And they contain so much goodness and flavour.
- Flora do a plant-based butter that’s perfect for baking.
- Waitrose do a vegan cheese board, where John swears the Camembert is almost as good as the real thing (although Georgie’s not so sure!) Nutritional yeast sprinkled on food creates a ‘cheesy’ flavour.
- Vegan mayo is very easy to make using the water out of a tin of chickpeas. You can also make meringues with it.
- Don’t forget that there are already hundreds of ‘accidentally’ vegan foods. These include pasta, rice, peanut butter and Marmite, most breads, tinned tomatoes, chickpeas and kidney beans, jam and marmalade, coconut milk, curry pastes, tomato puree, baked beans, many crisps, crackers and biscuits, herbs and spices, many gravy granules, tea, coffee and fruit juice.
- Most wines, beers and ales are not vegan – many use animal-derived clarifying agents like gelatin, isinglass (fish bladder), or egg whites. Perhaps seek out some vegan options in January.
If you visit us, and love what John cooks, feel free to ask him for any of his recipes. He’s always delighted to share – particularly the vegan ones!
