Honarary Vegans at Family Camp

I am one of the vegan cooks at family camp up in Mendocino at the Woodlands. I don't take credit for the menu although I often have input. Katie and I have developed much loved recipes at camp like the one that we have for vegan coconut macadamia cookies. I don't keep the recipes, yet they come back year after year in Katie's trusted hands.



While there are likely just more than a handful of "real" vegans at camp, there are a group who sign up for vegetarian food, which is mostly vegan, because they say that the food is better. We had a new camper this year who saw the vegan offerings and asked if she could go vegan for the week? Of course we said because we usually make extra vegan food.


One of the meat-eating campers suggested that instead of having the vegans come into the kitchen serving line (versus having food on the table), that we put vegan or vegetarian food on the table and have the meat-eaters come into the kitchen. There is debate over whether that would be wise. Some think that too many people would be getting up for their food. I'd like to think that some people are inherently lazy and would just eat what's in front of them -- vegan or not. There may be only one way to find out -- Just Do It.


One year, though, we had an all-vegetarian meal for our special meal. Many people liked it but some hard-core meat-eaters complained. Others didn't enjoy the meal because it had a Middle Eastern theme and might have been too unusual for some palates.

Hopefully the fond memories of vegan camp food will translate to more vegan eating experiences at home for our honorary vegan campers.