Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1476966
C H E E S E+ 202 2 culturecheesemag.com 49 Kellogg was a turn-of-the-century hippie, fixated on the personal spiritual benefits of veganism in an era when purity and abstinence were cardinal virtues. His work dovetailed with that of Upton Sinclair, whose exposure of unsanitary practices in the meatpacking industry fueled widespread fears of diseases traceable to tainted animal products. This era's interest in veganism was based on individual aspirations and fears—it was niche, and it didn't last long. A depression and two world wars pretty much knocked it out. But one hundred years later, vegan cheese is back on the menu and bigger than ever. In 2021, the global vegan cheese market was valued at $2.43 billion, and Silicon Valley is pouring more money into alt milks ever y year. So what's changed? The planet is heating up, and it's not just about us anymore. WHAT'S IN A NAME? Vegan "cheese" is a bit of a sore subject. In 2019, the American Cheese Society filed comment with the Food and Drug Administration requesting that the words "cheese" and "milk" be reserved for animal products in order to not mislead consumers, a position they stand by today. To counter this, vegan advocates have invoked items like peanut butter and coconut milk to demonstrate that consumers aren't so easily fooled. The debates get heated, and mud is often slung— earlier this year, New York City vegan mayor Eric Adams referred to cheese as being as addictive as heroin. "Essentially, 'cheese' is a preserving technique," says Bo Babaki of Philadelphia-based vegan creamery Conscious Cultures. "If you're taking the same technique and applying it to a different substrate, to me that's cheese." Babaki's cashew milk wheels are crafted with traditional cultures, enzymes, and aging, and they look a heck of a lot like the real thing—in fact, one of his long-term goals is to enter them in (and win) a dairy cheese competition. For now, though, he avoids putting the word "cheese" on his labels, using descriptors like "ash-ripened" or "bloomy rind" to clue customers in. Yoav Perry, fellow Philly resident and founder of Perrystead Dairy, is a friend and adviser to Babaki, but he disagrees with him on naming. A major figure in the artisan cheese community, Perry straddles a unique line—he has consulted for vegan cheesemakers, though he says he'd never regard their wares as "cheese." "The word 'cheese' defines a huge variety of products, the only connection among them is that they are made from mammal's milk," Perry says. "The vegan alternative has zero connection to this concept." Perry thinks that as vegan makers forge their own path, pitting the two against each other will eventually become irrelevant. But in an industry where name control is everything, that moment feels far away. "I personally have an issue with the use of the word 'cheese,'" says Shannon Tallman, a Whole Foods cheese buyer in Portland, Maine. "It's the same issue I have with cheesemakers calling their cheeses things that they're obviously not, like Gruyère." Perry echoes this: "It's absurd that I am not allowed to call my product 'cream cheese' if it wasn't tested for a minimal amount of butterfat, but vegan producers can call their nut paste 'cream cheese.'" The FDA currently has no standards of identity for plant-based cheeses but says it's studying the issue. Meanwhile, vegan makers are already finding workarounds via label constructs like "just like FETA" IN 1904, cornflake kingpin John Harvey Kellogg created a soft, spreadable nut pâté called Nuttolene that he marketed as a dairy-free replacement for cream cheese, unwittingly kicking off a debate that riles our industry to this day. TOP PHOTOS: SHELBURNE FARMS IN VERMONT