If it's vegan, call it anything but cheese, please

Representation pic

Last week, we decided to order a vegan cheesy chipotle dip (Rs 290) and a slab of Parmesan cheese (Rs 450) from a recently launched vegan products brand called Grabenord.com. It made us smile at the thought that at one point over a decade ago, vegan products were scarce. Today, the niche market is overflowing, with even non-vegan customers tempted to get a taste.

For us, the chipotle spread worked well as a companion to our toast, an elevating ingredient in our corn salad and a hit dip at our Diwali party. However, this spread is not preservative-free and is made using soya oil, garlic, cashew nuts, chilli, turmeric, potato starch and mustard.

The parmesan cheese spread, on the other hand, is preservative-free, lactose-free, gluten-free, vegan and dairy-free and plant-based. And, it turned out, taste-free. We compared it with our favourite vegan Parmesan cheese by Raveena Taurani. At her vegan cafe in Bandra, Yogisattva, the parmesan ball is salty with a perfect mix of organic cashew, nutritional yeast, salt, organic spices and organic lemon juice.

This one is made using coconut oil, cashew nut, potato starch, natural yeast, salt, citric acid and added flavours. On the palate, it felt artificial with a stale odour. The texture is dense and flaky. We were unable to grate it. Overall, it gave us the feeling of having tried something that went wrong in the lab.

Parmesan is a hard cheese made from cow's milk and aged for 12 months. It is not possible to make a vegan version, owing to the absence of the main ingredient: milk. The fad to create vegan alternatives sometimes misses the mark because the benchmark set is unreasonable.