Who am I?
My name is Louise and I come from the arctic north in Greenland. People don't always know where that is. When I explain that it's the worlds biggest island, the big white chunk of land between Canada and Iceland, I hear the usual: 'I have never met anyone from Greenland before'. Most of the small population of under 60.000 people, have a very meat based diet. But then there's me, The Vegan Eskimo. I have had a vegetarian diet for about 18 years and been vegan for the last few years. Veganism has opened doors to a new culinary world, that I am very happy to share with everyone here.
But how does one that comes from Greenland, that has such a meat influenced diet, become vegan? It all started when I was a child. My family would always gather around the dinner table, the center of the household and the heart of the home. Most dinners consisted of meat, and in the beginning of my life I ate meat. Not eargerly though. I would always just have the rice, pasta and steamed veggies. I was never a big fan of meat. However, when I was a teenager and started to cook for myself, I decided to become fully vegetarian. The freedom to cook for myself led me to explore more exotic culinary styles, like Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and Mexican. And I LOVED it ! And that's how my vegetarian story began. It was first later in my 20's that I became more aware of the ethical reasons of becoming a vegan. That made me embrace veganism, and introducing vegan alternatives to dairy, eggs and cheese was surprisingly easy.
Vegan or Plant based?
Veganism is more than just eating plant based. Veganism is refraying from animal products in all areas of life. That means no leather, fur, feathers, silk, wool etc. That might sound easy, but many things are not vegan and we don't even think about it. I still have down duvets in my guestroom and a few low percentage wool blend sweaters (secondhand). Its a shame to just replace, and much more environmentally friendly using what we already have, until they wear out, then later replace with vegan alternatives. So wearing them out is my way to deal with it. It's a journey. The longer I travel with this mindset of replacing things in my life gradually, the better it feels.
My View on Cooking and Recipes
Often, my free time would be spent in the kitchen. Some weekends I would make a 3 course meal or just try to make a new version of a dish, having fun. Not that I would ever write the recipe down. I would take photos of my dinners and post them online without the recipe. But with time people started to ask for them. I would write them the recipe, but I would always think:
You DON'T have to use exactly what I used, if you want another similar ingredient, use that instead. If you want to use more or less of whatever ingredient, feel free, don't feel restricted by this recipe, don't let me decide what you buy in the supermarket, just empty your fridge and use what you have - try and take inspiration from several recipes, that is how you create new favourites in the house !
So it might come to no surprise that I am somewhat of a recipe-rebel, so I always avoided to follow a recipe completely myself, I would always change some of the vegetables, the spices etc. and make it my own dish. Mostly it would turn out mouthwateringly delicious, though other times I had to cook the same meal a few times and edit some ingredients or methods, to make it perfect. Cooking is trial and error, but mostly it's fun. Just have fun with it :)
