I doubt my mother would have believed me if I’d told her I’d be helping out in a kitchen, preparing a vegan lunch for myself—let alone with the Hot Yam, who organize and serve vegwan meals to hundreds of students weekly at the International Student Centre. As the resident carnivore at The Varsity, I was skeptical at first about the menu and the whole operation. What are they cooking? I wondered. Tofu and bamboo? Flax seed and grass?
Veganism, which is both a diet and lifestyle, involves avoiding the consumption and use of any animals or animal products. It has always left a bad taste in my mouth, mainly for its militant ethics and its closed-mindedness. However, the welcoming and friendly members of the Hot Yam certainly offered a fresh perspective for those who don’t enjoy the flesh of dead things as much as I do.
Hannah Sobel, a fourth-year semiotics and religion student, was coordinating the kitchen as I arrived early on the Thursday morning (much too early for my liking, I should add—I’m surprised I was allowed to use any sort of sharp utensils at that hour). Hannah has volunteered throughout her undergrad with the Hot Yam, which emerged from the previously existing Radical Roots group. Immediately, I inquired about the menu and—for fear of having the previous night’s protein smell on my breath—whether I was the only non-vegan in the kitchen. Hannah reassured me: “I know of one person who is vegan. Most people [here] are just vegetarian. We do a vegan lunch because it’s the most accessible for those with eating restrictions—you can feed the most people.” So, thankfully, I wasn’t on the chopping block from the start.
This particular lunch was being prepared as part of World Food Week, an event run in conjunction with U of T Food Services. On the menu was a vegetable wrap consisting of homemade red kidney bean spread, roasted yams and zucchini, fresh cucumbers, fresh salsa, and sprouts stuffed inside a whole-wheat pita. Even at 9 a.m., the kitchen smelled incredible—this definitely wasn’t all tofu and bran. “These wraps are probably going to have too much flavour,” Hannah joked. Served with the wraps were muffins prepared the night before in three organic vegan-friendly varieties: apple, carrot, and zucchini. “The muffin recipe called for sugar,” Hannah explains, “but we used local maple syrup. We also found a bread company out of Mississauga that uses wheat from Southern Ontario.” Even better, the Hot Yam’s flavourful, well thought-out meals can be purchased for just four dollars a person. There really isn’t a more filling or better-tasting lunch deal downtown.
Being a bachelor, I was hesitant about lending my services in the kitchen, but once I was handed a knife, I was surprisingly able to hold my own—first dicing cucumbers, then roasting the yams and splitting the pitas. The entire operation grew, hydra-like, as more volunteers arrived, until the tiny kitchen was buzzing and functioning like an assembly line to prepare hundreds of these wraps. The Hot Yam, is staffed entirely by volunteers, who sign up online to plan, shop for, and prepare a meal every week for a considerable number of hungry people on campus. “We’re expecting about three to four hundred people today,” Hannah warned me. Once all the prep-work was complete, I joined the assembly line to spread the bean dip and stuff the pitas. Having had my typical, modest breakfast of Red Bull and two cigarettes, the wraps looked more and more tempting and my stomach snarling louder and louder.
It was a bit surreal how everything materialized in just a few short hours, and how quickly the mountains of wraps we had prepared disappeared into the eager hands of the customers.
I was proud to have been part of a cohesive, sustainable food effort on campus (because, truth be told, most of what’s served on campus is barely edible). This particular lunch drew in literally hundreds of students and many people who have no immediate attachment to U of T, but come for the great food and support the rationale behind it.
I was not changed by this experience; I will still get my protein the old-fashioned way. However, the Hot Yam, taught me two things: first, with the right menu and ingredients, vegetables are not nearly as bland and secondary as I had long considered them to be. Second, those with different belief systems—particularly surrounding the stomach—than my own, aren’t always militant, hemp-wearing kids from the West Coast. In fact, I was glad to get to know all of them, slaving over a hot stove (so to speak). I can definitely see myself grabbing another meal from them sometime very soon.
The Hot Yam! serves meals on Wednesdays from 12 to 2 p.m. at the International Student Centre. For information on upcoming dates and volunteering, visit their Facebook page.
