Pioneering Vancouver chef releases new edition of The Art of Plant-Based Cheesemaking cookbook
Blue Heron Creamery’s Karen McAthy is a sought-after educator in the world of dairy-free cheese
WHEN BLUE HERON Creamery opened in Mount Pleasant in 2018, people couldn’t wait to walk through the doors. The first stand-alone vegan “cheese” shop in Vancouver proper, it was a revelation for those following a plant-based diet who had been missing things like Camembert and parmesan Reggiano.
Headed by chef Karen McAthy, Colin Medhurst, and Lawrence Eade, the Main Street store specializes in artisan, cultured, plant-based cheeses made of ingredients like almonds, walnuts, cashews, pecans, hazelnuts, and coconut milk.
There’s Cumulus, a coconut-milk-based cheese with a sharp, clean acidity that pairs well with pasta and white wine; Smoke n’ Spice, an almond-based cheese with smoked paprika and pickled jalapeno; and Cormorant, a semi-firm cashew-and-coconut-milk cheese aged with vegetable ash. (Veggies are dried and turned into ash, which helps neutralize the food’s surface pH.) Some of Blue Heron Creamery’s cheeses can be found on menus at local restaurants, such as Sneaky Pete’s and the Diamond.
McAthy shares everything you need to know to make non-dairy cheese at home in The Art of Plant-Based Cheesemaking, Second Edition: How to Craft Real, Cultured, Non-Dairy Cheese (New Society Publishers). The just released cookbook is an expanded and updated version of the title that won in the vegan category at the 2018 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
Drawing deep from the well of traditional cheesemaking, McAthy has developed methods for everything from non-cultured beginner recipes to advanced cultured cheeses.
The book includes information on how to grow plant-based cultures; how to use emulsifiers, starches, and binders; and even how to go beyond nuts and seeds to legumes for cheesemaking. McAthy also covers flavouring, aging, rind curing, smoking, and working with white and blue molds.
The Art of Plant-Based Cheesemaking features new recipes for cooking with dairy-free cheeses and tips on how to make dairy-free cultured butter, coconut-milk yogurt, oat- and cashew-milk yogurt, and sour cream.
A vegetarian of more than 22 years and a vegan for about 11, McAthy began experimenting with dairy-free cheese after feeling there had to be more than the options available on grocery-store shelves. Formerly the executive chef at the now-shuttered Graze Vegetarian, among other places, she dove into the science behind non-dairy cheese in response to growing demand for plant-based charcuterie boards.
See Blue Heron Creamery or New Society Publishers for more information.
The cashew-based Herb and Garlic dairy-free cheese is one of the most popular selections at Blue Heron Creamery.
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