In her debut book, No Meat Required: The Cultural History & Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating, Alicia Kennedy has written a manifesto—but, crucially, not a diatribe. More than half a century after Diet for a Small Planet—Frances Moore Lappé’s influential work on the need to reduce animal consumption—Kennedy makes a case for radically rethinking the place of meat in our warming world.
She has no intention of convincing all of her readers to go vegan or to adhere to the kind of moral puritanism with which the movement has often been wrongly associated. Instead, she takes an incisive look at the good, the bad, and the bizarre across the history of abstaining from meat, from religious sects to raw vegans, from toxic wellness culture to Silicon Valley–backed lab-grown meats.
While she does not discount Impossible Burgers and big alt-dairy, her heart is clearly with the punks and the underdogs. Her pages light up when describing Lagusta Yearwood, who practices “activism through hedonism” at her vegan chocolate shop that sells pink peppercorn–tinged “Furious Vulvas” and other truffles; the Bloodroot Collective, an ecofeminist restaurant from the ’70s whose ethos is “meant to evoke comfort, promote consciousness, and community”; and the vegan zines of the early aughts, each crammed with cheap-print pages of erotica, recipes, and proclamations like “Veganism … is a great way to say Fuck You! to the powers that be and their advertisers.”
Through her weekly newsletter and other writing, Kennedy has been one of the most prominent voices in this space for more than a decade, in part because she writes about plant-based foods in a way that manages to feel both inclusive and wildly delicious. Although Kennedy’s work is rooted in exhaustive research, it is her personal experience, as well as the clarity and empathy of her voice that give this slender volume its power.
Gastro Obscura spoke with Kennedy about veggie burgers that bleed, restaurants keeping it punk, and what’s most exciting to her about American plant-based cuisine right now.
