Planting a ‘steak’ in the ground
Issue 13 | Autumn 2023
The boys from BOSH! have taken the vegan world by storm. But their latest book is all about ‘meat’. RUPERT BATES explains
The book title was a red rag to a bull, assuming not a plant-based one. I was ready to take to the ring for all carnivores – hardly surprising given the nature of the BBQ beast.
Henry Firth & Ian Theasby
The book is called BOSH! MEAT. Chapter headings include poultry, beef, pork and lamb. Welcome to a new cookbook dedicated to the wonders and flavours of meat in all its variety.
Wrong. The recipes are all plant-based alternatives, using the likes of lentils, peas, beans, tofu, seitan, grains, nuts and seeds – as well of course as vegetables, which at least we’re all agreed on.
The authors are Henry Firth and Ian Theasby of the phenomenally successful BOSH!, the biggest plant-based online channel in the world and authors of best-selling cookbooks. Talking about literally not judging a book by its cover, although there is the strapline: ‘delicious, hearty, plant-based’ as a clue.
Their latest book is all about plant-based ‘meat’ – my inverted commas – and there are also chapters on fish and cheese alternatives. But nothing in the book is meat; in the same way that a vegan butcher is a grocer not a butcher.
In the introduction, Firth and Theasby say the future of meat is plants. The array of recipes includes crispy Korean-style chicken wings; the chicken is tofu. There is a Philly cheesesteak recipe – soy or pea-based proteins, with chestnut mushrooms and white onions.
I was itching for a fight as we met through the prism of the laptop screen. The trouble is I instantly liked the ‘enemy’.
I’d picked the wrong fight and far from being evangelical activists on a crusade to send the carnivore the way of the dinosaur, Firth and Theasby are clearly talented, innovative cooks, layering plant-based ingredients to enhance textures and flavours, who like nothing more than a barbecue.
In essence they are a couple of top lads from Sheffield, now living in London, who’ve gone vegan and love food.
They used to love meat; they still do. They just don’t eat it anymore.
There are health, animal welfare, nutritional and environmental arguments in the book, which deserve to be challenged. But if you’ve decided for whatever reason to be vegan, there can’t be many more creative, colourful cookbooks out there to up your culinary game.
Whether or not their experimenting when it comes to trying to recreate the flavours and textures of meat can get remotely close to the real thing – well, that’s for individual taste buds to decide. Whatever your preference, we did all agree that everything tastes better over smoke and fire.
“All food is improved by being cooked on a BBQ, over open flame, imparting that wonderful smoky flavour,” said Theasby.
Great friends and schoolmates, they went on to share a London flat, throwing regular barbecues, with meat invariably the hero.
It was Theasby who went vegan first, about eight years ago, as a new year’s resolution.
“Initially it was a three-month trial, but I felt really good on the diet, so carried on. It is one of the best things I’ve ever done,” said Theasby.
Firth was not convinced or impressed at the time, before watching the documentary Cowspiracy and “going Vegan overnight”.
“Most of our mates are not vegan. My parents aren’t vegan, but we don’t argue over dinner,” said Firth.
“We hope we’ve brought a new laddish, non-judgemental, welcoming feel to the world of veganism and that plant-based food can be accessible to all and fun to cook.”
Firth points to more information being out there – although how that is interpreted or presented is a moot point – empowering people to make choices about the way they live and what they eat.
“There is no right or wrong, but it is important that all the options are out there. If we all pointed fingers at each other less, we’d all find ourselves in a better place.”
Theasby says it is more about “the how than the why”.
“We show how you can introduce more plants into your diet, using familiar recipes that are tasty, nutritional and easy to make. Every day for seven years we have put a new recipe up on our website.”
Firth would simply be happy to see all meat-eaters having one more plant-based meal a week. That’s not a man waging a war.
“But always be more mindful of the quality of the meat and its provenance. Meat as a treat – spending a bit more if you can and taking a bit more time sourcing, then cooking it with love over a barbecue.”
They didn’t stop eating meat because they no longer liked the taste, and remain supportive of the small, local farmer, with ethically reared livestock, but they were shocked by some of the big fast-food outlets who can produce “impossibly cheap, irresponsibly cheap burgers”.
The pair concede that the title of the book could be construed as provocative, or at the very least playful. In some ways, they argue, it is recognition, in terms of flavour, of meat’s attractions, attempting to recreate those familiar profiles they used to eat regularly, but now through the medium of plants.
“The chapter headings are a logical way to signpost the recipes. You fancy something beef-y but not beef, cheese-y, but not cheese,” said Theasby.
He’d admit that a few years ago a vegan burger couldn’t touch a beef burger but believes with the culinary advancement in plant-based flavours and textures they can be a match when it comes to taste.
Development kitchens are now as much about chemists as chefs, with companies, with varying degrees of success, commercial or otherwise, trying out new technologies and techniques to extract and enhance plant-based proteins.
We are all agreed that there is little better than charred vegetables on the barbecue, for both taste and health enhancement, with colourful fruits and vegetables hugely beneficial as part of a balanced diet.
BOSH! TV has a vast online following. Many are flexitarians, says Firth, “thinking more carefully about the meat and fish they choose to eat.”
There are of course plenty of vegans, but the channel’s tone is relaxed, focused on the ‘how’ if you want to eat more vegan meals.
Theasby has always enjoyed cooking, remembering from the age of 12 how Mondays were his day to make spaghetti bolognese for his family.
“Food is about the social as well as the nourishment, trying different dishes.”
Firth has been collecting cookbooks all his life. “I’ve always been a foodie and love to cook. Most people tend to have say five to 10 dishes they’ve perfected, so when we went vegan we lost the meat dishes forever. We had to go on a journey to find favourites again, recreating them with vegan ingredients and that was really how the channel started.”
Theasby is a big advocate of mushrooms on the barbecue, marinating king oyster mushrooms in a sticky, smoky sauce, while Firth will throw ‘dirty onions’ straight on the coals.
“Courgettes, asparagus, aubergines, cauliflower – they are all sensational grilled on the barbecue.”
I learn about tempeh, “tofu’s more sophisticated older brother”, and made from fermented soya beans, high in fibre and vitamin B.
“Tempeh is great at holding firm and taking on flavour. Cover it in a spicy rub and get it on the BBQ,” said Firth.
Sorry lads, my ‘Temper’ is a London smokehouse with fire pits cooking real meat. But how refreshing, in the modern ‘come with me or you’re cancelled’ culture, to end the chat by simply agreeing to differ on certain aspects of the book.
To my taste – and to be fair Firth and Theasby have not cooked for me yet – plant-based alternatives will never come close to meat. But flexitarians and vegans, with this book, you’re in for a treat. Just don’t call it meat.