‘Becoming vegan transformed my sleep pattern, my nails looked better and my skin cleared up’

Londonderry cook Aine Carlin turned to a fully vegan diet in 2011 and has now released her third cookery book. Claire O’Mahony hears why she’s now so enthusiastic about plant-based food

In recent years interest in veganism has soared, becoming practically mainstream, but perceptions of it as being an impractical and restrictive way of eating still linger. However, Londonderry-born cookbook author Aine Carlin, who is based in Penzance, Cornwall, with her husband and rescue dachshund Whinnie, firmly believes that anyone can get on board with veganism.

“I think we can change our habits at any time and I think that you will feel the benefits regardless of what age you are,” she says.

“My mother eats primarily plant-based — I wouldn’t say it’s vegan because she doesn’t avoid leather or anything like that — and she’s in her 60s.

“When I first went vegan, I’m sure her and my dad thought it was a phase and it wouldn’t last, but they then became interested themselves and my mum claims she would never go back.”

Cook Eat Share Vegan is Carlin’s third cookery book and the one she says she’s always wanted to make. Its range of recipes caters for all cooking skills, from the entry-level vegan to the more skilled home chef.

She describes the recipes as “food that just happens to be vegan” and there are plenty of variations on classic dishes that won’t scare the meat and two veg gang if they are considering dipping their toes into plant-based eating. These include a red lentil bolognese-like ragu and hearty and warming curries, pies and soups, as well as wheaten and scone breads.

There are also a lot of potato dishes. “I don’t know if that’s because I’m Irish. It was only afterward I realised how many there were. My mum is obviously delighted because she’s actually obsessed with potatoes,” she says.

At the book’s core is an emphasis on sharing. “I tried to make it as accessible and as inclusive as I possibly could because, for me, food is about community as well.

“With the vegan message, that can kind of get lost a little bit. It feels like it’s something you do by yourself, but with this I’m trying to open it up a little bit.”

Carlin’s books and her engaging blog, Pea Soup, make for an attractive argument for veganism, but she insists that she doesn’t and won’t preach.

“My role, as I see it, is to offer some really great vegan recipes, and then people can do with that what they will. It’s not for me to prescribe a certain diet to you or tell you what you should or shouldn’t be eating. I don’t think that’s any of my business,” she says.

“My focus is entirely on the food and, regardless of my own personal views and opinions, I just do what I do and let people make their own decisions.”

She herself has been fully vegan since 2011 and changed her diet after a period spent living in Chicago.

With the vegan message becoming a lot stronger in recent times, what does she think the tipping point was?

“Collectively we’re just becoming a bit more conscious of where our food comes from,” Carlin says.

“We’re concerned about health, but we’re also concerned about the environment and, from where I’m sitting I think a lot of people are sitting back and thinking, ‘This isn’t so great for the planet... maybe I shouldn’t be eating as much meat and dairy as I currently am’.

“People are always concerned about their health and they want to mix things up and make sure they’re not overdoing it in one area.

“When I brought out my first cookbook in 2014, the landscape was very different back then and you almost had to convince people that you didn’t necessarily have to be vegan to cook from this book.

“Then, as things progressed, more and more people were dipping into veganism and they didn’t feel like they had to commit 100%, but they were still happy to use plant-based recipes twice a week.”

In terms of the health benefits a vegan diet can bring, she stresses that it depends on the individual. Carlin had suffered no major ailments before going plant-based, but she noted small and important improvements once she did and found it easier to maintain her weight.

“I probably wasn’t sleeping or getting the rest that I needed and it transformed mine and my husband’s sleep patterns for sure,” she says.

“A few weeks into going vegan I realised my nails were looking so much better and my skin had cleared up. My mum would just say she feels lighter after meals and she doesn’t feel as sluggish.”

For anyone who presumes that vegan cooking calls for a large amount of unusual and difficult-to-find ingredients, Cook Eat Share Vegan’s pantry essentials are reassuringly familiar. On the list are things such as canned tomatoes and beans, dried pulses and plenty of herbs and spices.

Carlin says a lot of vegan food tends to be slightly under-seasoned, so she uses liberal amounts of cumin, paprika and different seas salts such as pink Himalayan, as well as Marmite to give gravies a meaty flavour.

Living in the depths of Cornwall, she doesn’t have access to weird and wonderful ingredients, so she doesn’t tend to use hard-to-source items.

“The only ingredient that people might say ‘Oh, what’s that?’ is agar agar and it’s basically like vegetarian gelatine,” she says.

“I have three panna cottas that are really gorgeous and I’ve used agar agar in those, but other than that everything else you can get in a supermarket.

“I think supermarkets have really cottoned on to the fact that people want these ingredients now. Things like miso, which probably would have been a little bit tricky to get your hands on, are now stocked in every supermarket.”

She believes that food shouldn’t come between people, and hopes to convey that veganism is something people can do as a group and that it doesn’t need to be divisive.

Her other important advice is, when you sit down at the table, don’t talk about veganism. “It’s absolutely the one time you should not be talking about it,” she says. “Enjoy your food, talk about other things and put veganism to one side.”

Cook Share Eat Vegan: Delicious plant-based recipes for Everyone, by Aine Carlin, published by Mitchell Beazley, £20, octopusbooks.co.uk

I tried to make it as accessible and inclusive as possible because food is about community as well