Junk food for everyone

SHOWING people how to make the most indulgent dishes from around the world without using meat is the aim of Zacchary Bird’s latest book.

Bird is a vegan recipe developer and food writer from Melbourne, who first made waves with his recipe for vegan ‘‘KFCstyle drumsticks’’.

He is the food editor for Plant Based News and editor for PBNFood, and specialises in the design of plantbased meat alternatives.

So it is no surprise he has authored a book called Vegan Junk Food: A down and dirty cookbook.

‘‘With this book you can transform your kitchen into your favourite fastfood joints or liven up the smorgasbord at parties,’’ he says in the introduction to the book.

He believes those who think they hate vegan food simply have not learnt to cook vegetables properly.

Some might wonder why a vegan would want to go to so much effort to create just the food they aim to avoid.

Bird says food is cultural, and most people crave their favourite familiar meals.

‘‘I’ve heard every reason for choosing a plantbased diet and it’s very rare that someone’s made the switch because they didn’t enjoy the flavours of animal products — so if we can recreate them, why not?’’

He believes plantbased food has no limits and proves it with recipes for beerbattered chocolate bars, Philly fauxsteak and souvlaki.

There are handy guides to some of the more unusual ingredients used in the book as well as instructions on how to make some of the basics.

To echo the book’s title, chapters are broken into ‘‘dips and snacks’’, ‘‘burgers and dogs’’, ‘‘upsize’’ and ‘‘sweets’’.