MEAT but not as we know it
Musician and chef Flip Grater is rede nin hat the rd eat eans rites Jo Elwin.
To musos and foodies alike, Flip Grater needs no introduction, but for those not familiar, Flip is a person not a piece of kitchen equipment, although her cooking skills would make her a welcome addition to any culinary kit.
Flip is a singer, songwriter, chef and recipe writer who says her passions for food and music are the connecting elements in her life.
“When I was touring my music, I would quite often play in restaurants, and I started collecting recipes from the audience during my shows.”
This led to the journaling of her travels in cookbook form and Flip has recently released her third book of recipes, all plant-based, called The Grater Good.
Flip is shortened from Flipper, a nickname from her teenage years when she was an active environmentalist trying to save the Hector’s dolphin from drift fishing around the Banks Peninsula.
Grater is her family name, a family with a history in butchery and fisheries which makes Flip a fifthgeneration butcher. Flip has referred to herself as a “vegan butcher” since starting the Grater Goods Vegan Delicatessen in 2018.
Now housed in a large industrial building in Christchurch’s Sydenham, Grater Goods started as a hole in the wall. “It was just me,” says Flip.
“I would go in three days a week for a few hours while my daughter was at daycare and make a couple of vegan meats to sell online. While there I would sell sandwiches out the window and it just grew and grew. I put a table out, then two tables, and eventually my husband Youssef, who has a hospitality background, joined me and we turned it into a full-blown cafe and deli.
“Today it is more a bistro/winebar/shop with a separate production facility where we create Grater Goods’ gourmet vegan goods for the food service and retail sectors.”
These goods include vegan pates, cheeses and meats, and Flip doesn’t hesitate to use the word meat because she says they are trying to redefine what the word meat means. “It’s really about something that’s chewy and satiating. Things have changed so much in the 24 years that I have been vegan. I used to take my own soy milk to cafes for coffee and I ate a lot of lentils.
“I’m not knocking lentils, they’re great, it’s just that sometimes you want something more gourmet. You want chewy, salty and decadent, or something soft to put on a cracker, and at the end of the day hummus is not a great match for pinot noir.”
Flip started creating products to satisfy her needs and was right in thinking that others also wanted them. The Grater Goods’ meat range now includes sopressa, chorizo, kielbasa, pastrami, pepperoni, furkey, faken and barbecue sausages.
There’s a selection of cheeses including a smoky ashed cheddar and a cashew mozzarella, and lox made from carrot.
“We use natural fermentation, culturing and curing techniques that have been around for a long time and apply them to plant-based proteins rather than animal proteins,” Flip says.
To develop plant-based proteins Flip uses a technique called seitan where the starch is washed away from wheat flour, leaving a glutenous, stretchy protein that can be flavoured and cooked in different ways. “Because it’s an ancient Chinese technique much of the seitan available was flavoured that way – such as char siu – for Chinese cookery. We are using their technique but flavouring it to make European style meats.”
Flip points out that most people who are cutting down on animal proteins are not doing so because they don’t like the taste of meat or cheese. “It’s for environmental reasons, or they no longer want to eat animals, or want less cholesterol in their diet. Having products that replicate or remind us of those pleasure points is important because they make it easy for people to change without sacrifice.”
Youssef spends his time on the floor and in the kitchen. “Wherever he’s needed, he can do everything brilliantly,” says Flip.
The couple, who were living in Paris, (Youssef is French Moroccan), came to Flip’s Christchurch home to get married in 2014 and never left. “We got pregnant and just kind of stayed,” she laughs.
Things have changed so much in the 24 years that I have been vegan. I used to take my own soy milk to cafes for coffee and I ate a lot of lentils.
Visit Grater Goods at 105 Orbell St, Sydenham, Christchurch. You can also get a taste of Flip’s talents through The Grater Good (Koa Press), a book of plant-based recipes.