vegan christmas
Don’t let your festive feast be a total turkey this year…
If you’re getting tired of the festive turkey, or you’ve already embraced all things plant-based in 2018, you might be one of the thousands of people who have been Googling “vegan Christmas” in the hope of finding a delicious festive dinner that delivers more than a dry old nut roast. Enter BOSH!, aka Ian Theasby and Henry Firth, whose inventive vegan Christmas dinner has already been given a massive thumbs up by an estimated 100,000 people. We went to their London HQ to try it out and we can promise you it tastes (and smells!) as good as the real thing.
Now, the boys, who have teamed up with Tesco this year for their Vegmas campaign, are hoping they can convince you to turn off the turkey too this year…
Why did the Big BOSH! Roast get so much love last year?
Ian: It answered an important question about what to cook vegans for Christmas dinner. Henry: Our version of vegan Christmas dinner is fun, exciting and better than turkey – rather than a compromise.
I: And it’s a good thing to make because it requires a little bit of skill, but not too much.
Christmas is all about tradition. How difficult is it to change what people eat?
I: Every year I take a pic of my
Christmas dinner. Four years ago, I went from just having meat and all the trimmings to just having vegetables. Now, with the Mushroom Wellington, there isn’t much difference in the photos between this and what I used to have as a meat eater.
H: Whenever I serve this, the meat eaters will always have a slice to “see how it tastes”, and then they love it and often go back for seconds.
Is it made with fancy ingredients that we’ll have to scour health food stores for?
I: No, the most expensive thing is the chestnuts and they’re not that expensive.
H: If you think about how much a turkey costs and we’re just buying mushrooms. It’s got all the tasty stuff you could want, it’s got protein, flavour, it tastes rich and there’s nothing bad in it. Plus, you don’t have to worry about animal welfare… I: Or fridge space! Is vegan food superhealthy?
I: When I became a vegan, I was carrying quite a lot of weight and, as soon as I started eating a wholly plant-based diet, then that weight dropped off, my hair got thicker, my skin got clearer, I slept longer at night, woke up fresher in the morning and just felt more alert throughout the day.
H: It cured my hayfever, too! It just feels like quite a clean way to eat, as long as you’re not just eating pasta and chips. If you can get loads of colour into your body – eat the rainbow – and loads of spice, you’ll feel amazing. You’ve had an amazing year – appearing on This
Morning, US telly and cooking with people like Jamie Oliver, Gary Barlow and Prue Leith… H: We were definitely nervous about cooking with Prue, as she commands authority, but she was lovely and it was like being round our nan’s house. What’s the plan for 2019? I: We have our second book,
Bish! Bash! Bosh! , coming out in april and we’re still on a mission to inspire people with really tasty, easy to make plant-based recipes.
H: Christmas dinner is the most meat-focused meal of the year, so if you can sneak a bit more veg into that meal, then you can do it for any meal. and, obviously, New Year is just after Christmas, and you might be looking to shed the pounds, save a bit of money and prepare for the summer ahead, so it’s the perfect time to consider going vegan.
‘The meat eaters always ask for seconds’ Henry