Marieke Hardy

You’ve got an in­ter­est­ing sto­ry about go­ing ve­g­an part­ly as the re­sult of a dare. Could you tell us how that came about?

One of my dear­est friends in the en­tire world, Lind­say Mc­Dou­gall, has been ve­g­an for about thir­teen years. We were work­ing to­gether at the ABC and he suggest­ed I go ve­g­an for World Veg­e­tarian Week in Oc­to­ber 2008. I fig­ured since I’d giv­en him so much stick over the pre­vi­ous two years about be­ing a sanc­ti­mo­nious, iron-de­fi­cient dork I may as well give it a try. Plus Lind­say al­ways made ve­g­an­ism look pleas­ing­ly he­don­is­tic and glutto­nous, two very im­por­tant as­pects to my di­et as I am ob­sessed with food.

I nev­er, ev­er ex­pect­ed my en­tire world to change dur­ing that par­tic­u­lar week in 2008. Ask any of my pals – I am a *high­ly* un­like­ly can­di­date for ve­g­an­ism. Yet some­how ev­ery­thing was so su­per easy and I felt dee­p­ly I was at last do­ing some­thing very right. It was the clas­sic choir of an­gels mo­ment. But with­out the robes and Je­sus.

Have you en­coun­tered any dif­fi­cul­ties? If so what were they and how have you dealt with them?

I’m a fan of gett­ing in the fam­i­ly van and tak­ing off to the coun­try at a mo­ment’s no­tice, and ob­vi­ous­ly small coun­try towns/pubs aren’t the best place to make a fuss over the menu. I al­so re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the hard work that goes in­to hos­pi­tal­i­ty and don’t like in­con­ve­nienc­ing res­tau­rants. This is usu­al­ly solved by a po­lite phone­call be­fore ar­riv­ing – hel­lo, there’ll be a ve­g­an at your res­tau­rant tonight, hope that’s not too much of a bother, and so on. I’ve found most chefs huge­ly wel­come the heads-up and re­spond pos­i­tive­ly. Eas­i­ly fixed.

How have your fam­i­ly and friends re­act­ed to your ve­g­an­ism?

They were all fair­ly cu­ri­ous (see ear­li­er com­ment re: un­like­ly can­di­date for ve­g­an­ism), not least be­cause I hadn’t even been veg­e­tarian in the in­ter­im – I leapt straight from an om­niv­o­rous di­et in­to a ve­g­an one. I think ’star­tled’ is one word for it. Af­ter a brief pe­ri­od of eye-rolling and ‘oh, you’re not *still* fuck­ing ve­g­an are you?’-type ban­ter they grew more used to the idea and have be­come very sup­por­tive and ac­com­mo­dat­ing. It helps that since be­com­ing ve­g­an I have been ob­sessed with cook­ing and in­sist on ca­ter­ing for them, with lav­ish re­sults.

Of­ten when ve­g­ans are por­trayed on tele­vi­sion they’re shown as slight­ly un­hinged, un­washed hip­pies or lab bomb­ing ter­rorists, serv­ing to per­pe­t­u­ate all the worst un­true stereo­types. You’ve worked as a writ­er on some of Aus­tralia’s top dra­mas, have you ev­er in­cor­po­rat­ed any ve­g­an or an­i­mal rights themes in­to your scripts that might pre­sent a more bal­anced view?

It’s dif­fi­cult to just throw some­thing like that in­to some­body else’s script – most of the dra­mas I work on em­ploy me as a free­lancer, and it’s my job to make their show sound the way they want it to. I’ve been work­ing on a new se­ries for the ABC and there are a cou­ple of sly ref­er­ences to ve­g­an­ism in there, but I don’t re­al­ly be­lieve that soap­box­ing or push­ing my po­lit­i­cal views through nar­ra­tive tele­vi­sion is the way to win hearts. There have been a cou­ple of oc­ca­sions where I’ve re­c­om­mend­ed ve­g­an books on First Tues­day Book Club – Veg­a­nomi­con and Eat­ing An­i­mals – and am hap­py to use that nerdy lit­erary plat­form to share nov­els I feel are im­por­tant. The rest of the time I try to break that ve­g­an stereo­type by be­ing a vo­cal, food-ob­sessed he­don­ist drunkard who doesn’t take them­selves too se­ri­ous­ly or per­form po­et­ry at din­n­er par­ties.

How do you feel the switch to ve­g­an­ism has im­pact­ed your health?

Oh, I feel as­tound­ing. I eat well and of­ten, and make sure I ex­er­cise fair­ly reg­u­lar­ly to bal­ance out all the liquor and good times(TM). I think it’s the com­bi­na­tion of in­cred­i­ble food I in­hale, and the in­nate knowl­edge that I’m fi­nal­ly do­ing some­thing pos­i­tive for the world. I al­ways had a very strong re­ac­tion to the thought of an an­i­mal in pain – I think ev­ery­body does on some lev­el, which is why all those news sto­ries of mis­treat­ed hors­es and pup­pies send Her­ald Sun read­ers in­to an ou­t­raged fren­zy – though I nev­er re­al­ly con­nect­ed it to what I was eat­ing. When I made that con­nec­tion and knew my di­et was no longer caus­ing an an­i­mal an­guish, I felt even bet­ter about the way I lived.

Can you de­scribe some of your favou­rite meals, take­away or home cooked?

You may re­gret ask­ing me this ques­tion, as I fear the en­tire in­ter­net doesn’t have enough gi­ga­bytes of band­with or what­ev­er it is to ful­ly sup­port my love of food and cook­ing, how­ev­er I shall do my best to con­dense. Well-thumbed copies of Veg­a­nomi­con and the slight­ly twee-ish­ly ti­tled Ve­g­an Yum Yum are an AB­SO­LUTE NE­CES­SI­TY for any ve­go kitchen. Won­drous tomes.

I trawl blogs on a dai­ly ba­sis to find new recipes – my cur­rent favou­rite is Easy as (ve­g­an) pie. I have al­ready cooked about eight hun­dred things from her bril­liant archives, in­clud­ing this OUT­S­TAND­ING po­ta­to bake.

And th­ese zuc­chi­ni frit­ters.

Next on the list is Banof­fee Pie

I al­so have a kick­ass recipe I am al­most re­luc­tant to share con­sid­er­ing its ex­plo­sive awe­some­ness. It’s Paul Stamets and Dus­ty Yao’s Killer Shi­i­take Recipe, which I al­so make with oys­ter mush­rooms. You mix to­gether 1/8 cup olive oil, 1/8 cup se­same oil, 4 – 5 ta­ble­spoons ta­mari, ‘two glugs and one splash’ (their words) of white wine, pinch of black pep­per and a few cloves of crushed gar­lic. Cov­er the mush­rooms in this and roast them on 175 cel­cius for about 40 min­utes. A warn­ing: peo­ple at your din­n­er par­ty may weep and try to kiss you. Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

I like the­mat­ic din­n­ers (are you sor­ry you asked me yet?) – last week I cooked a Greek feast, with le­mony gar­lic po­ta­toes, a to­ma­to and green bean casse­role, ve­g­an spa­nako­pi­ta (again, I adapt­ed Car­la’s recipe), an av­o­ca­do and olive sal­ad, and for dessert, Coin­treau-soaked ber­ries with Per­sian fairy floss.

My all-pur­pose Le­ba­nese feast in­volves len­til mu­ja­dara with caramelised onions, roast­ed cauli­flow­er with a tahi­ni gar­lic dress­ing (roast the cauli­flow­er for an age with lots of olive oil and gar­lic and salt ’til it goes all brown and crispy), and blanched green beans tossed with ve­g­an mar­garine, gar­lic pow­der and sliv­ered al­monds.

For dessert I make Veg­a­nomi­con tea-poached pears, and do a cho­co­late sauce by heat­ing a cup and a bit of vanil­la soy milk up ’til just be­fore it boils, then pour­ing it over a block and a half of bro­ken-up Lindt 70% dark cho­co­late. Wait a while for the cho­co­late to soft­en, then whisk to­gether. This cho­co­late sauce is AMAZ­ING and VERY DIF­FI­CULT to not smear all over your face with your fin­gers. NB. this sort of be­haviour is not great for first dates. Learn from my mis­takes.

Have you en­coun­tered any ab­surd stereo­types, com­ments or neg­a­tive at­ti­tudes?

I’m slight­ly be­mused by the flap some peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence when I’m com­ing to din­n­er and they can’t for the life of them fig­ure out what to cook a ve­g­an. ‘We’ve been AG­ON­IS­ING OVER IT FOR DAYS AND ALL WE FOUND WAS THIS PO­TA­TO’ etc. I’ve cooked more since be­com­ing ve­g­an than I ev­er have in my life. For some rea­son there’s a be­lief that a ve­g­an di­et is in­cred­i­b­ly re­stric­tive. It’s a crock.

Is there any­one who has par­tic­u­lar­ly in­spired or helped you? Have you in­flu­enced any­one else to go ve­g­an?

I’m in­spired by other ve­g­an food lovers, who find great joy in shar­ing recipes and ideas. I’m huge­ly in­spired by the bril­liant Pam Ah­ern, head ma­ma at Mel­bourne an­i­mal res­cue shel­ter Ed­gar’s Mis­sion. I met her last year dur­ing a pho­to shoot and ab­so­lute­ly loved her and the work she does there. Meet­ing Pam gave me the im­pe­tus to take my ve­g­an­ism fur­ther than just a di­e­tary choice and start tak­ing some ac­tion to sup­port an­i­mal rights. I do this through com­bin­ing my eg­g­heady love of books and lit­er­a­ture with ac­tivism, co-cu­rat­ing a fundrais­er for Ed­gar’s Mis­sion called Wo­m­en of Let­ters with Mel­bourne writ­er Michaela McGuire.

I think – hope – I’ve in­flu­enced others sim­p­ly by pre­sent­ing them with beau­ti­ful, de­ca­dent food and an un­fail­ing sense of op­ti­mism about hu­man na­ture. It’s hard to argue with a full bel­ly.

What do you think are the most ef­fec­tive ways of help­ing ve­g­an­ism to be­come more main­stream?

Hu­mour. I tip my hat to those in there ag­gres­sive­ly fight­ing the good fight – we need pas­sio­nate war­ri­ors from all walks – but I feel there is a gen­er­al fear among the wider com­mu­ni­ty that ve­g­ans are go­ing to get all up in their grill with red shou­ty faces ev­ery time they reach for a chick­en drum­stick. You’re nev­er go­ing to change any­body’s mind by yelling at them. I think lead­ing a healthy, com­pas­sio­nate ex­is­tence and be­ing able to take the piss out of your­self makes ve­g­an­ism look less scary. I try to lessen the un­known by be­ing an in­tense­ly idi­ot­ic smart-alec, which is my gen­er­al fall­back oeu­vre. Once peo­ple fig­ure out I’m just a hap­py dum­b­ass who likes to eat ev­ery­thing they grow more re­laxed. And maybe when they’re more re­laxed they’ll be more in­c­lined to be cu­ri­ous about how an­i­mals re­al­ly get to their plate, and ve­g­an­ism in gen­er­al. I find if you open the door for them, they may be in­c­lined to walk in them­selves.