AMAZING GRAINS
Joanne Saltzman interviewed by Claudette Vaughan

Author Joanne Saltzman asks the question, “Do you ever wish you could simply walk into the kitchen and put together a masterpiece with whatever is there?” then she goes ahead and does it. Both of her books Amazing Grains and Intuitive Cooking are vegan and exceptional. After reading Amazing Grains we have wanted to interview this woman for a long time. Here’s our interview with her.

Abolitionist: John Robbins said of your book Amazing Grains that it is an excellent book for anyone wanting to become deeply acquainted with the foods that are the primary building blocks of quality cooking”. How did you come to write the book Joanne?

Joanne Saltzman: I really appreciate John’s perceptions of my work. Amazing Grains was just the beginning finding a more authentic way to communicate the creative process of cooking than recipes. In Amazing Grains, I called it “the process”. This process has morphed into what I now call “the language of cooking without recipes” or the title of my new book, Intuitive Cooking.

I was literally told to write a book about the process of cooking. This was a three in morning hit on the head, wake –up Joanne kind of message. I resisted the thought of writing “another” cookbook as I think there are too many in the world anyway. But the message was clear to write about the process of what that happens from the beginning thought of cooking through the making of the dish. This is really about creativity and cooking in the unknown, and how to make it taste good.

More interesting to me is that I have decided that plant ingredients need their own cooking methods. I feel devoted to helping these earth foods – grain, vegetables, and vegetable protein - be recognised and more satisfying. That offers the opportunity to heal the planet and its people to the much greater cause.

I was inspired to write Amazing Grains. It was a topic that I felt I had intimate experience with. Grain was healing for me, it steadied many parts of my life, and it was a blank canvas on which to invent not only great dishes, but the system of intuitive cooking that is the backbone of my school. Macrobiotics taught me that grains are amazing seeds that reproduce themselves a hundred times. To me that is power. Now, if people could find a way to take that power in, then the food is healing. Not just healing for the physical body, but also for the planet’s body because when people eat grain first hand instead of eating animals that ate the grain, both environments has a better chance to rebalance…. our physical bodies would eat more plants and less animals. The other theme that runs through Amazing Grains, is the infinite potential they have to host creativity.

I feel strongly that food is not healing if it is not eaten consistently. Yet variety is the key to health. Because grain is the centre of a vegan plate it often is a background for the vegetables and vegetable protein dishes. Amazing Grains is only about “dish grain” not “bread grain”. The book primes the reader to be inventive at the same time it offers recipes and alternate possibilities.

Abolitionist: You asked the question “How could such a simple food such as brown rice emit such a divine character? “ Grains, in macrobiotic cooking, are the staple food that is balance and all else revolves around. Is brown rice a perfect food do you think?

JS: I’m not sure what you mean by perfect. My answer would be yes, perfectly wonderful just by itself (when cooked in a way to be so). And no, not the answer to all problems. Not the beginning, middle, or end of searching for health.

What feels divine is the potential power held in each seed. This is true for each grain of all kinds of grains not just rice. But brown rice has an interesting translucent quality. Maybe it is like a mirror and that’s why so many people find rice the most popular grain. They can look in the mirror.

Abolitionist: What would you say to vegans who haven’t experienced the joy of vegan macrobiotic cooking and lifestyle yet?

JS: My Macrobiotic lifestyle days were a wonderful time of exploring how food was healing. For me it was a bridge from the unconscious. I had cooked since age 7 but was 20 years old when Macrobiotics turned my life from dancer to healer. Macrobiotics – meaning “great life” gave me an understanding where food comes from and how important it is to know the source of our food. It taught me the concept of wholeness as healing and most unexpected side effect was the sense of the self-empowerment that builds confidence when we make choices with our food.

My only concern for vegans who choose the diet from a political animal rights point of view is to keep a balance of grains, vegetables, protein, nuts/seeds, and whole sweeteners. I don’t mean bagels and pasta with tofu. These highly refined foods, although vegan, will eventually throw the body chemistry way off. Whole dish grains need to be featured as main dishes. Beans have to be cooked thoroughly, and the vast variety of vegetables including sea vegetables need to be on the plate. Just eliminating animal products is not enough. The plant world cuisine still needs to be “whole” to gain the energetic nutrition available from the power of the seeds.

Abolitionist: George Ohsawa in “the Book of Judgment” said macrobiotics is “eating to live”. What are your thoughts on the matter?

JS: “Eating to live” is a very large statement. Of course, we need fuel to keep the physical body going. I talk about “filling the hole”, in which case it doesn’t matter if the food is a Mac Burger or brown rice. It will fill the stomach and give it something to do. But “to live” perhaps Mr. Ohsawa means to be connected to life. The style of fast food, fill the hole dining creates a disconnect. When dinner makes you feel calm, nourished, your skin beautiful and your voice musical and you gain power and mental clarity, then the food “fills the soul” as well.

Abolitionist: It is difficult to express from the outside how a macrobiotic lifestyle can change one’s prana (chi in Chinese, ki in Japanese) (life) energy for the better? What are some of the mysteries that have revealed themselves to you over the years Joanne since opening your School of Natural Cookery?

JS: One of the most profound gratitude’s I have for macrobiotics is how it prepared me to be mother who used food and natural remedies to care for my children. First, my body was clean and strong for two years before conceiving. I chose a healthy man and we created four children, home-births, the only medical interference was when they played football in high school and ended up in the emergency room. Not even a cavity. They had what Ohsawa would call “good judgment”. Visual and auditory perception at a young age, not over sugared so focus kept them in good standing.

I have seen people who take the coursework at our school integrate it into their lives and over a year their bodies have come into balance with body fat, clear skin, creativity and intuition enhanced, and most exciting to me, they have more personal power.

Abolitionist: What is Intuitive Cooking all about? It’s a vegan cookbook, isn’t it?

JS: Yes. I fell in love with grain through my study of macrobiotics in the early 1970’s. At that time I found macrobiotics to be mostly a left brain activity – a mental process. I do not live a macrobiotic life-style. My cooking system is a balance of right and left brain activity. The book Intuitive Cooking is based more on the theories of art than about a dogma. The energetic principles are nature based and can be observed by anyone looking for them without having to understand yin and yang first.

Abolitionist: How does one get started with macrobiotics?

JS: I think attending the Kushi Institute would be a lovely way to jump into the macrobiotic life. Learning from a hands-on curriculum where one can experience the food, the philosophy at the same time would let them know if it is a fit.

Abolitionist: George Ohsawa recommended prayer and fasting to complete the macrobiotic lifestyle. Is this also your recommendation Joanne?

JS: Prayer and fasting have value in any life-style.

Abolitionist: In the hurried environment of the West one of the unfair criticisms of macrobiotic food is the time it takes to prepare. You have said that “a carefully prepared meal is an expression of love” Please talk about that.

JS: Love in cooking is what happens when we hold the thought “I hope this works”. Or something like that. “I hope people like this”. “I hope it’s not too salty”. Any kind of heart connection which gives attention to a dish in the process of becoming part of a meal. It is much more common when people cook without recipes and that is why improvisational dishes taste so much better.

Time to cook is only restricted by the knowledge of the cook. If people learn a few cooking methods they can cook quickly. The key to health is to keep variety of ingredients and cooking methods so the more methods the more possibilities. Once someone is in the process of preparing a dish creatively, time works differently. And with the knowledge of ingredients and cooking method a person can take more or less time to cook as needed.

Abolitionist: Name some of your favorite all-time recipes from each of your books.

JS: Oh, that would be like picking a favourite child. Impossible to do. People ask me that all the time and my answer is.. “My favorite dish is the one where I open the cupboard or refrigerator and see what is there and in 10 – 30 minutes it is well underway if not done.” You see, it is the process that is my favorite thing about cooking, not the dish. So I will name my favorite cooking methods. They are: beans baked in pate form; marinades for grain, vegetables, and beans; braised seitan; creamy style soups; steeping vegetables and roasting for vegetables and tofu.