Amanda Cohen became a vegetarian mostly to annoy her parents, 26
years ago. Her teenage culinary rebellion became a way of life into her 20s and followed her to New York, where she trained as a chef.
The Canadian will be in Galway later this month as part of the Food on the Edge Irish food symposium line-up. She stands out for two reasons. She’s a woman (34 of the 39 chefs who’ll feature over the two-day event are men) and she cooks only vegetables in her New York restaurant Dirt Candy.
Although she is a champion of vegetables, Cohen is no longer a vegetarian. Ten years ago she stopped. She’s not a huge meat eater (she eats mainly fish), but why the jump? “I got really tired of eating vegetarian food in restaurants. I couldn’t keep paying for a plate of portobello mushrooms and roasted red peppers. I got really palate-weary.”
As a chef she also felt she needed to explore the new ideas that other chefs were cooking. Sticking to the vegetarian option was not enabling her to do that.
The idea of Dirt Candy was born eight years ago when she looked at the New York restaurant scene and saw hundreds of restaurants cooking meat, fish and chicken and almost none dedicated to vegetables. It was a blank page and a huge challenge to convert the planet’s most meat-obsessed restaurant goers to the joys of eating their greens.
“It’s not easy. We’re having a moment right now. Hopefully it’s not a trend and it’s here to stay.” The upside is that as pioneers they can write their own rules on the blank page.
She’s since taken on other sacred cows, including the tipping system in US restaurants. “It really is unfair to everybody. You’re effectively saying to your customer ‘hey you’re going to be my human resources and take care of half of my payroll’.” The system is also “sexist and racist”, she says. “Pretty white girls make the biggest tips.” So Cohen eliminated tips and opted for a 20 per cent fee that gets shared evenly between the full restaurant staff, not just front of house.
The status of women in American restaurant kitchens has improved, she says, but there’s a long way to go. “There are still not a lot of women getting financial backing because they’re still not covered in the press. It’s a gamble to open a restaurant and why would someone gamble on an unknown when there’s this male chef that everyone’s talking about.”
Food on the Edge takes place in Galway on October 19th and 20th. Tickets from foodontheedge.ie
