By Kate Bigam, New Jersey Correspondent
I am not a vegan—or even a vegetarian. I’ve thought about it, sure, as I assume has anyone who’s watched “Food, Inc.” or “Forks Over Knives” or even just “Man v. Food” and found themselves disgusted and dismayed by modern North American society’s unending love-affair with meat that is often chemically processed, inhumanely raised and worse. Yet you’ll often find me tweeting, in nearly full seriousness, such sentiments as this:
That is to say that though I’ve thought about becoming a vegan, I seriously doubt I could ever bring myself to actually be a vegan. Some things are just too delicious to give up, and so far, even Jonathan Safran Foer has yet to convince me otherwise. Every once in awhile, though, comes along a meal so mind-blowingly delicious that it causes us to rethink what we thought we knew of food.
That’s what happened to me last weekend, when I visited my local farmer’s market to pick up a few indulgent snacking staples—pickles, almonds, locally-sourced honey, my God, am I really that much of a douchebag? Arriving around lunchtime on an empty stomach, my boyfriend and I headed straight for The Cinnamon Snail, New York City’s favorite organic vegan food truck, which is parked in the same spot every Sunday.
I can’t help but wonder why the good hippies at the Snail spend this time in little old Red Bank, New Jersey, home to absolutely nothing cool. Surely they could park themselves within the city limits and bring in fistfuls of cash from ravenous NYC health food aficionados in search of healthy mobile brunch. Red Bank seems like a strange choice—but as a resident of this small town, you won’t hear me complaining.
My plan was to order the Creole grilled tofu sub with caramelized onions, arugula, grilled tomato, and roasted garlic aioli, but when we reached the front of the line, I spotted a handwritten sign that read “TODAY’S SPECIAL: Al Pastor Seitan.” In an eleventh-hour switch, I went with that instead, but we we waited to receive our food, I agonized over my decision. Would I regret it? Would I spend the next seven days eager to rectify my mistake?
Served on a grilled multigrain baguette, my sandwich was piled with seitan, beer-battered jalapenos, baby greens, and grilled pineapple, all slathered in chipotle mayonnaise (made without eggs, of course). Seitan, made of a gluten protein, has a distinctly imitation-meat look to it – at once stringy and spongy – though it’s not quite identifiable as being not meat, either. As a diner generally wary of weird textures, I was more than a little hesitant to take that first bite – but it immediately became clear that I didn’t need to be. The Cinnamon Snail’s Al Pastor Seitan proved to be the perfect combination of textures (the soft seitan, the cold greens, the crusty bread) and a beautiful marriage of spicy and sweet flavors, thanks to the fiery mayo and the juicy pineapple. Needless to say, I didn’t regret my order. In fact, I promptly declared it among the best I’d ever eaten.
Somewhere mid-sandwich, I remembered that the whole thing was vegan, a truly dynamic creation made without milk or eggs. Though I’ve long rolled my eyes at vegans’ pretentiousness, this little food truck made me a believer in the possibilities their way of life offers, far beyond the rabbit food I’d previously envisioned. Eating my lunch and my words, I announced to my boyfriend, “If all vegan food tasted like this, I’d never eat cheese again.” Cheddar who? It seems the Cinnamon Snail’s many satisfied customers agree: With nearly 300 reviews on Yelp, many of them from self-professed carnivores skeptical of a life sans animal bi-products, the place boasts a whopping—and elusive—five-star rating.
As the final bite of my Al Pastor Seitan loomed near, I mourned the end of the meal, desperate to relive it again for the first time. Eager to work my way through The Cinnamon Snail’s entire menu in search of equally delicious vegan fare, I’ve vowed to stop by the local farmers market every Sunday afternoon until the end of time—or at least until winter comes.
Kate Bigam lives in Red Bank, N.J., and works as a social media and community manager for a large non-profit. She blogs at SuburbanSweetheart.com.