Northwestern University makes it easy to be a vegetarian: the vegan pancakes, sans milk or eggs; the tofu francaise for an elegant lunch or chickenless nuggets for a guilt-free guilty pleasure; the tofu pumpkin pie planned for Thanksgiving.
“It’s not like we just open up a box of tofu and put it in a pan,” said John Ferraro, who scours recipe Web sites and visits local vegetarian restaurants to look for creative ways to cook tofu. “We season it, we grill it, we saute it.”
All that labor over a hot stove has made Northwestern a finalist for the most vegetarian-friendly campus in the country, an award given by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a group better known for criticizing colleges for their research on animals.
Based on nominations from students, PETA listed 40 colleges in the running, with top honors to be awarded next month. Northwestern was cited for its “nutritious human vegan food.”
Also on the list are the University of Montana, which serves tempeh sloppy joes, and Boston University, where students can dine on vegan sorbet.
At Northwestern, 20 percent of the 6,600 recipes used in the dining halls are vegetarian or vegan, a number that has grown substantially in recent years in response to student demand and the availability of more products from food suppliers, officials said. Vegans do not consume animal products, including dairy and eggs.
“At a lot of places, when you say you are vegetarian, they try to feed you eggplant. I don’t like eggplant,” said Sam Berry, a Northwestern sophomore who often chooses vegetarian items including pasta because she keeps kosher. “Here they’ll have veggie burgers, or they’ll replace normal meat with vegetarian options.”
Going beyond macaroni and cheese, Northwestern has more than 100 offbeat vegetarian recipes. The school’s contract with food service provider Sodexho requires it to serve at least one vegetarian and vegan entree and soup at lunch and dinner.
Marsha Dawkins, executive chef at Allison Hall, one of Northwestern’s six cafeterias, has learned how to massage seitan, a wheat gluten, to look like chicken nuggets or chicken strips for fajitas.
“We cut it into thin strips and saute it to make it crispy,” she said. “Some kids think it’s meat.”
Freshman Jessica Cheng, a recent vegetarian, said Monday that Northwestern made it easy to give up meat.
“It’s not like I’m starving,” she said.
Northwestern dietitian Rebecca Berman, a vegetarian herself, said one-quarter of Northwestern students do not eat meat when they go to a campus cafeteria, even if they are not strictly vegetarian.
“I am seeing more students who want to eat a more non-meat diet, vegetables, legumes and grains,” she said. “They will select it because it looks good or they want to eat more healthfully that day.”
Berry, the sophomore eating pasta on Monday, said she does hear negative comments about the food.
“A lot of people are complaining there are too many vegan options,” she said.
To that, Northwestern officials promise there will be a regular pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving as well, complete with eggs and milk.
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Green cuisine
Northwestern has more than 100 offbeat vegetarian recipes in its database, including:
– Tofu a la Bourguignon
– Zucchini crab cakes
– Butternut squash pizza with fresh rosemary
– Sweet potato burritos
– Soy sausage quiche
– Pesto polenta lasagna
– Tater Tot casserole
– Sources: Sodexho, Northwestern University
