Easy as raw vegan pie...

Today I went to the SimplyRaw pie contest in the Glebe. The competition was for the best raw vegan pie in the city. Veganism is a diet where a person does not consume any animals or products from animals. No eggs, milk, cheese, honey, butter... and definitely no fish, chicken or other meats. The raw part is the philosophy of eating foods that have not been cooked or processed. The thinking is that if you keep foods raw, their nutrients will remain pure. That means no sugar, no flour, and definitely no oven. So you can see how creating a raw vegan pie can pose a few challenges.
Twenty people – many of them part of the raw foods movement in Ottawa -- entered the competition. I wasn’t sure what to expect beforehand. I pictured a lot of flax seed and dates. A lot of healthy, but beige looking food. So I was floored by the beauty of the pies. Mounds of raspberries and blueberries on one. Edible flowers on another. They were all bursting with colour.
And they had great names. Like Rawsome Monkey Mango Pie. Jason entered his apple and cherry pie as le pie hot. His friend Danielle entered a pie named Edward Norton (the name has to do with a trip she made to the video store once). So how to make a pie without eggs, milk, flour, butter or sugar?
The basic formula to making a raw vegan pie starts with a pie shell made out of ground nuts and some sort of sweet adhesive– it could be pureed dates or agave nectar. Then the pie is filled with a filling that’s often fruit-based – served as is or pureed in a blender with other ingredients. Pies can also be made with young coconut or raw chocolate. For the purpose of the competition, maple syrup was allowed (even though it needs to be cooked before it’s bottled) and so were cashews (even though they need to be cooked to remove their shells). Danielle spent three hours on her pie. It’s made with five coconuts. Jason spent about an hour on his.
The panel of judges included a newspaper food columnist, a host of the local noon hour television program, a local chef, and the Ontario provincial minister responsible for health promotion.
The crowd that had assembled to watch the judging definitely had a granola feel to it. A lot of hemp clothing and babies carried by mom or dad in fabric slings. I kept checking people’s feet for Birkenstocks (a few pairs). Booths set up at the pie contest included one for a vegetarian restauant, a vegan cracker company, and a company that offers body detoxification. We tried raw brownies at The Table booth while waiting for the judges to critique the pies. (The brownie was surprising good – ingredients were almond butter, maple syrup, pureed dates and carob powder.) We also got to try each of the pies after the judges were done with them. I had some of a mango pie, the blueberry pie and also Jason’s apple pie. The blueberry pie had a weird aftertaste to it – nothing very powerful, but something that reminds me of burning incense. The mango pie was okay – but the filling tasted like nothing more than sliced mangoes. I expect more from a pie filling. Jason’s pie was the best of the three I sampled (and I’m not just saying that). He says what makes the raw vegan apple pie work is that the apples are sliced very thin and then tossed with lime or lemon juice. Then the mixture sits in the fridge overnight so that the acid from the lime or lemon "cooks" the apples. He’s tried eating the pie without letting the filling sit overnight and it’s just not the same.
After the judges pulled back from the table, handed over the results, and went off to deal with their natural sugar highs, the crowd was left with three names: two runner-up’s and a winner. And guess what? Jason’s le pie hot got one of the prizes! He came in third for le pie hot. And on top of that, Danielle’s Edward Norton took home the blue ribbon! Both Jason and Danielle looked a little shocked when their names were called. They still looked shocked when they collected their prizes. The most amazing part of Danielle’s win is this was the first time she had ever made this pie. And she didn’t follow a recipe – it was all add a bit of this, try a dash of that.
I have to say, I was stunned by how people could bend themselves around some very strict restrictions to create some dazzling pies. You can check out the pics from the afternoon here.