How Miyoko Schinner upped the game for vegan dairy

Miyoko no longer has a role at the company that still bears her name (though it recently liquidated its assets and she is looking to buy it back). But “The Vegan Creamery” is her return to form and, in a sense, a reclamation of her title. The book democratizes her recipes and techniques to once again remind the home cook that vegan cheeses, ice creams and milk don’t always have to come mass-produced from the supermarket.

Not every recipe in “Artisan Vegan Cheese” used cashews, but a majority did — and that’s the biggest change in terms of ingredients in this new book, which is much more diverse, heftier and goes much longer on technique. Miyoko also gives the reader a deeper insight into her own story and how she mapped the gourmandism of her youth onto her vegan ethos. There are photos of animals in the book, and many of the cheeses are named after Miyoko’s pets or the rescue animals at her sanctuary, Rancho Compassion; still, for Miyoko, the choice to prioritize animal welfare has not meant renouncing the joys of her younger years traveling Europe, gorging on classic cheeses.

This is Miyoko’s most personal book to date, and the most rigorous. While designed for the home cook, it’s clear that this book is intended to get more of those would-be vegan cheesemakers and chefs up to speed on what is possible with plant-based ingredients. She’s a straightforward recipe developer and writer, too, so it’s also for home cooks up to the challenge of fermentation projects that might seem intimidating at first glance.

There are potatoes, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, soy milk, and ever more possible base ingredients for these cheeses. The most exciting development ingredient-wise is a white watermelon seed kernel from a melon commonly grown in India and China. Because it’s high in protein and neutral in flavor, it acts as the perfect combination of soy (high protein) and cashews (neutral flavor). Miyoko tells readers how to turn it into milk and creamer, as well as an array of cheeses including mozzarella, feta, ricotta and provolone — the list goes on.

The inclusion of such diverse base ingredients means allergens have been taken into account, providing nut-free options like a potato and sunflower seed–based cheese flavored with nutritional yeast, miso and white vinegar, then fermented with a vegan thermophilic culture and thickened with tapioca starch, psyllium husk and agar powder. While this may sound a bit more like a science experiment than cooking — a common feature at times — a photo showing the satisfying stretch on a sourdough grilled cheese seals the deal. Even better, these seemingly esoteric ingredients are used in a wide variety of recipes: You’ll use all those thickeners and the culture again in a potato-cashew Muenster, for instance.

Separate chapters on “fresh and fast cheeses” and “aged and mold-ripened cheeses”— in addition to the milk, butter, yogurt and ice cream chapters — allow the reader to pick their level of involvement. Would you rather a fast ferment (a couple of hours in the fridge) that leans on thickeners and stabilizers to make the potato-cashew Muenster, or four to five weeks for Angel’s Sharp Potato Cheddar brined in red wine? You have a variety of options and get to choose.

“The Vegan Creamery” is valuable on its own but becomes a perfect and expansive complement to “The Homemade Vegan Pantry” when it steps into the more everyday items like yogurt. Miyoko offers soy, soy-cashew, oat-cashew, pumpkin seed-oat, coconut-mung bean, watermelon seed kernel and even almond-chickpea varieties; in the recipe for the latter, she writes that fermentation cuts the beaniness while the proteins of the beans also help create viscosity.

Whatever your tastes or ingredient preferences, there’s an answer in “The Vegan Creamery.” The book becomes an argument for how versatile vegan diets are, and more importantly, what diverse ecosystems they can support. Gone are the days when soy or oat or cashew reigned as the main source of plant-based dairy. Here, Miyoko demonstrates the futility and poverty of that mindset, and in doing so, reaffirms the primacy of the home kitchen as the most interesting site of vegan cooking. It’s not in a lab nor a factory, not even the one that still bears her name: It’s in technique, ingenuity and, sometimes, the patience it takes to wait out four to five weeks of aging and brining.