Justin P. Moore Shares Recipes from his Vegan Ethiopian Cookbook
Tags: Vegan, Kickstarter, Cooking, Recipe, Food

Justin P. Moore has spent over two decades traveling the world. He’s visited some 50 countries, “working as an artist and designer, taking lots of photographs, and eating and cooking everywhere and anywhere.”

Six years ago, after a year spent teaching in India, he returned to his home in Berlin with a hunger to try something new: making a cookbook. The Lotus and the Artichoke reflected his wanderlust, his plant-based diet, and his love of trying new recipes from around the globe. And the vegan cookbook resonated: his 2012 Kickstarter campaign found support from over 350 backers.

The success of the book surprised him: “Like booking a one-way ticket for an indefinite adventure to India in 2001, or moving to Berlin to learn German and resurrect my artistic ambitions, it was just a dream I intended to pursue,” Moore says.

Now it’s a full-time career. Moore has since published a version of the original cookbook in German, as well as cookbooks focused on the cuisines of Mexico, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and India. He’s back on Kickstarter to publish The Lotus and the Artichoke: Ethiopia, which includes over 70 vegan recipes for classic Ethiopian and Eritrean dishes.

As his sixth Kickstarter campaign enters its final days, we spoke to Moore about the challenges of cookbook publishing, his approach to authenticity when it comes to cuisine, and how his cookbook projects have made him more accepting of imperfections. Read to the end for a delicious bonus: two recipes from the new book.

— Rebecca Hiscott

Justin P. Moore (right) at a cooking lesson with Cisco from Unique Restaurant in Lalibela, Ethiopia

Kickstarter: What’s the hardest part of making a cookbook?

Justin P. Moore: Maintaining a strong sense of accuracy in how I reflect the cultures and the cuisines that hosted, enriched, and inspired me. Sometimes I struggle with creative or culinary doubts, and when that happens I have to trust my experience, hit the books and blogs, or go back to the source. With the India cookbook, I’d spent almost two years there on six different visits, but I knew I needed to go back twice more and enhance my understanding of the many diverse cuisines, especially in regions like Assam, Sikkim, Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Sometimes I also have to let go, accept imperfections, and chance misconceptions. As an artist you know that not everyone will appreciate your expressions, and as a cook, you accept that not everyone is going to lick their plate clean and ask for thirds.

As an artist you know that not everyone will appreciate your expressions, and as a cook, you accept that not everyone is going to lick their plate clean and ask for thirds.

My travels and cookbook projects entail an immense amount of work, expectations, and challenges. The production schedule is intense. When I get stressed, I remind myself that eventually I’ll be unwrapping a massive shipping pallet of a few thousand books, but right now I’m just going back into the kitchen to fire up the stove and start cutting vegetables and grinding spices.

Minchet abish (spicy soy mince and walnuts)

How do you approach accuracy, and authenticity, when it comes to representing cuisines from cultures that aren’t your own?

Especially in the last six years of intense travel and cooking, I’ve learned that authenticity is a relative concept. Cuisines are like languages: they grow, evolve, influence, merge, and adapt. A “real” dish in one restaurant or home might be considered an imitation or abstraction across the street.

Cuisines are like languages: they grow, evolve, influence, merge, and adapt.

I invest an immense amount of creativity, energy, and expense into making these cookbooks, but at the same time I acknowledge the privilege in my ability to go where I go and do what I do. Honesty and communication are vital, and I do my best to respect the cultures, communities, and individuals that host and inspire and support me. Whether it’s recipe choices, cooking techniques, terminology, or cover artwork, I speak with the source and talk with people who know the real deal better than me so that I can hopefully portray, promote, and celebrate the cultures and their cuisines favorably and truthfully.

Abebech (right) teaches Moore how to make misir wot in a village in the Ethiopian Highlands

I also attempt to acknowledge when I adapt something or alter it. I emphasize that what I’m doing isn’t an improvement on something that was lacking, but rather an attempt to make a recipe more accessible to a wider audience, whether that’s people who avoid animal products or those who just can’t buy jackfruit or berbere at their local store.

I don’t see myself as an authority or expert on any culture or cuisine. I’m manifesting my personal experiences and presenting my culinary adventures and experiments, hoping to inspire, enrich, and engage with others in the process. I don’t “own” any recipes, and most of my sources and inspirations would be equally unwilling to claim that they “invented” something or have the definitive code for cooking it. Understanding this better over the years has brought more humility and creativity into my projects and how I present them. Food should unite and excite us, not divide and discourage us.

What has the response to your books been like?

The response to my travels and culinary representations has been overwhelmingly positive, but I need to be ready to listen and reflect if someone raises concerns, especially those who are directly affected or represented by my projects.

Making injera (Ethiopian sourdough crepes)

An amusing example: as I was posting my various experiments in learning how to ferment and prepare Ethiopian injera (sourdough crepes, which serve as both utensil and component of almost every meal), I got lots of feedback on Instagram, mostly from the Ethiopian diaspora, that my injera were “scary” and an “insult to the holy injera.” So I wrote to a lot of my critics and hit up more restaurants in Berlin and London, asking for pointers. We laughed about my fails, and I made some friends. I also got back in the kitchen and upped my injera game over the next few months, and the comments reflected my improvements.

What’s an aspect of the cookbook publishing process that most people don’t know or think about?

Mistakes in recipes are far more common than most people would imagine. Errors can sneak in easily, like missing ingredients, or cooking times and ingredient amounts that were typed in incorrectly.

I’m grateful to work with a group of about 100 recipe testers worldwide who provide an amazing amount of insight. It’s a rewarding experience, similar to the collective participation, involvement, enthusiasm, and communication that crowdfunding the cookbook projects on Kickstarter enables.