V For Veg: Vegans don't have to cut cheese

"OH, MY GOD, I couldn't live without cheese!"

Ever heard those words, or maybe uttered them yourself?

I sure have. Back when I, a longtime vegetarian, decided to go vegan, the prospect of life without cheese yawned as a desolate, ascetic slog of eternity without such rich, gooey gustatory pleasure. What a martyr to cross the line into that bleak, barren world!

A couple of dairy-free months later, I was already puzzling at such grandiosity. Cheese? Really? I didn't know then how casomorphins, a dairy component that's concentrated in cheese, act as opioids - that is, they confer a mild but habit-forming euphoria.

I wound up expanding my palate to other food combinations, never missing cheese, never trying to replace it or replicate its dishes. Good thing, too, because in those days vegan cheese was more of an earnest science-fair project than an object of desire.

Now, though, Daiya, Tofutti and other brands have brought credible vegan cheese to the marketplace and helped drive it forward. Formerly packing animal-based casein, Galaxy Foods now has a whole line of vegan shredded cheeses you can get at the Acme.

The Acme!

The even-better news is that you can make animal-free cheese at home, with help from an increasing number of food writers. I have had great results with local blogger Lee Khatchadourian's simple almond feta recipe, which you can find at her blog, The Vegan Version.

The DIY trail was blazed in 1994 by Jo Stepaniak's Uncheese Cookbook, which focused mainly on sauces, spreads and gooey soft cheeses, acquainting many with the "cheezy" properties of nutritional yeast.

Two decades later, Stepaniak is the editor on a new work that raises the bar on vegan cheese, Miyoko Schinner's Artisan Vegan Cheese (Book Publishing Co.). Here you'll find hard, sliceworthy cheeses like sharp cheddar, parmesan and hard gruyere that achieves its cheesiness through aging over several days. There are also softer, often quicker options like tofu ricotta, meltable muenster, Camembert and cream cheese. (See her recipe for Philadelphia-style cream cheese here.)

Schinner's no novice when it comes to vegan cookbooks: she wrote her first one 23 years ago. But she waited to do cheese so she'd have time to experiment. She spent a year testing, tweaking, aging and air-drying many substances to arrive at nondairy cheeses that rival their animal-milk counterparts.

Her confections often use cashews, which are "a neutral-flavor nut that's soft and relatively high in fat," and "cultured, nondairy yogurt because it's already cultured, giving a head start on the whole aging process."

Sometimes, though, you don't want neutral.

"The provolone uses pine nuts because their nuttiness really adds to the flavor." And nuts are ill-suited for meltable cheeses, she pointed out, because their fat is "a solid substance that cannot get any softer."

Thanks to Schinner's expert approach, Artisan Vegan Cheese has both vegans and mainstream foodies raving. She reflected that "most people say, 'I could give up meat, but I couldn't live without cheese.'"

Sounds vaguely familiar.

If you're someone who's uncomfortable with the cruelty behind the production of cheese, but feel you can't live without it . . . well, you may not have to!

V for Venue: The Uptown Soul Food Vegetarian Pop-Up returns to Wired Beans Cafe, Chelten Avenue near Pulaski in Germantown, from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday. The menu features old favorites such as the deep-fried chick'n sandwich, and new items like the sweet potato-kale wrap.

Vance Lehmkuhl is a cartoonist, writer, musician and 12-year vegan. "V for Veg" chronicles plant-based eating in and around Philadelphia. VforVeg@phillynews.com or @V4Veg on Twitter.