Vegan food has just made history.  For the first time, a vegan dish was presented with a silver medal in the Gold Metal Plates Culinary Competition.  The winning dish was created by Chef Caroline Ishii of Zen Kitchen.  James Chatto, Gold Metal Plates head judge, had this to say about Ishii’s dish:

It looked spectacular, topped with a crisp tube of fried, applewood-smoked yuba (dried soy milk skin) filled with fermented macadamia curd that tasted like richly nutty cream cheese.The principal element was a ragout of exotic mushrooms from local grower Le Coprin and a drum of polenta, creamy within, golden and crispy on the surface. A thin disc of beet-and-red-pepper aspic crowned the drum, which sat on two little sheets of seared green kale dressed with a kombu-plum wine vinaigrette. A conserve of fruity passilla peppers finished a most seductive dish. Chef Ishii’s wine was the crisp, refreshing 2008 Archangel Sparkling Pinot Noir from Angels Gate winery in Niagara, Ontario.

The national finals of the Gold Medal Plates competition will be held in Kelowna in February, 2011.  You can find out more information, and purchase tickets, by heading over to the Gold Metal Plates website.

Congratulations to Chef Caroline Ishii and her amazing team for their tasty accomplishment!