Anthony Avina interviews Nemo T. V. · 19 October 2026
On 19 October 2026 the American critic Anthony Avina interviewed Nemo T. V., the author of the Terra Vegan collection. Here is the full interview.
I trained as an agricultural expert and studied Political Science in Florence, and for years I worked in organic farming. I came to writing through practice: I would test plant-based recipes and take notes on times, temperatures and quantities, and I realised those notes were more useful to other people than they were to me. Writing manuals was the way to put in order what I was already doing in the workshop.
Respect for other living beings and for the planet, first of all: that is why I cook this way. And then the fact that, once you remove the animal ingredient, most books stop at the substitute bought in the supermarket. I wanted to show how it is made at home: koji, plant-based cheeses, cold cuts, ferments, bread. Forty volumes, from the basics through to production that meets the law, so that every step has its place.
That you can eat well without making another living being pay the bill, and without weighing on the planet more than necessary. To me this is obvious, today it is also fashionable, but the point stays the same: respect for life, and food made with your own hands. Self-production gives autonomy back, which means knowing what is inside what you eat and being able to make it again. And Italian cooking stays Italian even without animal ingredients.
A manual is honest: either the recipe works or it does not. I write down times, temperatures, percentages and the reasons why something succeeds, so that readers can repeat it in their own kitchen and get the same result. My background, Lead Auditor ISO 22000 and ISO 9001 and former head of the HACCP self-monitoring plan, taught me to write procedures that somebody else has to be able to follow.
None, to be honest. We are a small publishing house: what counts is our website, terraveganbynemo.com, word of mouth, and honest reviews like yours.
Test what you write, then test it again. In a manual a wrong number is not an inaccuracy, it is a recipe that fails in somebody else's kitchen. And write one volume at a time, as if it were the only one.
The collection is complete: forty volumes in four series, all published. The Base Series exists in fourteen languages, the others in Italian, English, German and French. The work now is getting it to the people who actually produce, from home kitchens to workshops.
Nemo T. V. is the pen name of an Italian author who signs the Terra Vegan collection. An agricultural expert with a degree in Political Science from Florence, he is a Lead Auditor ISO 22000:2018 and ISO 9001:2015 and a former head of the HACCP self-monitoring plan, with experience in organic farming. He works on plant-based self-production, fermentation and artisanal transformation, without industrial ingredients. Website: terraveganbynemo.com