I have this friend Leo who was a vegetarian for years. Not three years or five years but YEARS. Like me, he refrained from eating meat for more than 10 years. I don’t know the exact number of years but it was close to how long I have been meatless and I quit 23 years ago (you know, when I was 2 years old, ahem). Recently though, he started eating meat. It began casually enough. A slice of bacon at a camping trip, a bite of his kid’s pepperoni pizza and then all the sudden, he was eating a filet mignon for his birthday dinner. I may have the progression of his slide into “omnivorism” (I totally just made that word up. It’s a good one – at least as good as “omnivorous,” which gets its own dictionary entry while “omnivorism” has to wait outside, shivering in the cold) wrong but the overall lesson is the same: Bacon is a gateway meat.
I love this story (in large part because I adore Leo) and thought I would be able to use it and then neatly transition to the larger point of this post (as if any of my posts have points), but it’s 6:00 in the morning and the caffeine hasn’t quite kicked in yet. So, let me try another anecdote.
The other day, while on the truck, I mentioned to a customer (maybe it was you!) that I am a vegetarian to which Suzanne responded with a very loud and somewhat derisive snort. When I looked at her with wide-eyed innocence, she finally confronted me, “Don’t you think you have to stop calling yourself a vegetarian now?” I scanned the truck for a hidden camera, sure that this was the beginning of an intervention…
A little history here: As I mentioned, I stopped eating meat many many years ago. My reasons were fairly simple – I was politically active in college and couldn’t ignore the impact of cattle raising on world hunger. And I was distressed by how detached the American diet and Americans, in general, were from their food source (hello Michael Pollen – I was your disciple waaay before you started writing about food). I never stopped eating meat because I didn’t like the way it tasted. In fact, I loved meat when I quit. But I wasn’t about to hit the woods with a shotgun, in search of my evening meal (besides, I look terrible in orange, unless it’s this orange). And I was fairly certain I couldn’t fit a cow in my concrete backyard, no to mention there was likely some backyard livestock ordinance. So, my only other choice was to stop.
As a vegetarian, I went through many iterations, including a stint as a macrobiotic and an extended vegan period. Then for years and years, I was your standard “eats anything that doesn’t have a face” veggie. This was fine until I got pregnant. No, I didn’t immediately start craving burgers, like some of my friends did. But I did want some fish. So, I started eating salmon and well, that quickly devolved into a rather hearty fish habit, which did not end with the birth of my child. Yes, I know, fish are not vegetables and so technically, that was the end of me being a vegetarian. But I continued to use that label because, well, it was easier than explaining that I don’t eat chickens, cows, sheep, pigs, rodents, reptiles, or any shellfish (allergic).
And this was fine and no one questioned me, until we started the truck. The whole time we were in the planning phase, I kept thinking that Suzanne would handle all of the meat recipes and I would do the veggie recipes. This wasn’t really flawed thinking because during our recipe testing phase, that’s exactly what we did. It never occurred to me that once we were in business, I would not only have to serve meat, but also prep it, cook it and yes, taste it so that I knew if it was delicious. And new recipe testing? Let’s just say that we fiddle with ingredients until we get it right. Which means many many many bites of tester sandwiches.
This could all be called an occupational necessity if that was all it was. But there was a period there when I was “testing” our pork more than necessary. Or sampling our tri-tip sandwich beyond the tasting phase. And then there was that errant piece of bacon around the morning campfire at Big Sur. Hence, Suzanne’s challenge to my vegetarian label. And my recognition that bacon is a gateway meat (see, now that I’m caffeinated, I can link back to my intro gracefully). And a friggin’ delicious one at that.
Despite this slide down the slippery slope, I still think of myself as vegetarian, and mostly behave that way, when I am not on the truck or in our catering kitchen. At restaurants, I never look at the meat entrees, I don’t cook meat at home and still can’t imagine every actually eating an entire, say, Cuban sandwich. But at work, my vegetarianism is a bit more, um, fluid. A chef (and vegetarian) who works in our kitchen recently told me how he gets through all of the meat-tasting he has to do: he tastes, chews and then spits it out. Never even occurred to me. And still doesn’t.
When I first moved to California, I was shocked that none of the other people I was meeting were vegetarians. It’s the Bay Area, after all. But someone explained to me that meat is “en vogue” and while I found this hard to believe, it explained the dearth of really good vegetarian restaurants. It also explains why our veggie Banh Mi sales are around 10% of our overall sales. In our social circle, being vegetarian put me and my husband in this little club with very few members. And with Leo’s exodus, the club might just be the two of us. Or just my husband, ahem.
I should mention here that Suzanne is secretly (although it’s no secret to me) thrilled that I am eating meat. She once gave a little cheer when, a few years ago, I accidentally at some pork carnitas. So, of course, I blame all of this on her.
Ironically, I am finishing up this post while listening to Jonathan Safran Foer interviewed for City Arts & Lecture. Which could be an incredible boon for our vegetarian customers. But I don’t recommend you listen to it if you are planning to get your Cuban fix this week. That would be an interesting match-up though – ridiculously delicious roasted pork sandwich vs. Safran Foer’s thoughts about eating animals.
So, omnivores, at what point do YOU think I need to stop identifying myself as a vegetarian? And vegetarians, have you ever found yourself eating meat and thought, “WTF?” like I have?
Oh come on! It's not this bad.
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