So, I’ve recently rediscovered one of the main reasons it sucks to go vegetarian: eating at someone else’s house. Kona says people have thought she’s weird her entire life because of being a vegetarian. I’m sure they do, because I have plenty of friends who like to say, “That carrot on your plate is screaming in pain!” But I realized that when people already know you as a meat eater, and then you go and tell them you don’t want to eat it anymore, they have a little bit of a breakdown.
I don’t know why it is, but some people seem to take vegetarianism as a personal affront to their own cooking skills. The ridiculousness of this is obvious to only me in these cases. I know roasted pork tenderloin is delicious, because I’ve had it before. Hydrogenated fats are delicious too, or at least a lot of the food they’re in is, and I don’t eat that stuff either. So what’s the big deal?
For the most part, I don’t have a problem with this kind of thinking, because the occasions are rare that we go to eat at someone else’s house. Right now though, my husband’s uncle is on his yearly visit from France and we almost always eat at his house two or three times during his stay. He’s already got it in his head that there’s something wrong with me because I won’t eat onions, even if he hides them under the cheese on a pizza. So, if he gets so worked up over onions, I can only imagine what is going to happen when I tell him I’m not going to eat the roast baby pig, or steak, or whatever.
The real problem, though, is going to be when my mother in law comes to stay for the summer. See, our neighbors are her best friends, and when she was here last summer, we ate lunch there several times a week. At this point, I had already “given up” beef and pork, but because it hadn’t been very long, and I just wanted to have fun and not offend anyone, I just ate whatever they made, and yeah, it was good stuff. But almost every dish they made was either (you guessed it) beef or pork.
Here in Portugal, vegetarianism is almost unheard of. This is because it really wasn’t all that long ago, and for some it’s definitely still the case, that you ate what was available to you and didn’t get picky, because you didn’t have a choice, and you made good use of your resources. So, someone who chooses not to eat it because of some silly thing like animal rights is, basically, an ingrate.
So, all you vegetarians, help me out here. How do I tell these people, “Sorry, I know I ate stew last time I was here, but that’s not going to be the case anymore?” Have you ever had to do this? I’m not going vegetarian to be all self-righteous and suffocate everyone with my dogma, but is there even a way to not do that? I’d like to think that there is, but I just haven’t thought of it yet.
Clacked by Cate Cropp
on May 13, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
