Tofu, Steak, and What’s in Between

While A Food Coma was originally all vegetarian, we’ve recently begun including recipes with meat in them – it’s all about appealing to the greater audience and writing for college students and thrifty chefs everywhere. But it got my wheels turning, and here I am at 3 a.m., thinking way too hard about vegetables.

I am no longer a vegan, but I respect and admire the people that are, and that can keep up the dedication that it takes to committing to such a lifestyle. It’s very right for a lot of people, it’s just not right for me.

Last year, The New York Times published an article called ”I Love You, but You Love Meat“, which features my fellow Philly blogger Dynise Balcavage, a.k.a. The Urban Vegan, discussing the all too familiar balancing act that comes when herbivores decide to shack up with meat-eating lovers.

An excerpt:
“Sharing meals has always been an important courtship ritual and a metaphor for love. But in an age when many people define themselves by what they will eat and what they won’t, dietary differences can put a strain on a romantic relationship. The culinary camps have become so balkanized that some factions consider interdietary dating taboo.

No-holds-barred carnivores, for example, may share the view of Anthony Bourdain, who wrote in his book “Kitchen Confidential” that “vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans … are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”

Returning the compliment, many vegetarians say they cannot date anyone who eats meat. Vegans, who avoid eating not just animals but animal-derived products, take it further, shivering at the thought of kissing someone who has even sipped honey-sweetened tea.“

Since the article was published, the phrase vegangelical, has already been added to UrbanDictionary.com, describing those militantly intolerant vegans who constantly impose upon others and give the rest of us veggie eaters a bad name. Seriously, honey-sweetened tea? I’ve never met anyone as ridiculous as that. Do they even exist?

Although I’ve been a vegetarian since I was nine, after over six years of working in restaurants I don’t mind handling or cooking meat and I can’t relate to people who are so immovable. People in relationships always find stupid things to fight about – excuse me for preaching, but my advice is to just relax and appreciate the gift of living and loving.

Still, couples who have different tastes or clashing diets have to learn flexibility in the kitchen. Like all aspects of a healthy relationship, it’s all about compromise. One of my favorite comments on the article highlights this very concept.

“I’m a vegetarian, but my girlfriend is Kenyan, which pretty much means she loves meat.

In such a situation, both sides have to make compromises. Sometimes we don’t share meals when we go out. And when we are at home, I try to cook the sorts of vegetarian dishes one finds in Kenya: rice with beans or lentils, greens such as kale, spinach or chard, eggs with vegetables, and corn-meal dishes like polenta- the closest thing we Americans have to the national dish of Kenya, ugali.

Fortunately, she has come around on pizza, too.”
— Mark Borgschulte, Berkeley, CA

Alright, that’s enough from me. It’s way too late (or is it early now?) and I’m still trying to finish my homework. Night!

-Alexandra