Ask TracyFood: Veg-what? 14 August 2007 8:29 am
Posted by Tracy in : Morning Glory, advice, books, food snobbery, friends, meat, not even vegetarian, responsibility, sundance, vegan, vegetarian , trackbackA few months ago, Marcy (who is so much better than Barbie) wrote:
So right now are you a vegetarian, almost vegetarian, or veggie-friendly? Ever since I started cooking for myself, I’ve been fairly veggie-friendly because I don’t really like dealing with raw meat. Up here I’m even more veggie-friendly because I’ve been shopping at the local food co-op which is all vegetarian except for the frozen free range, hormone-free, chicken breasts and assorted frozen fish. So because I’m lazy, and the food co-op has really nummy everything else, I’ve been very veggie-friendly lately. Yum yum! It’s so great to have access to tempeh and other such delicious veggie novelties.
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Dear Marcy,
One of the most useful things I learned at Sundance was the skillful avoidance of foodist labels. Instead of asking “Are you vegan?” or “Are you vegetarian?” and getting into a whole terrifying discussion of personal food politics (not to be confused with the excellent book by Marion Nestle), many Sundancers would ask, “Do you eat meat?” or “Do you eat dairy?” and proceed from there. If pressed, I will say that I am not a vegetarian, but I am an extremely picky meat eater. What this boils down to is that I usually cook and eat vegetarian or even vegan food at home, but I frequently (and depending on your point of view perhaps heartbreakingly) garnish said vegan food with yogurt or cheese or even eggs. At home I cook and eat meat very occasionally, and mostly for reasons similar to the ones you describe — no matter how I look at it, raw meat is pretty gross. At best I think it can be beautiful, in a biological-functions-are-fascinating kind of way, and potentially delicious, but that’s only true of extremely high-quality, ethically raised meat — you know, with labels like organic, free-range, grass-fed, pastured, hormone-free, humanely handled — the stuff that’s too expensive to eat very often (more about the cost later), and even that really good meat is still a little gross. Do not get me started on how downright nasty raw meat is to me if I don’t know where it’s from, and cooked mystery meat is only marginally better.
These days I’m especially interested in knowing where my food (and especially raw meat) is from because I’m reading Safe Food by Marion Nestle and learning all over again that, as she puts it, “That we do not experience more episodes of [contaminated food-related] illness is nothing less than miraculous, a tribute more to our healthy immune systems, the benefits of cooking and food preservation, and plain good luck than to federal oversight” (114). I wish I could say that food safety technology and legal regulation has come a long way since she wrote that in 2002, but um, not so much. Speaking of five-or-more-year-old books that made me think twice about food safety and ethics and economics, I highly recommend Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, especially for the line about how people who smoke crack know the risks, but most people who eat hamburgers do not (I wish I had a full quotation and page number instead of a paraphrase, but they’ll have to wait for another time). One last book recommendation for this paragraph, and a clever transition to the next, is Mark Warren Reinhardt’s The Perfectly Contented Meat Eater’s Guide to Vegetarianism, which you’d better believe milks the “meat is kinda gross” angle for all it’s worth, in particular with a hilarious chart comparing meat eating to cigarette smoking. Okay, I thought it was funny. Next paragraph!
The Perfectly Contented Meat Eater’s Guide to Vegetarianism concludes that most reasons for eating meat boil down to “because I want to,” and I think that’s true of most food choices, not just carnivory. That said, although I am neither vegetarian nor vegan, I count myself as a veg(etari)an sympathizer of sorts. (Actually, that combines well with both the aforementioned rule about avoiding identity politics and bell hooks’ similar suggestion about feminism and identity politics — she says it’s better to say “I advocate feminism” than “I am a feminist”, and while I am not a veg(etari)an, I strongly advocate veg(etari)an food, or at least the delicious kind. Maybe I should continue this analogy and write a cookbook titled Veg*an Food is for Everybody, teehee!) Being a professional cook means enabling people’s food habits, and I much prefer helping people eat good food, which quite frankly excludes a lot of the meat out there for the reasons described above (note how cleverly I am dodging most of the hardcore ethical issues, except to say I’m amazed that factory farms and sweatshop slaughterhouses ever produce anything that’s seen by anyone as other than entirely gross). I think I could work in a restaurant that served only extremely high-quality, ethically raised meat, slaughtered by skilled butchers well-paid for their hard work, but quite frankly I’m not sure I’m qualified. In a just world there would be a long line of cooks knocking on every such restaurant’s door in the hopes of getting a job, and against that competition I know I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. I can go on and on about these issues, but besides “very picky meat eater” and “veg(etari)an sympathizer” I have a few more clever phrases that I use to describe my food preferences where animal products are concerned. One is “no mystery meat” for all the grossness reasons described, and when I’m being very good I try to avoid mystery eggs and dairy products as well (although at least goat and sheep cheese can’t be made with bovine growth hormone). The other occurred to me more recently, but it’s one I hope to run with quite a bit: not even vegetarian. Because I’m so very into the goodness of my food first, and just about everything else later, I sort of surprise myself every time I try to organize my cooking into genres, or give it labels. I’ve gotten so used to mostly-vegetarian cooking that even people who know me pretty well still forget that I sometimes eat meat, but writing this letter has helped me realize that far more of my food is vegan than I previously thought. So from now on I’m going to be saying that I’m not even vegetarian, but I make a lot of kickass vegan food.
And speaking of kickass vegan food, now is as good a time as any to note that Isa Chandra Moskovitz of The Post-Punk Kitchen continues to rock my world with her 10 yummy steps to vegan activism. Again, I’m not even vegetarian but I do a lot of “vegan food is not just for vegans!”-type ranting all over the place, in particular in response to the dreaded “I can’t believe this is vegetarian/vegan” compliment, which is up there with “almost as good as (insert brand name here)!” Seriously. I’d almost rather deal with people’s stupid preconceived notions of vegan/vegetarian food and occasionally surprise the hell out of them, except I love to shatter those same preconceived notions and the stealthy “by the way, no animal products in there” is probably a more effective tactic, especially in this world of nasty fake meats and suchforth. (Note to self: write a separate rant about how vegetarian/vegan does not (or at least should not) mean “substitute processed soy for animal products.” But I digress.) Which reminds me: everyone should check out Isa Chandra’s fantastic essay about the “never tell them it’s vegan” rule at Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (even if you’ve read it already, go check it out again; it’s that good). And in case I haven’t been talking ethics enough for you, Isa kicked some serious “ethical omnivore” ass in a debate over at Jewcy, one which even Peter “Animal Liberation” Singer chimed in on, much to the moderator’s delight (and I for one am never getting over the phrase “online vegetarian orgasmatron,” no). I say this even though I agreed more with her opponent’s point (it’s okay to eat animal products if they’re from ethical sources): he got himself out-argued something fierce (although towards the end both sides were frustrated and Isa got a little more into the “no killing” over “no suffering” arguments than I really like to read).
ANYWAY. My point is: I’m not going to completely give up eating eggs, dairy products, or even a few-and-far-between dishes based on the flesh of dead animals, because I don’t want to. I can come up with other justifications, but compared to that one they’re all lies. However, I want the animal products I eat, like the rest of my food, to be really, really good, and that goes double for meat, because I eat it so rarely. And because my definition of goodness includes deliciousness as well as the sacrificial animal’s quality of life and the working conditions of the slaughterhouse workers who butchered it, the good meat I am willing to eat is so expensive that my “only occasionally and for reasons of great awesomeness” rule is well-reinforced. Which in turn means I’m unlikely to get over my squeamishness about the grossness of dead flesh any time soon, which reinforces the “occasionally” rule some more.
So. There’s your very long answer to a not-very-long question: I’m not even vegetarian. I’m sorry it took so long for me to finally finish this, but I’ve been wanting to write about this stuff for a while, so thank you for the opportunity, and of course for being so much better than Barbie.
Love,
-Tracy
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jeanie
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Peter L.
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Peter L.
