This Week's Column – By Ward Peck
Pass the beets
A few of us from work went out to lunch and the subject of Thanksgiving plans came up. As many people in relationships know, making plans for thanksgiving often involves compromise in deciding whose family will be visited and whose will not. Some couples trade off (my family this year, yours next) or alternate holidays (her family on Christmas, his on Easter). While these strategies seem fair, often hurt feelings and offended sensibilities still result.
With Kari and I it’s a little different. Except for Betty, her sister who lives next door to us, her mother, brother, sister-in-law and aunts live in Wisconsin. As much as Kari would like it, we have yet to make it there for a holiday dinner. We all like to spend the holidays with family and if Kari can’t get to Wisconsin, she sure doesn’t want to drive away from the one family member she could spend it with. On some occasions, the compromise has been that I go to Jersey and Kari stays in Portland. That kind of compromise barely works when a couple is “dating,” it will be impossible once we’re married in a few weeks.
When we do go down to New Jersey, we have to deal with the ramifications of Kari’s odd and subversive lifestyle choice: vegetarianism. Kari’s choice to deny herself delicious steak, veal marsala, bacon and all the other gastronomical delights derived from the flesh of animals is greeted by my family with deep suspicion.
When we go down to New Jersey, Kari is pretty much resigned to the fact that she will be hungry for most of the trip.
“What will Kari have?” I ask my mother as she reviews the holiday menu.
“Well there are plenty of side dishes,” she replies, not realizing that mashed potatoes and green beans don’t exactly constitute a full meal.
On one occasion we visited the Jersey shore at a house where my father and his wife were staying. There were about 20 people there at lunchtime. A huge spread of food was prepared. Not a single item was meat-free. Even the salad had impossibly fine pieces of pepperoni tossed in, preventing Kari from picking it off.
On several occasions my brother, a normally tolerant and friendly person, has registered his deep offense about what Kari will not eat.
I myself am a reformed anti-vegetarian and I have some insight on this phenomenon. Meat eaters infer a moral superiority on the part of vegetarians in much the same way teetotalers bug people who drink.
But Kari is very tolerant of other people’s choices. I can fry up a plate of bacon in our kitchen without so much as a sideways look. If we go out to eat, I don’t feel the need to limit my choices in her presence. We feed Walt-the-dog raw meat because she understands that her moral stance does not change his metabolic needs.
If you asked her, Kari would not claim to be a “true” vegetarian. She eats eggs, dairy and fish. She’s not really in it for the health benefits.
A college friend of mine would ask a vegetarian upon coming across one, “Are you doing it for your sake or the animals?” Kari’s answer would be “both,” although it’s mostly the animals.
She is concerned about what all the chemicals and hormones meat producers use to keep the animals lean and their profit margins high do to the human body, but mostly she can’t abide the suffering that seems to be a necessary by-product of the industry.
She knows that poultry producers clip the beaks of chickens to keep them from pecking each other in their tightly pack cages. She shudders at the thought of what happens to a still-live cow as it enters an industrial meatpacking plant.
“I don’t think it’s healthy to ingest that kind of trauma,” Kari will say to someone who asks about her dietary choices.
I know of no one who is less tolerant of suffering than Kari. If Kari’s around, we can’t watch half the programming on National Geographic. She actually turns her head away when there is a scene involving cartoon animal violence.
Kari’s vegetarianism has elicited concern from my mother, who thinks I am “not getting enough red meat.” I try to assure her that the three or four meat-free meals I eat a week will not endanger my health, though she still worries.
We’ll be having Thanksgiving at Betty’s, who is also a vegetarian, so there won’t be many meat choices. Even so, no one better try to put any tofu-turkey on my plate. Life is about compromise, but I have my limits.
A few of us from work went out to lunch and the subject of Thanksgiving plans came up. As many people in relationships know, making plans for thanksgiving often involves compromise in deciding whose family will be visited and whose will not. Some couples trade off (my family this year, yours next) or alternate holidays (her family on Christmas, his on Easter). While these strategies seem fair, often hurt feelings and offended sensibilities still result.
With Kari and I it’s a little different. Except for Betty, her sister who lives next door to us, her mother, brother, sister-in-law and aunts live in Wisconsin. As much as Kari would like it, we have yet to make it there for a holiday dinner. We all like to spend the holidays with family and if Kari can’t get to Wisconsin, she sure doesn’t want to drive away from the one family member she could spend it with. On some occasions, the compromise has been that I go to Jersey and Kari stays in Portland. That kind of compromise barely works when a couple is “dating,” it will be impossible once we’re married in a few weeks.
When we do go down to New Jersey, we have to deal with the ramifications of Kari’s odd and subversive lifestyle choice: vegetarianism. Kari’s choice to deny herself delicious steak, veal marsala, bacon and all the other gastronomical delights derived from the flesh of animals is greeted by my family with deep suspicion.
When we go down to New Jersey, Kari is pretty much resigned to the fact that she will be hungry for most of the trip.
“What will Kari have?” I ask my mother as she reviews the holiday menu.
“Well there are plenty of side dishes,” she replies, not realizing that mashed potatoes and green beans don’t exactly constitute a full meal.
On one occasion we visited the Jersey shore at a house where my father and his wife were staying. There were about 20 people there at lunchtime. A huge spread of food was prepared. Not a single item was meat-free. Even the salad had impossibly fine pieces of pepperoni tossed in, preventing Kari from picking it off.
On several occasions my brother, a normally tolerant and friendly person, has registered his deep offense about what Kari will not eat.
I myself am a reformed anti-vegetarian and I have some insight on this phenomenon. Meat eaters infer a moral superiority on the part of vegetarians in much the same way teetotalers bug people who drink.
But Kari is very tolerant of other people’s choices. I can fry up a plate of bacon in our kitchen without so much as a sideways look. If we go out to eat, I don’t feel the need to limit my choices in her presence. We feed Walt-the-dog raw meat because she understands that her moral stance does not change his metabolic needs.
If you asked her, Kari would not claim to be a “true” vegetarian. She eats eggs, dairy and fish. She’s not really in it for the health benefits.
A college friend of mine would ask a vegetarian upon coming across one, “Are you doing it for your sake or the animals?” Kari’s answer would be “both,” although it’s mostly the animals.
She is concerned about what all the chemicals and hormones meat producers use to keep the animals lean and their profit margins high do to the human body, but mostly she can’t abide the suffering that seems to be a necessary by-product of the industry.
She knows that poultry producers clip the beaks of chickens to keep them from pecking each other in their tightly pack cages. She shudders at the thought of what happens to a still-live cow as it enters an industrial meatpacking plant.
“I don’t think it’s healthy to ingest that kind of trauma,” Kari will say to someone who asks about her dietary choices.
I know of no one who is less tolerant of suffering than Kari. If Kari’s around, we can’t watch half the programming on National Geographic. She actually turns her head away when there is a scene involving cartoon animal violence.
Kari’s vegetarianism has elicited concern from my mother, who thinks I am “not getting enough red meat.” I try to assure her that the three or four meat-free meals I eat a week will not endanger my health, though she still worries.
We’ll be having Thanksgiving at Betty’s, who is also a vegetarian, so there won’t be many meat choices. Even so, no one better try to put any tofu-turkey on my plate. Life is about compromise, but I have my limits.
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