I've been a mostly-vegetarian for a decade. I eat chicken, periodically, but I stopped eating any pig by college, and I think the last beef I ate was in Rwanda. So was the last goat. I've never quite been able to make myself eat lamb. The vegetarian concept started with ham when I was 8 or 9, when I figured out where it came from. We were still in Liberia, I know, because I remember which house was my school when I figured it out. For some reason, meat just seemed gross to me, and the longer I went without it, the grosser it seemed.
Then, a week or two ago, I went to Trader Joe's after work. I was so hungry when I got there that I went straight to the sample table, only to find that the sample was some sort of lamb... thing.
And suddenly I decided that I just didn't care. I took the lamb sample, and I ate it.
Last night, I met my friend L. for dinner in Gone West at a gourmet pizza place. "You're a vegetarian, right?" she said, as we perused the menu.
"I was," I said, "but I think I'm ready to eat meat again."
We ordered a pizza covered in house-made sausage with fennel. It was probably a bad place to start with the return to meat, though, because that sausage was so delicious that I am very likely ruined for factory-farmed ground chuck. When I was a vegetarian, I never missed meat, because I never liked it that much in the first place, but last night I caught myself forking up the pieces that fell off the pizza and eating them on their own.
Sausage is pig. I really cannot say what came over me. It's like I don't even know myself.
Further evidence: after the pizza, we went out for dessert. As we all know, I believe that mixing fruit, particularly cooked fruit, with anything else, is just unacceptable. Why would you mix disgusting cooked fruit with perfectly good chocolate?
As we looked at the menu, one man up by now, picking out three desserts to share, I was suddenly tired of that food prejudice, too. We ordered two fruit desserts and one chocolate, and I ate of all three of them.
I don't know why, but some switch has been flipped in my head, and now I feel willing to try whatever food is put in front of me.
Then, a week or two ago, I went to Trader Joe's after work. I was so hungry when I got there that I went straight to the sample table, only to find that the sample was some sort of lamb... thing.
And suddenly I decided that I just didn't care. I took the lamb sample, and I ate it.
Last night, I met my friend L. for dinner in Gone West at a gourmet pizza place. "You're a vegetarian, right?" she said, as we perused the menu.
"I was," I said, "but I think I'm ready to eat meat again."
We ordered a pizza covered in house-made sausage with fennel. It was probably a bad place to start with the return to meat, though, because that sausage was so delicious that I am very likely ruined for factory-farmed ground chuck. When I was a vegetarian, I never missed meat, because I never liked it that much in the first place, but last night I caught myself forking up the pieces that fell off the pizza and eating them on their own.
Sausage is pig. I really cannot say what came over me. It's like I don't even know myself.
Further evidence: after the pizza, we went out for dessert. As we all know, I believe that mixing fruit, particularly cooked fruit, with anything else, is just unacceptable. Why would you mix disgusting cooked fruit with perfectly good chocolate?
As we looked at the menu, one man up by now, picking out three desserts to share, I was suddenly tired of that food prejudice, too. We ordered two fruit desserts and one chocolate, and I ate of all three of them.
I don't know why, but some switch has been flipped in my head, and now I feel willing to try whatever food is put in front of me.
1 comment:
in that case... i suggest you go for chocolate covered strawberries... asap. As well as cakes with fruit in them. (Blueberry muffins? yummy.)
xoxo
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