During a recent discussion on the varied food choices of the Asian diet, specifically of the meat genre, something that has bothered me for quite a while began to surface. And here it is:
Wait - before I start - I promise this will not be a militant MEAT IS MURDER let-me-gross-you-out-with-the-horrors-of-eating-meat blog. Eat whatever you want. I don’t care! It might seem like I’m going in that direction, but I’m not - it gets funny, I promise. Stick with me…
Over the past 17.5 years I have enjoyed as a vegetarian, I have encountered people of all races, cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, etc who will eat many different kinds of animals, and many different parts of those animals. In addition to the common stuff, there’s pork hocks (pigs feet and ankles - funny story on pork hocks later), tripe, beef tongue, blood pudding, jelly fish, anchovies, snails, dogs, raw clams, ox’s tail, buffalo testicles, dried shrimp heads, frog’s legs, chicken necks, goat eyes (oh yes!), cow hearts, and so on, and so on - I’m sure you’ve seen Fear Factor commercials. People eat anything and everything.
Some of these SAME people, I have noticed, act as if TOFU will instantly and permanently singe their taste buds with the most unbearable flavor known to mankind and that the mere feeling of the tofu in their mouth is worse than the pain of stabbing out their own eyeballs. I find it humorous. Innocuous Tofu vs. Liver, the foul-tasting toxin-sponge of the body. And you choose liver? You meat eaters are dumb. (Ha! After years of being called “weird” and a “hippie”, FINALLY I am saying to you: You meat eaters are dumb. That’s right! Little non-violent, polite, quiet, vegetarian Keri has gotten some balls! Please don’t eat them.)
These are two examples of my experiences:
1. Thanksgiving 2000. I was at a lovely post-Thanksgiving meal at a friend’s home. She made all the traditional things. Turkey with giblet stuffing, corn, yams with marshmallows (not vegetarian), mashed potatoes with gravy (not vegetarian - I’m just sayin’!), rolls, and ham - you know, the usual - all meat and starch, nary a green vegetable in sight. (Note to carnivores: Corn is a poor choice as the only vegetable. Think of it as a carb. Carrots too.) BUT I brought my famous stuffing! It is made with vegetarian stuffing (hard to find - most stuffings have chicken stock or other meat stock), vegetable broth, whole cranberry sauce, walnuts, apples, celery, raisins, and…TOFU! It’s divine. I dream about this stuffing all year. Everyone loves this stuffing. It really is one of the most divine foods ever. Chocolate, Strawberries, Keri’s stuffing, Ice Cream. Those are the top four Divine Foods.
Anyway - no one touched the stuffing at this dinner party, except me and my husband (he dreams of the stuffing too.) And people told me flat out that it was because of the tofu. The turkey stuffing, complete with all the giblets, was completely gone. People. That stuffing contained the giblets: gizzards, heart, liver and who knows what else! And then it was cooked inside the carcass of a dead bird. THAT is preferable to Divine Stuffing With Tofu? Come on!
2. Peking Duck Wednesday 2004. I politely watched as our 15 friends devoured 3 ducks that were sliced right in front of my eyes, as more and more ducks were rolled by our table (we were next to the kitchen), not to mention endless trays of pork shoulder passing by (which, by the way, looks just like a brain. That’s what I thought it was at first, until someone at our table saw the color draining from my face and quickly told me it was pork shoulder. Still gross, but less so than brain.)
Then my “vegetarian peking duck” came out, much later in the meal (I guess no one ever orders it. I think they had to scramble to find a Chinese takeout place to get it from). Everyone at the table was polite; they didn’t mean to put me on the spot as many commented “Wow, Keri - that actually looks pretty good!” What they meant was “Wow, Keri - that actually doesn’t look as gross as I thought it would!” It just looked like a plate of really long egg noodles. Very thin tofu strips that were like a combination of scrambled egg and noodle. Not gross at all. But still, you’d have thought it was a plate of sauteed bugs judging by the looks on a few faces. (I’ll bet you if it had been bugs, one or two people might have been more open to trying it!)
After I ate some and didn’t scream in agony, one or two friends tried it, and when they appeared to not be faking enjoyment of the dish and one even had seconds, a few more friends bravely tasted some and were pleasantly surprised. I like these friends better than the Thanksgiving 2000 friends. They are braver. (Or at least more patronizing.)
See? That’s the message I’m trying to convey. If you are brave enough to eat raw fish when who knows how long it sat on a dock or if a seagull licked it, surely you can eat some fermented soybeans! You drink beer? That’s fermented hops (wort to be exact)! You probably don’t even know what hops or wort are and yet you take a chance and drink them fermented! You’ve at least SEEN soybeans. The animals you eat have eaten soybeans. Soybeans have passed through the very organs that you are eating when you eat tripe, and they have been tasted and chewed by the beef tongue your friend dared you to try and you did. Why is little, innocent, unassuming tofu so scary?
Could it be that we vegetarians, the weirdo hippies who love all the little animals and don’t wear fur and cry when we step on an ant, are BRAVER than you tough, macho bull-testicle-eating carnivores? Hm. Maybe it’s all the tofu. You should try some.
Sorry this is so long - but onto the funny story I promised you:
So my first job at 15 was as a supermarket checkout girl. This was a year after I became a vegetarian. (Incidentally, the day I made the decision to quit my job was when the scanner ripped open a package of tripe and it spilled out all over the conveyer belt and me.) One day I came home from work and told my family all about all the gross things that old people buy to eat because it’s cheap - like tripe and chicken neck and pig noses. “Keri, old people do not eat pig noses,” my mother said. “Yes they do, they buy pig noses to eat,” I explained. “No they don’t! No one eats pig noses!” she insisted. “Mom - they do too! It says right on the package! Pork Honks!” “Keri - It’s Pork HOCKS. That’s pig’ FEET.”
