When the kids were little and it was my turn to cook dinner, my thinking went like this: Decide what the meat is going to be – burger, lamb chop, fish sticks, meatloaf, whatever – and then worry about veggies, starch, sweets. It was all about the meat.
Then our daughter decided to become a vegetarian and I was, to put it mildly, flummoxed. I wasn’t about to cook two different meals but I had no idea how to make dinner without some kind of meat.
I scrambled to learn about tofu, which turned out to be not as gross as I feared, and all those different beans and grains other than rice and vegetables that weren’t frozen peas – not to mention spices beyond salt and ketchup.
There was a lot of mealtime repetition and irritated children – “Aw, Dad, this again?!?!?” – but I slowly figured it out. And in the process, I discovered that my vegetarian meals could be more interesting than my old meals, where all tastes were overwhelmed by the flesh of a slaughtered animal (the food-science definition of meat).
The kids have moved on but my wife and I are still almost entirely vegetarian because it tends to be cheaper, slightly healthier, a tiny bit better for the planet and more fun to eat than the alternative. But I never would have discovered this if I hadn’t been forced to try it.
Which brings us to “Meat Out,” an event that will be celebrated March 20 in a bunch of cities – this year including Concord, or so says Mayor Byron Champlain. Meat Out is designed to get people to cook and eat and share recipes of plant-based food and to generally talk about making meals that don’t involve killing an animal.
I think that’s great. It can serve as a spur to overcome the fear of vegetarian cooking that I faced. It won’t convert you to vegetarianism – let alone veganism, which eschews dairy, eggs and even honey – but it is a way to start learning about ingredients, cooking times, spices and flavors so you can experiment on your own.
Meat Out was created by the Farm Animal Rights Movement, cleverly acronymed as FARM. They’re a less irritating version of PETA, whose in-your-face stunts have turned more people against vegetarianism than anybody this side of the American Cattlemen’s Association.
FARM has been hosting Meat Out since 1985. This year, it says, groups in “700 communities in all 50 states and 24 other countries welcome spring on March 20th with educational events promoting plant-based eating.” It has some recipes online to start with: meatout.org/menu.
I’m not sure what, if any, organized events will happen in Concord but that’s OK: You can use it as an excuse to try dabbling in the meatless world yourself.
With any luck, it will draw you into the culinary heaven that is Indian cuisine. If so, you’ll never look back.
Return to the Concord Monitor