Patch Marthas Vineyard, MA --
Let’s be honest about this: You hate us. And who are we? We are the plant-based dieters, some of us vegetarians, some of us vegan, most of us somewhere on the spectrum between the two. We bore you. Heck, we bore ourselves! Here’s how we talk:
“I’m essentially a vegan, but I eat an occasional egg and, while I avoid dairy, I do permit myself the odd dab of goat’s cheese because it’s easier to digest, plus I buy it from a local farmer who treats her goats by the terms of the Geneva Accord.”
See what I mean about hating us? Who wants to listen to anyone’s food habits discussed in such excruciating detail?
Personally, I’d like to see vegans throw in the towel and go back to calling themselves vegetarians. I’m not saying they should return to those hedonistic vegetarian ways – the gorgonzola-with-pear salads, the half-and-half in their coffee. We get it that vegans are pure as Snow White when she woke up to the kiss of her prince, not some lout who worked at the castle.
But you know what, vegans? Some of you sulk when all you can find to eat at a fund-raiser are carrot sticks and Kalamata olives. You’ve acquired the reputation of being fanatics, and not in a fun way. In fact, a fun- fanatic is an oxymoron.
So let’s just say, for the sake of encouraging people to dislike us a little less, that we’re all vegetarians.
We’re in good company as vegetarians: There was Plato, along with Tolstoy, Einstein, St. Francis of Assisi, Leonardo da Vinci and of course George Bernard Shaw, to name a few out a phone-book-sized list of famous conscientious objectors to meat.
But in addition to good company, we’re also in frighteningly small company. A Harris Interactive poll of 2008 put the percentage of American vegetarians at 3.2, so let’s assume it’s roughly the same amount here on the island.
The reason I’m bringing this up, and dragging whatever carnivores may be reading these words into the commentary, is that most of the time when vegetarians go out to eat on the island, we get shafted.
Not everywhere. Ethic cuisine is handy: At Sharkey’s Cantina in Oak Bluffs and Edgartown we can order a fabulous burrito or fajita, hold the chicken, hold the beef, hold the cheese (if we’re tipping towards the vegan side of the VV spectrum), but glop on extra roasted veggies and a double portion of guac.
At Bangkok Thai Cuisine in Oak Bluffs, the world is your oyster – or NOT your oyster – as every dish is available with a tofu / veggies option.
I know. Tofu is easy to mock. I myself don’t like it. It’s bean curd and even the word ‘curd’ lets you know you’re in for something that promises a disappointing chew.
Tofu’s biggest detractors compare it to cardboard. But may I point out that even cardboard will taste fine if it’s immersed in a yummy sauce? At the Thai cafe, tofu is, indeed, deliciously immersed. Even my dog likes it and, although it’s generally thought that dogs will eat anything (and they will, including goose poop), they can be finicky when you try to feed them veggies or fruits, i.e. all things coming under the heading of "good for you."
So ethnic cuisine works for VV’s. But go to many of our strictly American restaurants, some of them family-style, others run by locally famous chefs, and amid the entrees of grilled swordfish and tournedos de boeuf and sole amandine, the non-eater of once-living flesh will find . . . nothing.
I kid you not. Nothing. So now you tell the benighted waitstaff person that you’re a vegetarian and is it possible for the chef to put together, say, a pasta dish?
I tried this last winter at a private party in an Edgartown restaurant. The chef sent out a plate of plain pasta. And I mean plain. In its favor, it was cooked, although uncooked might have given me a chance to at least play with it; maybe build a bridge as an engineering project like they do at the high school.
So on this plate of cooked pasta, there was no oil, no seasoning, nothing but a few squidges of kale for decoration.
Under normal circumstances I could have sent it back, but a nice man was hosting this party, and this was no time for me to act as if I myself were plunking down forty bucks for this plate of naked linguini.
There is frequently a vegie burger option on the menu. This is generally a pre-fabbed slice of soy and grains which a sous-chez pulls from the freezer and plops on the grill. The only point in ordering this is for the purpose of keeping your friends company as they devour their fried clams and cheeseburgers and grilled salmon with gusto.
Chefs hate us even more than the general population hates us. They’ve been trained to create magic with meat and fowl, fish, and seafood. They don’t want to hear that some namby pamby customer is whining for a plate of plants.
But here’s something I noticed recently as I passed The Red Cat at Ken ‘n Beck in Oak Bluffs, and perused their menu framed outside the door. I saw two intriguing items: Vegetarian Showdown and Tonight’s Veggie Risotto.
Chef Ben Deforest, in his signature do-rag and runaway tattoos, just happened to appear as I squinted at the menu. He explained the Showdown consisted of five to seven small dishes of whatever cunning, plant-based concoctions he produced on a given evening.
See, there’s plenty of stuff to eat that’s purely marvelous without animal remains mixed into it. If chefs would only realize that the creations they think of as "side dishes" are actually tastier than globs of cooked meat, they might find the ground shifting underneath their feet.
They’ll start to work more with such ambrosial ingredients as pistachios, sweet potatoes, sugar snap peas, avocados, mint, basil, and tomatoes. And goat’s cheese, which is easier to digest!
These culinary geniuses will hate us less, and love their cooking more. And they’ll get a whopping 3.2% increase in business!
*Do you agree with Holly? Tell us in the comments, or Post on Patch.*
*Stay Patched in! Follow Martha's Vineyard Patch on Twitter | Like Martha's Vineyard Patch on Facebook | Sign up for the daily email with links to the latest news | Got something to say? **Post on Patch** and share your news and opinions.* Reported by Patch 13 hours ago.
Let’s be honest about this: You hate us. And who are we? We are the plant-based dieters, some of us vegetarians, some of us vegan, most of us somewhere on the spectrum between the two. We bore you. Heck, we bore ourselves! Here’s how we talk:
“I’m essentially a vegan, but I eat an occasional egg and, while I avoid dairy, I do permit myself the odd dab of goat’s cheese because it’s easier to digest, plus I buy it from a local farmer who treats her goats by the terms of the Geneva Accord.”
See what I mean about hating us? Who wants to listen to anyone’s food habits discussed in such excruciating detail?
Personally, I’d like to see vegans throw in the towel and go back to calling themselves vegetarians. I’m not saying they should return to those hedonistic vegetarian ways – the gorgonzola-with-pear salads, the half-and-half in their coffee. We get it that vegans are pure as Snow White when she woke up to the kiss of her prince, not some lout who worked at the castle.
But you know what, vegans? Some of you sulk when all you can find to eat at a fund-raiser are carrot sticks and Kalamata olives. You’ve acquired the reputation of being fanatics, and not in a fun way. In fact, a fun- fanatic is an oxymoron.
So let’s just say, for the sake of encouraging people to dislike us a little less, that we’re all vegetarians.
We’re in good company as vegetarians: There was Plato, along with Tolstoy, Einstein, St. Francis of Assisi, Leonardo da Vinci and of course George Bernard Shaw, to name a few out a phone-book-sized list of famous conscientious objectors to meat.
But in addition to good company, we’re also in frighteningly small company. A Harris Interactive poll of 2008 put the percentage of American vegetarians at 3.2, so let’s assume it’s roughly the same amount here on the island.
The reason I’m bringing this up, and dragging whatever carnivores may be reading these words into the commentary, is that most of the time when vegetarians go out to eat on the island, we get shafted.
Not everywhere. Ethic cuisine is handy: At Sharkey’s Cantina in Oak Bluffs and Edgartown we can order a fabulous burrito or fajita, hold the chicken, hold the beef, hold the cheese (if we’re tipping towards the vegan side of the VV spectrum), but glop on extra roasted veggies and a double portion of guac.
At Bangkok Thai Cuisine in Oak Bluffs, the world is your oyster – or NOT your oyster – as every dish is available with a tofu / veggies option.
I know. Tofu is easy to mock. I myself don’t like it. It’s bean curd and even the word ‘curd’ lets you know you’re in for something that promises a disappointing chew.
Tofu’s biggest detractors compare it to cardboard. But may I point out that even cardboard will taste fine if it’s immersed in a yummy sauce? At the Thai cafe, tofu is, indeed, deliciously immersed. Even my dog likes it and, although it’s generally thought that dogs will eat anything (and they will, including goose poop), they can be finicky when you try to feed them veggies or fruits, i.e. all things coming under the heading of "good for you."
So ethnic cuisine works for VV’s. But go to many of our strictly American restaurants, some of them family-style, others run by locally famous chefs, and amid the entrees of grilled swordfish and tournedos de boeuf and sole amandine, the non-eater of once-living flesh will find . . . nothing.
I kid you not. Nothing. So now you tell the benighted waitstaff person that you’re a vegetarian and is it possible for the chef to put together, say, a pasta dish?
I tried this last winter at a private party in an Edgartown restaurant. The chef sent out a plate of plain pasta. And I mean plain. In its favor, it was cooked, although uncooked might have given me a chance to at least play with it; maybe build a bridge as an engineering project like they do at the high school.
So on this plate of cooked pasta, there was no oil, no seasoning, nothing but a few squidges of kale for decoration.
Under normal circumstances I could have sent it back, but a nice man was hosting this party, and this was no time for me to act as if I myself were plunking down forty bucks for this plate of naked linguini.
There is frequently a vegie burger option on the menu. This is generally a pre-fabbed slice of soy and grains which a sous-chez pulls from the freezer and plops on the grill. The only point in ordering this is for the purpose of keeping your friends company as they devour their fried clams and cheeseburgers and grilled salmon with gusto.
Chefs hate us even more than the general population hates us. They’ve been trained to create magic with meat and fowl, fish, and seafood. They don’t want to hear that some namby pamby customer is whining for a plate of plants.
But here’s something I noticed recently as I passed The Red Cat at Ken ‘n Beck in Oak Bluffs, and perused their menu framed outside the door. I saw two intriguing items: Vegetarian Showdown and Tonight’s Veggie Risotto.
Chef Ben Deforest, in his signature do-rag and runaway tattoos, just happened to appear as I squinted at the menu. He explained the Showdown consisted of five to seven small dishes of whatever cunning, plant-based concoctions he produced on a given evening.
See, there’s plenty of stuff to eat that’s purely marvelous without animal remains mixed into it. If chefs would only realize that the creations they think of as "side dishes" are actually tastier than globs of cooked meat, they might find the ground shifting underneath their feet.
They’ll start to work more with such ambrosial ingredients as pistachios, sweet potatoes, sugar snap peas, avocados, mint, basil, and tomatoes. And goat’s cheese, which is easier to digest!
These culinary geniuses will hate us less, and love their cooking more. And they’ll get a whopping 3.2% increase in business!
*Do you agree with Holly? Tell us in the comments, or Post on Patch.*
*Stay Patched in! Follow Martha's Vineyard Patch on Twitter | Like Martha's Vineyard Patch on Facebook | Sign up for the daily email with links to the latest news | Got something to say? **Post on Patch** and share your news and opinions.* Reported by Patch 13 hours ago.