Love Me, Love My Dinner
Posted by Kirsten Henri on February 13th, 2008
Could you love someone who eats meat if you’re a vegetarian? Would you forgive your man if he acts like a swine, but not if he eats it? Or what if you’re kosher and she’s not?
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the NY Times has an article on the role food plays in relationships:
No-holds-barred carnivores, for example, may share the view of Anthony Bourdain, who wrote in his book “Kitchen Confidential” that “vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans … are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”
Returning the compliment, many vegetarians say they cannot date anyone who eats meat. Vegans, who avoid eating not just animals but animal-derived products, take it further, shivering at the thought of kissing someone who has even sipped honey-sweetened tea.
Could you date someone who didn’t share your culinary leanings? Or marry them? It certainly makes picking a place to go out on Valentine’s Day more complicated.
Then again, if Mayor Nutter, who does not eat meat, can dine at Morton’s for the sake of bringing City Council together, then maybe vegans and carnivores can make sweet omnivorous love.
I Love You, but You Love Meat [NY Times]
Related Tags: New-York-Times, Valentines-Day, Vegetarian
February 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I could never love a vegetarian or anyone for that matter who has any kind of dietary restrictions unless strictly health-related. Also, if he was a meat and potatoes guy and wouldn’t try all kinds of crazy ethnic cuisine that I love, he couldn’t win my love. Thank god my husband is an adventurous eater!
February 13th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
What’s with the acceptance of vegetarian-bashing? (“vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans … are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”) Substitute something else for “vegetarians” - women, Catholics, etc., and see how that reads. Not so good, right?
MOST vegetarians are not preachy and do not care what other people eat, significant others included. Vegetarians for the most part don’t care about meat eaters and their diets, so why are meat eaters so fascinated with vegetarians?
February 14th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
My other half is an omnivore, while I am a happy vegetarian who frequently prepares vegan meals at home (hello Veganomicon!). I never give him crap about what he chooses to eat (ok, I do when its an all unhealthy binge fest). And he usually eats every last crumb of all of the vegan food that I prepare.
All of these folks who feel so strongly about not dating someone who has made some strict dietary choices–it bothers me. I glanced through the comments on the NYT site and thought to myself what a shame it is for people to say that they could never love someone who makes the choice to be vegetarian/vegan. Well, I doubt that I could ever love anyone who could say that!
My omnivore and I still enjoy meals together at home and out. We both love food and eating. We don’t always order dramatically different things, and I think that because of my dietary choices he thinks differently about his. I would never inconvenience him or others with my dietary choices, and I would hope that others would never hurt or offend me over what I choose to eat.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Kay: for the record, Anthony Bourdain made the Hezbollah-Vegan equation in _Kitchen Confidential_, and has since, if not exactly retracted, made it clear that he did not mean it all that seriously. The book is written in a take-no-prisoners style that makes it easy to dial down rhetoric like that when reading it - *if* you have the context.
You know something, though? I was a lot readier to laugh off that comment before Hugs For Puppies broke out all over Philadelphia like an especially purulent rash. There are over-zealous idiots in every bunch: Hezbollah gives Muslims a bad name. HFP is doing the vegetarian community no favors.