Now what do people do the morning after an orgy? Bang, again? No, they just leave to go home without looking too many people in the eye. So I figured it should be after a meat orgy: let's try living without meat for a month.
Rules: no new meat from November 27th until Christmas Eve. I would have said Christmas but the Christmas Eve fish counts. I decided to go all out (Moacir) instead of pesco-vegetarian (Ed). However, the exception (and it's a big exception) is that I could still eat old meat, such as the leftovers from Thanksgiving. But this is reasonable: I figure, okay, so you become a vegetarian--that doesn't mean you toss all the meat you already own, right? I abhor food waste. But besides this one exception I was determined to make no others, particularly regarding eating out, so that I would get a real glimpse of what a few of my friends live like.
Those leftovers kept me meated up for a good week...you wouldn't believe how much stuffing you just keep finding in the bird, it's like it's multiplying! This was very lucky, because I could bring turkey sandwiches to work each day. The cafeteria where I work is not the most vegetarian friendly place around ("Excuse me, is there any meat in this vegetable soup?" "Of course there is, how can you have soup with no meat?!").
My first incident came on Friday: I was invited to lunch with a group of education experts visiting us from around Europe. Usually I'm happy to get a free lunch, and usually I enjoy sticking out, but this is a serious crowd. I ate my salad being careful to scrape all the crab meat to the side of my plate. That was no biggie, but I knew they'd be serving meat as the entrée (How can you have lunch with no meat?). They did. But one of the experts who is Lithuanian pointed out that our French guest doesn't eat meat, and I was able to slip in with "Neither do I!" Phew. So, naturally, everybody began eating his meat while they went back to the kitchen to make us crepes; otherwise, their food would get cold. They were about done eating when I said to my French colleague, "These are gonna be some great crepes!" We all laughed, but is this really the life of a vegetarian? Sometimes, when a lunch is poorly organized, you have to wait while everybody else is eating? That sucks.
My next incident came that very evening. I wrote it up here. I wonder if real vegetarians are ever caught so off guard.
The next week I went to a seminar that was better organized: the coordinator asked everybody ahead of time about dietary restrictions. She thought I was joking when I said no meat. How about fish, she asked. No, fish is meat I said, it's just poor man's meat. One of the seminar participants knew me from my old job in Klaipeda. When she went into the lunch room and and saw the styrophome box seperate from all the
Incidentally, I later asked her why she jumped to that conclusion. Turns out she remembers once at college when I tried this diet where I order kefir and vegetables including tomatoes, beets, and cabbage for lunch, put them in a blender I brought from home, and gag the cocktail down. I remember it as gross, but she remembers it as innovative and unusual (like vegetarianism).
My next incident came when I got the reminder about the upcoming Gentlemen's Dinner that takes place every 6 weeks. Here's my email reply to Alex, who organizes them:
During the meat orgy we call Thanksgiving, I decided to try eating less meat over the following month--as a challenge. A sort of vegetarian light--no new meat purchases: I still ate the leftover from the holiday, those lasted almost a week, and I can eat meat from the freezer. The purpose isn't weight loss, but my pants do feel a little looser after two weeks.
It's going quite well sociologically also. I've had several interesting/uncomfortable experiences of having to say "Oh, sorry, I won't be able to eat that," and I've made good friends with my Vegetables cook book and the vegetable chapters in several volumes.
And then I got your reminder. First I thought, "Oh nice!" and then I thought "Oh crap! Well actually, this will be another interesting vegetarian experience...eating around the meat with a bunch of people all enjoying the same thing except for me...but shit, 100 lits is alot of money even with the meat, can I afford to drop that just for a little anomie? Wait a second...I RSVPed to this before Thanksgiving, so maybe this counts as food from the freezer...yes, sure it does, food from the freezer. I'm going!"
The last incident was my office's Christmas party. We went to Bravaria, which I organized. I chose it based on the beer, not the food, which turned out to be a mistake. When I asked her to show me the vegetarian entrées, the waitress told me, "Uhm, not really, we don't make those. Take a look at the salads." And voilá! There was indeed one salad without meat in it. Is this the life of a vegetarian?
Now, at this point, if you're vegetarian, you may be thinking, just go to vegetarian restaurants. Well guess what, vegetarian restaurants are few and of dubious quality, at least in Vilnius. I remember how anxious Ed was about the fate of the Lebanese place on Traku; it's one of the good ones.
The incidents would have been far more if I hadn't avoided eating out. It seemed like too much hassle, and as I said to Alex, I'm not going to pay restaurant prices for something with no meat! Furthermore, Gedas once undertook a study that proved that vegetarian dishes are significantly more expensive than meat dishes at Lithuanian restaurants.
Besides these incidents, there was one fun aspect of the meat-free month, as I mentioned in my email to Alex: I spent much more time than usual with my Vegetables and other cook books. One recipe that is definitely here to stay is Ratatouille. Man, how can it be so good with no meat? Fried eggplant sandwiches, too, so I guess eggplant is the big winner here. Also Old Maids, which are pretty similar to English muffins.
The other upside of this month was that it gave me an excuse I always welcome: an excuse to make myself a BBQ Bacon Explosion for Christmas!
