Breaking bread with vegans was fun

[Guest guest]

From : The Buffalo News:

 

Occasionally, people answer questions in the affirmative without really listening to them. Married men may do this more than any other creature on the planet. Or so goes the stereotype.

In any case, I found myself in the car with my wife on the way to dinner. I felt awkward asking where we were going, especially since I was driving. I happened to notice, though, that I’d put a warm crock pot in the car.

“Nice of us to bring the food,†I observed as we headed into the night.

“Everyone brings food,†my wife said.

That’s when I remembered. I’d been playing chess on my computer when she said, “Let’s go to the next Buffalo Vegetarian Society potluck dinner.â€

But I didn’t think she meant it. It sounded like a passing thought, not a plan — the way a person blithely says, “Let’s visit Budapest this summer,†while thumbing through the Travel section of the Sunday paper.

From what I suddenly recalled, we were required to bring a vegan meal. Vegetarians, like my wife and I, eat no meat. Vegans, meanwhile, adhere to a diet that excludes all animal products, including cheese, for example.

I have no personal experience with vegans. Thus, a negative vegan stereotype festers in my mind: They are more judgmental than vegetarians. They are tattooed and pierced. I have the sense, too, that they thrive on making nonvegans uncomfortable. Why would a vegetarian group embrace them? And why would vegans break bread with people who ate, well, cheese?

Conversely, I try to make people comfortable when they ask me about my diet. I wish everyone were vegetarian, but no one should be bullied into it. So I don’t say that the amount of grain and beans required to feed the world’s cattle could nourish more than a billion people. And I spare people the reports of factory farmers’ mistreatment of animals.

Instead, I tell people that a vegetarian diet gives me more energy and that I dropped 12 pounds when I quit eating meat.

I worried about the vegans as I drove: I was wearing shoes made with leather. I like cheese. And between us, my wife and I have a total of zero facial piercings.

When we pulled up to the site of the dinner, we saw what I call the token vegan mobile: a car so plastered with stickers bearing socially conscious slogans that it seemed bolts were no longer necessary to keep the vehicle intact.

If someone gave me a hard time about my shoes, I’d say, “Did you know that bumper sticker glue is made from the tails of endangered rain forest animals?â€

But once inside, my combativeness dissolved. Strangers shuffled around a kitchen, putting the final touches on their creations. Pots simmered on the stove and the counter was lined with feasts.

Standing there, basking in the aromas of a Moroccan soup and a host of other vegan dishes, I realized something about vegetarians that is probably true of vegans. Many of us eat a meatless diet as a gesture of hope, whether for animals, the environment, better health or a clear conscience.

No one asked why we didn’t have tongue studs. No one tried to hang me with a hemp rope when I confessed my enjoyment of smoked Gouda and dill havarti. It was nice to share a meal with people, feeling no pressure to explain — or not to — why I eat what I eat and think what I think.

Peter H

 

 

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[Guest guest]

"They are tattooed and pierced."hey, how did they find me?!

 

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so.

- Mark Twain