Vegetarian

For 14 years now I’ve been a vegetarian. At the time, it seemed it was only odd, washed-up hippies who were into it. Eating choices were more limited then, supermarket shelves did not offer a plethora of tofu varieties, and restaurants could only offer to pick out the bacon from a Caesar salad. That is, in Australia. Here in Norway the situation is pretty grim for vegetarians, although no doubt improving. It’s not yet at the stage of being able to find tofu at a normal supermarket, but luckily my local ethnic has it in stock.

During the Norwegian leg of my fantastic Scandy tour of 2006 I was at a dinner in a cabin in the far, far north. The others at the table chowed down on some kind of moose stew, while my hosts prepared a very tasty wild mushroom stew for The Difficult Eater1. The head chef, the father of a friend of mine, was sitting next to me and was quite befuddled by vegetarianism.

“So, why are you a vegetarian?” came the question shortly after starting. I gave my usual vague answer. “I see,” he replies, thinking for a bit and then earnestly adding, “but how?” He really couldn’t understand how I could physically bring myself to do it. To him it was as if I had chosen a life of celibacy. Conversation moved on to other matters, but after a few minutes he stopped eating, looked at me, and said with a sigh: “well, it’s your life.” In his eyes, not only was I celibate for life, but was now running off and joining an extremist Pakistani madrassa. Once again conversation moved on, but from what I remember on at least two more occasions he would stop and bring it up again. “But how? I don’t understand.” Shaking his head he would once again add, “well, it’s your life.”

I have met a few veggos here though, one of whom (bless her sweet, adorable soul) gave her life to vegetarianism thanks to Moby. Good to hear that licensing every track off Play was not his only life accomplishment. Oh, and dating Natalie Portman, that has to count for something.

I knew I hated Moby for a reason.

1 On the spectrum of difficult eaters, surely a plain ‘ol vegetarian rates pretty low these days. Try eating with a gluten-intolerant, calorie-sensitive vegan.

17. July 2008

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