Can this refrigerator be saved? - relations between meat-eaters and vegetarians - includes related articles

Vegetarian Times, Feb, 1996 by Lisa Bertagnoli

Let's pretend for a moment that this isn't Vegetarian Times but True Confessions magazine, because I have a confession to make. I've been a vegetarian for 14 years, I've been married to meat-eaters twice and I still haven't figured out how to make a vegetarian/non-vegetarian relationship work.

During my first marriage, to Bill, a confirmed carnivore, I ran the kitchen, and it was a strict one--no meat in the house or even near the house, as in a backyard barbecue. This worked out fine; Bill hated to cook and was grateful that somebody was doing it for him. Both our families flipped, however--his because it was inconvenient and, they thought, unhealthful, to be vegetarian and mine because they felt I was being too rigid. And I, truth to tell, felt like a diet dictator.

Well, that ended (not for food reasons). A year later, I was in my second marriage and the tables were turned. Chris, a fabulous cook, took charge of the kitchen. With Chris in firm control of the stove, how could I possibly dictate what was cooked on it? Still, I was never comfortable that my vegan casserole and his chicken took turns in the same dish, and that my once-pristine Pyrex dishes acquired the permanent golden color of animal fat. And this time, it was my friends who were up-get. "You let meat in your house?" squealed my best friend, Wendy. "This isn't going to work." She was right. It didn't.

The two marriages left me with two vows--one, to choose my next spouse carefully enough so he's the last one, to figure out how to manage a veg/non-veg relationship in a way that allows me to stay true to my convictions while respecting my mate's needs. Providential, then, that this assignment came along and gave me a chance to find out how other committed couples handle their dietary differences.

The issues go far beyond what's on the dinner table or in the fridge. How do couples handle their families, friends and social life? What happens when kids enter the picture? And underlying it all, how does one deal with the fact that he or she is sharing a life with someone who doesn't necessarily share the same views?

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

When people found out that my husband(s) and I weren't eating from the same place on the food chain, they didn't want to know about the philosophical or emotional conflicts. They wanted to know how we got dinner on the table without a major hassle. The simplified answer is that we compromised. But "compromise" describes an end result, arrived at after long and (frequently) heated debate. As anyone in a mixed marriage knows, the road from conflict to compromise can be bumpy, and it usually runs right through the kitchen.

Some couples, like Antonia and Patrick Gorman of New York, don't need to worry about clashing in the kitchen. They simply eat out. The two dine in restaurants or order in so often that they don't even have a table in their apartment. "It's easy in Manhattan," says Antonia, a vegetarian for three years. "There are dozens of restaurants with vegan options in our neighborhood."

The same goes for life partners Susan Lloyd and Kimberly Clawson of Chicago. Although they have household duties neatly divided--Susan, the vegetarian, cooks and Kimberly shops--they eat out three or four times a week.

Because, as Kimberly says, "neither of us is a very good cook," the question of whether meat can be cooked in the house doesn't need to be addressed: "It's not like I'm going to cook lamb or anything," she says with a laugh. "If I bring meat in the house, it's cooked already." Susan says that doesn't bother her.

Jessica Altrows, a vegetarian who lives with her boyfriend, Ian Clayton, in Victoria, British Columbia, is less accommodating. The entire issue of cooking meat disturbs Jessica, and she says she'd prefer it not be cooked in their apartment. The problem is that Ian, who was a vegetarian when the two met, came down with chronic fatigue syndrome, and almost immediately resumed eating chicken and fish. "I wanted to make sure my diet wasn't contributing to my health problems," he says.

When it looked like her kitchen rights might be in jeopardy, Jessica decided to work on her culinary skills. "I became very good cook," she says. "He can't get better food than I cook." This, she says, makes it easier for Ian stay away from chicken and fish. When he feels he must eat animal protein, he cooks it himself, and prepares and eats it on kitchenware Jessica has dubbed "the grubby little meat dishes." "I am adamant about him having separate dishes," she says. "I don't want bad vibes on my plate."

In the spirit of love and cooperation, Jessica tried cooking chicken for Ian once when he was very ill, but the task made her feel profoundly uncomfortable. (I can empathize. I cooked a chicken for Chris once when he had to work late, and had to stop several times to dry my eyes. That was the end of my chicken-cooking career.

The kitchen of the Delasantos household in Denver is for the most part vegetarian. But vegan Mary Delasantos says she and her husband, Dan, are both avid cooks and he does cook meat occasionally. "It's 99.9 percent vegetarian," says Mary of their kitchen's output.