A friend drops by. I’m simmering a pot of soup.

“Mmmm! I could smell that in the parking lot,” he says. He ambles into the kitchen and sniffs at the lid, angled to promote thickening by evaporation. “Wonderful! What is it?”

“Vegetable soup with a few handfuls of defatted bulk sausage...”

He laughs. “It’s been ages since I’ve eaten sausage! Rena (his co-habitor and a proper food revolutionary) says it’s the most corrupted food on the market!” He stirs the soup, inhaling the scents. “Smells like basil, sage, oregano...can I have some?”

“Sure.”

He picks out the biggest bowl in my cupboard, hands it to me, raises his eyebrows and says, “Don’t tell Rena, O.K.?”

Meat is political. I’m not unsympathetic. Every day, though, I eat a few foods for which I would be condemned by food activists. The primary reason for this problem is our universal value system in which 99.9% of us have been entrenched for 8,000 years. The solution, I fear, will be as disastrous as a Richter-reeling earthquake.

In the meantime, I try to eat with more gentility. I use organic foods, although price and availability often steer me toward corporate produce. I don’t reject additives or genetically engineered foods out of hand, but I inform myself. I want to know what I’m bombarding myself with. This knowledge occasionally causes me to shun a product. My principle technique is one I discovered before food became cerebrally upsetting; using meat as a condiment instead of a main ingredient.

Civilization is a tight fit for me. Consequently, periodic under- or unemployment is a given. During one of these episodes I realized that many vegetables-in-season and nearly all common grains and beans are significantly cheaper per pound than meat. This made sense, considering the nutritional sophistication of food-on-the-leg versus food-on-the-stalk.

I stopped buying meat. I’m a sensual eater, though, and missed the richness meat imparts. I know that much of that richness is due to fats, for which a variety of vegetable oils can be substituted. There is, though, something about meat; maybe it’s the amino acids, or my errant, prehistoric genes from ancestors in the northern climes, for whom meat was more than a staple, it was the marrow of life.

I resumed buying high quality meat but dole it into my cooking in small amounts: Vegetable curry with a little shredded chicken instead of chicken curry with a little cubed vegetable; sausage, crumbled, fried and defatted, used as in the previously mentioned soup, or beans, or stews; a few lean beef strips, marinated in teriyaki in a jar in my refrigerator, diced and thrown into a saucepan for simmering with water, a handful of noodles, and chopped vegetables. Recently, I discovered my brother-in-law’s home made jerky works, too.

This method isn’t new. Outside the westernized world, in the temperate and tropical zones, meat-as-condiment is dominant. Scarcity may dictate this, but, often, preference is the determinant.

Meat substitutes aren’t the answer for me. I’ve bravely tried them, beginning in the early 70’s with soy burgers. I like soy products, but I want them to be tofu, or toasted soy nuts, or soy flour crackers, not a stand-in for something else. Recently, I sampled a leading brand of “veggie burger” at a grocery. I’d been wanting to try it, primarily because of the commercials wherein a family doesn’t realize they are eating burgers without meat, or, the ad suggests, doesn’t care. The smell from the stand was not exactly meaty, but tempting. I savored a bite of the morsel I was offered the way I would a sip of wine, rolling it around, sucking out the flavors...and let it fall onto the middle of my tongue where there are no tastebuds. Something in the concoction was a little too earthy for me. I studied what was left. I detected rice, whole grains, bits of vegetable; nothing that accounted for the dingy flavor. “What’s in this?” I quizzed the purveyor as I quickly wiped a napkin across my lips and spit out the contents of my mouth.

“What do you mean?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“It has a funny taste, like dirt.” I reached for a package to read the label.

“Oh, I’ll bet that’s the ground mushrooms. Don’t you like mushrooms?”

Yes, I like mushrooms, under certain circumstances. This was not one of those circumstances.

I’m not radically against vegetarian substitutes. There is a brand of instant vegetarian chili with bits of suspiciously tofu-like “soy protein” that I could eat three times a day, seven days a week. Chili, though, appeals to me because of the chilies, not the meat.

In this culture, holidays, typically resplendent with roasted animal parts, are the wrong time to serve a meatless dinner. One year I hosted a bountiful vegetarian Thanksgiving for friends. Everyone was informed ahead of time. They were, if you’ll excuse the pun, game. A few hours after the meal, one of the participants collected funds from everyone and went for hamburgers.

I can no longer eat large volumes of meat without suffering indigestion. I do, sporadically; I love a juicy rib-eye, a seasoned shrimp cocktail, or a rich meatloaf. Many of the people I cook for, too, are confirmed carnivores, and I’m not a food evangelist. I know, though, it’ll shoot through me like poison through an oiled intestine. I plan my next day accordingly.

Don’t be timid. Play with meat before eating it. Even meat-dependents will find that richness and flavor aren’t contingent upon quantity, just presence.

Text, Recipes & Graphics ©1999 by Gail Rae Hudson

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