Chorrillana (Chilean dish)
My family likes to tease me that when I was very young, I would order T-bone steaks, clean my plate, then help finish someone else’s ribeye while also enjoying a baked potato topped with a pound of butter.
I didn’t like vegetables then, and when my mother tried to force me to eat broccoli, I threw up on her. She never forced me to eat vegetables after that.
My eating habits didn’t improve much until college, when I spent a semester abroad in England in 1995, and was nervous about the meat. I unwittingly became vegetarian, and enjoyed it.
Of course, other reasons were in play, too. By that time I had become educated about the hideous treatment of chickens, pig cesspools, and drugged up cows.
I’m not against eating meat, but I hate the thought of animals living an inhumane and unnatural life, to speak nothing of the environmental repercussions. Reading Fast Food Nation in 2001 convinced me that I’d be a vegetarian forever. (Here’s an award-winning cartoon called The Meatrix that sums up industrial farming quite compellingly.)
Despite my steak-eating childhood, it wasn’t difficult to bid adieu to meat. Maybe the flavorless mystery meat of college cafeterias made it easy, but whatever the reason, when people asked how I could manage a vegetarian lifestyle, the question seemed silly since there was no sacrifice involved.
Then I started traveling (outside of England)—to the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Spain, Chile. Experiencing the traditions and eccentricities surrounding another culture’s food is one of the best parts of travel.
So how could I go to Chile and not eat chorillana? How could I go to France and not enjoy a little l’assiette de charcuterie with my glass of Burgundy?
As Molly Wizenberg wrote in her essay for Bon Appetit, “Why I’m Not a Vegetarian,” meat makes for a slippery slope.
Back home, soon I was surreptitiously allowing restaurants to garnish my salads with bacon or prosciutto. I’d eat greens ‘n’ beans with cornbread at Cracker Barrel (road trips only, I swear), and especially enjoy the ham pieces nestled in the greens.
For 15 years now, whenever I eat out with my family, they always ask, “Can you eat here?” not realizing how much restaurant menus have changed, even in Indiana. Or how much I have changed too.
When I returned from Ireland and sat down at Johnny Rockets, and ordered a bowl of meat chili, I thought maybe this little cheat wasn’t so bad. It was a treat—you know, lost luggage and all.
But then I thought of the treats I allow at other times, like chicken springrolls at Slatt’s Pub, or bites of The Conductor’s burger at Mayberry, or weekend goetta with sausage gravy at Tucker’s.
It’s time to admit it. I’m not vegetarian any more.
Slatt's Chicken Springrolls (yum!)
