Confessions of an Ex-Vegetarian

NINAD JOG

"Try the chicken burger," my friend Bablu urged me. "I'm going to order it, and so should you."

Might as well give it a try, I thought. What the hell! I figured I could always stop eating if I got nauseous. My friends would take care of me and do the driving if I got sick.

It was the summer of 1993, and I and four of my friends from the university were headed to Virginia Beach for a day trip in my small Mazda hatchback car. I was feeling highly charged as we entered a McDonald's restaurant at a rest stop, perhaps because I had driven at a whopping 95 miles per hour for a few seconds on the highway just a few minutes earlier, much to my friends' alarm.

I made a Herculean effort to suppress my disgust as I took the first bite of the burger. I was taken aback at how tasteless it was compared with the spicy Indian vegetarian food I was used to eating. I plucked enough courage to finish the burger, and was surprised I didn't feel nauseous. "I did it!" I told my friends excitedly. "I've become a non-veg eater!"

Eating a chicken burger once in your life scarcely counts as losing your vegetarianism, but that's how my parents and I saw it when I was growing up in India. Back then, the boundaries between being a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian were fairly clear. You could be sure that someone who proudly claimed to be a vegetarian had never eaten any meat or fish or poultry in his life even by accident.

***

Having a chicken burger while heading to the beach wasn't the first time I had tried eating "non-veg." Back in 1990, when I had moved to New Delhi to work my first job after graduating from college in Mumbai, my father's friend had urged me to try some mutton at a party. "You should at least try it," he said. "No one likes to remain vegetarian these days."

I decided to follow his advice, partly because I was ready to be adventurous and partly because I was living with him for a few days, rent-free, as I looked for my own room in New Delhi.

I tentatively lobbed a small piece of meat into my mouth. It was spicy but rubbery, and I could not grind it no matter how hard I chewed. Finally, I gulped it with a glass of water. Only years later did I learn that the meat must have been rubbery from being overcooked, like many Indian dishes - both vegetarian and non-vegetarian - often are. The experience was so unpleasant that I resolved I would never try eating non-veg again.

***

But my resolve didn't last forever, although it did last a good two years until I moved to the U.S. While spending a weekend at my father's friend's home in Baltimore, I accompanied him and his family to a buffet lunch at the home of an East Asian friend of his. As I helped myself to the various dishes, I noticed a food item that I had never seen before. White, bulbous and as long as my thumb, I could tell it was some kind of seafood.

I looked around for guidance, but Mr. Mattoo was nowhere to be seen. He had probably gone outdoors to mingle with the other guests. I summoned the guts to eat one of the pieces. I could chew it easily, and I liked its taste. I tried another piece and then another. I was flush with pride. I had done it! I may have failed to eat mutton, but I had eaten no less than three pieces of the seafood.

I boasted about my accomplishment to Mr. Mattoo later that afternoon as we headed back to his home from the party. Mr. Mattoo glanced admiringly at me. "Congratulations!" he said. "What you had was shrimp."

Months later, I came across the same item at a dinner party at my friend Steve's home. Sitting in a large bowl amidst a mound of sautéed zucchini, bell peppers and broccoli, it was just as small and bubbly. I wasted no time in making a beeline for it. "I love shrimp," I told the host, pointing to the little finger-sized delicacy in the bowl.

Steve gave me an odd look. "That's not shrimp," he said. "It's baby corn!"

Steve must have noticed my embarrassment, for he assured me that shrimp and baby corn looked maddeningly alike. I took his word for it, with no questions asked. Only much later did I learn that the two look quite different from each other. Ironically, I had never seen baby corn - let alone taste it - when I was growing up in India as a vegetarian. I don't think it was available in the markets back then.

***

Although I had attempted eating something other than what I thought were vegetarian items on three separate occasions, my initiation into non-vegetarianism was far from complete. Beef was a hurdle I was confident I would never cross. Fish too belonged to no-man's land, even though I could at least entertain the notion of eating other seafood such as shrimp and mussels.

The logical part of my brain told me that eating beef was no different from eating pork or chicken or any other "non-veg" that involved killing an animal. But the emotional part of my brain had a beef about trying the meat of an animal that was as common and as loved in India as a pet. Atheist that I am, I doubt if Hindu religious strictures against eating beef played much of a role. I think my reluctance to try beef mirrored a Westerner's reluctance to eating dog or cat meat.

Like many of my aversions for particular foods, the one towards beef also fell by the wayside when I least expected it. I had accompanied three of my college friends to an Indian classical music concert in a Virginia suburb of Washington DC, when we decided to grab a bite during the afternoon break. A hot dog stand beckoned, so all of us ordered hot dogs. I must confess I did not feel even a modicum of disgust as I had my first hot dog.

It was striking that all four of us beef-eaters were Hindus, albeit Hindus from Mumbai, which was arguably India's most Westernized city in 1996.

***

It's just as well that I tried the hot dog at the music concert. For I moved to Sweden a few months later, to work on a software project for a horse racing company at the Solvalla racetrack in Bromma, a suburb of Stockholm. The racetrack boasted Sweden's largest restaurant, a mega-seater that could serve hundreds of patrons simultaneously. But on days when there were no races, the restaurant featured no more than a couple of dishes. On more than one occasion, I would go to the restaurant for lunch, only to learn that they offered a choice of three different dishes: beef, beef and beef.

Eventually, I tried Yakiniku beef, a Japanese grilled meat dish at an Asian restaurant near Solvalla. I also remember the hot dogs that my Swedish supervisor and I had when we stopped at gas stations on our way to and from Norway on a weekend road trip from Stockholm to Oslo.

***

My father was horrified when I told him I had eaten beef. "It's okay if you eat any other meat," he said, "but please stay away from beef."

I could see where my Dad's disapproval was coming from. Apart from being a vegetarian, he had grown up in a small town in India where he knew cows and bulls that had individual names and responded when you called them. Eating a pet animal was more than what he could bear.

But my father did backtrack a little towards the end of the conversation. "Although I would advise you not to eat beef, the ultimate decision is yours," he told me.

I don't recollect if I ever told my father that I never really developed a consistent and sustained liking for beef or for any other red meat for that matter. When friends ask me why I avoid red meat, I tell them I stay away from it for health reasons, since it raises my bad cholesterol. But new research shows that it's industry-processed red meat - like cold cuts and the meat in hot dogs – which is harmful for health. I'd better look for a different excuse, for my friends have never believed me when I've told them the truth.

***

For all the progress I had made in becoming a non-vegetarian, fish loomed as a seemingly insurmountable hurdle. Fish was no red meat, but I had always chickened from trying it. I couldn't stand the smell, and I nearly threw up when I tried the tuna curry that a friend from graduate school once made especially for me.

As my stay in Sweden drew to a close and I prepared to return to the U.S., the British branch of the company I worked for invited me to stop over in London for a couple of days. At a dinner that they organized at Rules - reputed to be London's oldest restaurant - we were served steamed salmon as the entree. I didn't quite like it, but I think I finished all of it.

I don't quite remember how many times I ate fish after having it at Rules on that wintry evening in 1996. But as the years passed by, my aversion towards fish made way for tolerance, and tolerance broadened to liking.

***

One evening, when I was at a shopping mall in Bethesda, Maryland with Venkat, my then-boyfriend, I decided on a whim to try some sushi. Five years had passed since I had tasted my first chicken burger, but I was just as fearful I would get sick from eating raw fish. I made a mental note of where the restrooms were located in case I needed to use them. The psychological barrier that kept me from trying raw non-veg was a formidable one.

Venkat didn't eat any sushi, but he looked at me with an amused expression as I had it. He told me he didn't think I would get sick, and I was pleasantly surprised that he was correct.

While cooked fish had been the penultimate frontier, eating raw fish was surely the most final of all the hurdles. And yet it was sushi that beat cooked fish in the race to appeal to my palate. For while I like cooked fish, I simply love sushi.

***

My journey on the path to non-vegetarianism has been a slow and checkered one. I like to think it's over, but past experience cautions me not to jump to conclusions. I’m pretty sure I’ll never eat a monkey’s brain or drink snake’s blood or try an animal’s liver, but I’m open to trying venison. I’m not sure if I can bear to eat bear meat, though.

My food preferences have also changed over the years, sometimes almost imperceptibly. "Is it veg or non-veg?" I used to ask about restaurant dishes when I lived in India, for I took care to stay away from non-veg. "Is it Indian or non-Indian?" I asked when I moved to the U.S. Now that I've been living in the U.S. for almost two decades, the questions uppermost in my mind are "Does it have refined carbs or is it made of whole grains?" and "Is it fried or is it baked?"

Ironically, I eat two to three times as many vegetables now that I've become a non-vegetarian than when I did as a vegetarian. Back when I was younger, I treated rice and bread as entrees, and vegetables as side dishes that I ate in miniscule quantities, like most Indians of all ages still do. It’s a truism that my salad days were woefully bereft of salads. I made the change after I noticed several family members being stricken with heart disease and diabetes at early ages.

***

I know my father will never even try any non-vegetarian foods, for it goes against his principles and his core beliefs. My mother says she would like to try, but her deep-rooted disgust at eating a dead animal's remains comes in the way. I believe my sister took a shot at it several years ago, but gave it up for good. I'm the only turncoat in my family, the only one who has strayed from the straight and narrow path of vegetarianism that people of the Brahman caste are supposed to follow.

Many of my American friends still see me as a vegetarian, because the seafood and poultry that I eat don't really count as meat. Besides, I seldom eat meat when I eat out with them, for many meat dishes at restaurants feature fried meat, and I avoid fried foods like the plague.

I may be a vegetarian as far as my friends are concerned, but to this day I remain the lone wolf in black sheep's clothing in my family.

No matter what others think of me, I see myself as an omnivore who loves to ruminate and regurgitate, one who enjoys providing food for thought to those like you who are patient enough to read what I have to say.