The white meat is flavorless and dry, it’s true. The dark meat is a little more flavorful, though.

Man, thanksgiving at her house sounds like a drag.

We had brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce (made from scratch, not the jellied can crap), yams and apples, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, green salad, baked beans, pumpkin pie, sack apple pie, and french silk pie.

The only item that included meat at all was the turkey and stuffing.

My family also gets along well with each other, so no fighting.  Schlussel makes it sound like her Thanksgiving is all about one-upping the relatives.

A rather thankless Thanksgiving and more of a preening gloat-fest.

Of course it could happen; however, the amount of soy milk you would need to consume in order to make it happen is probably beyond the ken of your typical vegan. Over the very long-term, maybe normal intake could have some effect, but there are lots of guys out there who have been drinking soy milk for years who don’t have breasts yet.

Fun fact: more than a few NFL linebackers have some good man-boob action going on; no one seems in doubt of their masculinity (must be the athletic cup). But of course, none of these conservative men are imagining themselves as linebackers, even though they may be physically closer to (though still a far cry from) that body type than any other. No, conservative men are just so smart, so brave, so handsome - they must be the QB. It explains a lot, really.

(By the way, I like football, and I dislike the way that anxious masculinity sullies a good game).

This is what Debbie Schlussel actually thinks Thanksgiving is about? Making vegetarians feel unwelcome?

That and flag-waving and foam-fingered “USA!” chants?

What a sad (and not in a sympathy-inducing way) person.

Not to mention there are plenty of us vegetarians who don’t bother with fake meat anyway. Seriously, I have no desire to eat something that’s pretending to be meat, so why the hell would I bother to get some disgusting, highly-processed soy “turkey” roll? I consume very little soy, usually in the form of the odd splash of tamari or miso, and the occasional bit of tofu in a stir-fry, but really, honestly, you are not compelled to switch over to fake meats once you give up the real stuff.

i think most bland turkeys are, like bland chicken, flavorless because of the factory farm diet/environment in which they are raised. a good free range turkey is good like nobody’s business. not everyone likes turkey, i guess, but i’ve always loved it. and since i was a picky eater child, i didn’t start touching the gravy and stuffing until a few years ago—it always seemed to ‘mysterious’ to me to eat.
but on the soy/estrogen question, there is legitimate evidence that a diet high in soy has feminizing effects, but the research i’ve seen has been more related to fertility than to secondary sex characteristics like breast tissue growth. but considering the massive amounts of hormones present in most milk and meat products, it is hard to isolate the effect to meat/dairy or soy, except that there may not be many people who eat tons of meat and also tons of soy. as a public health person though, my personal hunch on this one is that it’s not actual soy foods (soy milk, tofu, tofurkey, etc.) that causes estrogen related effects, it’s the soy byproducts that are in processed food (look at the back of any food-in-a-box and count up the number of times ‘soy’ appears in the ingredients). soy lecithin, soy gum, soy emulsifier, etc. people who eat a lot of soy tend to be healthy, but people who eat a lot of processed food are not, but both may be consuming lots of soy ingredients, but the latter may do so inadvertently.
i don’t eat soy for a variety of reasons (bad vegan childhood, it gets grainy in coffee, etc.) and these hormonal effects are one reason, but i also avoid meat and dairy with hormones.
all that said, i’m really looking forward to all my turkey leftovers this weekend.

Well, see, those sissy liberals are all vegetarians or vegans, unlike those red-blooded meat-eating manly conservatives, and Thanksgiving in her world is all about patriotism and USA!USA!, and since vegetarians/vegans/liberals aren’t really Americans (what with their sissy tofu and concern about civil rights), so Thanksgiving’s not for them.  QED.

Top of my “reasons to maybe think about one day trying to live in America” is “but they have Thanksgiving!”, which sounds like such an amazing holiday, at least in principle. And it’s definitely all about the gorgeous, moreish pumpking, yam, sweet potato, butternut squash, apple, potato, bean, pastry and berry foods. I actually quite like turkey, and I definitely like gravy and stuffing, but since turning vegetarian I haven’t felt any drop in my enthusiasm for the TG feast - it really is all about the autumn harvest produce.

Isn’t it just so typical of all mean spirited rightwing dingbats? They are so keen to devalue other people’s lives that tehy will perversely make their own seem worse just to achieve that goal… Crazy.

I loathe squash in all its forms, but back in the day when I was a vegetarian, Thanksgiving was just about the least annoying holiday. Wait, you mean there’s more mashed potatoes? Sweet!

I’d eat turkey, but my tofu-caused mangina won’t let me…

Here is all the meat that we had on the table yesterday: turkey and gravy

Here is all the vegetarian-friendly food we had: dressing, cranberry sauce, creamed squash with green chile, fruit salad, rolls, twice-baked potatoes, a relish tray and two kinds of pie, two varietals of wine, tea and coffee.

Nobody’s going to complain if you skip the turkey for the carbs.

I like turkey. Never found it bland.  Then again, I’m a midwesterner, so salt and pepper are exotic spices to me.

On the other hand, green beans, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, cherry pie, chocolate pie, carrots, celery, pickles, olives, rolls and dressing. The turkey was a side dish among side dishes. And i didn’t even make noodles or corn pudding or mashed potatoes this year.

Let the Rightist HAVE an exclusive thanksgiving. They can sit around—without their queer children or their poor neighbors—and be thankful to their god they are Not Like Other People. (at which point Jesus excuses himself from the table to go eat with the sinners) The rest of us will have dinner with the people they don’t want, thank whatever gods we choose, and enjoy ourselves anyway.

Because this is America! /Gerard Butler moment.

What the hell is wrong with conservatives?  Eat whatever the hell you like for Thanksgiving.  I made a nice meal of salmon stuffed with crabmeat and breadcrumbs over asparagus last year for my family.  Good times all around.

Oh and shouldn’t this Piven guy gotten a little more curvy overall if the soy was mimicing estrogen?  He just looks like he’s got standard issue man boobs.

I hope he doesn’t check out his childhood vaccination records.

Jeremy Piven is also famous for saying mercury in tuna made him lose an acting job or something equally absurd.  Dude just can’t blame himself for his crappy diet so he blames whatever demon-of-the-month food product for the fact that he doesn’t look like Tyler Durden.

Mercury isn’t good stuff, and many things other than soy contain estrogen-mimicking compounds (I’ve seen lists, and they’re in shampoos, lotions, pesticides, plastics, soy products, dairy, meats, and elsewhere,) but I have a strange feeling his “moobs” and other ailments are much more likely to come from the quantities rather than the qualities of the food he consumes.

As for the annual pre-emptive War on Thanksgiving, I pledged once again to not show up at the battlefield and instead just visit friends and family and drink alcohol and again answer the same old tired questions about how I get enough protein and why I’m not normal like everyone else.  At a Thanksgiving dinner involving two transexuals, three hippies, a lingerie sales manager and myself, I was the weird one.  It was inevitable at some point, I guess.

Plus I came to realize that the girls who I knew, growing up, who were vegetarians - with the exception of myself it was always girls - were usually anorexics who were using a faux concern for animals to cover up the fact that they had an eating disorder.

Funny, the majority of vegetarians I know are male and eat vegetarian because they are practicing Buddhists.

OMG people you are making me absolutely salivate on my keyboard here… “Creamed squash”! “Twice baked potatoes”! “Corn pudding”! “French silk pie”! I don’t even know what any of this stuff is, and it’s making me hungry.

OK that’s it, I’m applying for Honorary American status on Culinary Asylum Grounds.

I haven’t eaten red meat since 1981, and during the time between then and now, I have never shamed anyone for his dietary choices, no matter how fetid, blood-oozing or rancid-looking (ahem).  Never.  (Well, maybe in my head, but anyway).  AND YET…I can’t count the number of times I have been attacked for my vegetarian (and ovo-lacto vegetarian) eating.  Sometimes it would begin with a little passive-aggression, á la “What is it that you don’t like about meat?”, which was kind of setting me up, because no matter how tactful my answer was—even Well, I just choose not to eat it—the questioner would then be able to interpret that answer as an attack on him, and proceed to argue with me (or try to).  Other times, the carnivore would just go straight for the jugular, as it were, and say something to the effect of, “You do realize you’re depriving your body…”  or “There is nothing wrong with eating animals—that’s why God made them for us: so we can eat them.  You’re insulting God”  or “Why do you have to insult everyone else at the table?  Do you think you’re that special?”  and on and on.

I have, on occasion and usually with an assist from a vat or two of red wine, entered into a battle of wits with said unarmed opponents.  But it’s pointless to bother, I think.  Food is an extremely emotional topic for just about everyone, and the irony is not lost on me that individuals so predatory of appetite are so defensive of posture.  So lately, reasoning that hey, grown men and women can surely read, and if they’re that fucking callous to the suffering their taste for flesh brings down on animals—not to mention the damage if inflicts on the planet—it’s unlikely a few logical statements from little old me is going to make a dent in their conscience.  Ergo, if someone wants to engage in an honest discussion about sustainable agriculture; grass-fed versus CAFO animals; methane as a factor in global warming; or please will I give him or her my recipe for linguine marinara that satisfies a houseful of growing boys (and one grown one)—and does so with nary a scrap of anything dead—I’m delighted to have a conversation.  If, on the other hand, he or she starts out with the usual bullshit—aren’t I worried that my breast-milk wouldn’t be healthful or didn’t I think it cruel to my kids to keep mystery-meat hot-dogs out of my kitchen or wasn’t it rather anti-American of me to deny my children the pleasure of a Big Mac—I simply resort to a polite “This is me, this is my family, and this is how we like to eat.  We’re doing well, thank you.”  And try to move on.

Soy causes man-boobs, though?  Wow.  That’s a new one.  And Amanda is right: it’s bullshit.  Considering the amount of soy milk we go through in my house, if it wasn’t bullshit, I daresay I’d be hitting the sales today, trying to score a good deal on variously-sized manzieres.

We salted our turkey with a rub that included chipotle chile pepper. Not bland. Of course, it sounds kind of foreign, so we were probably breaking a conservative rule.

I’ve been serving meat eaters and vegans at my Thanksgivings for years. This years butternut squash gnocchi was hardly limited to the vegans.

The idea that Thanksgiving could be about excluding people baffles me. Did they not learn about the Pilgrims and Indians, who would go on to kill each other, helping each other out and including each other in their celebrations?

Like 3letterjon, every vegetarian I know has a few stories about horrific Thanksgivings with people determined to make them feel bad about their diets. But since I’m not a vegetarian, and still never touched turkey my entire childhood (why would you when there were mashed potatoes on the table?), the idea is certainly perplexing.

The dude’s got “man-boobs” because he’s “not emaciated” and because he’s wearing a shirt that “doesn’t fit”.

“Butternut squash gnocchi”!! /faint

(yes, it’s half past four on a Friday and I’m very hungry and kind of fed up, so.)

It seems Debbie has taken a little time off from getting her Muslim and Arab-hating on to bash vegetarians.  Christ on a soy cracker.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Schlussel hate-a-thon.

I’ll fight with the endocrinologist. While soy has been found to temporarily lower testosterone levels in some men, men who eat it regularly (like Asians), do not have this drop in testosterone. So unless he just started drinking soy milk and is drinking huge amounts of it, the soy isn’t the problem. And if he is drinking huge amounts of regular soy milk he could be taking in as many as 140 calories per 8 ounce serving.

I agree with Lewis Black that it shouldn’t be called soy ‘milk’, seeing as it’s plant-derived. It’s soy ‘juice.’

Growing up with a vegetarian father, I followed his lead and avoided animal flesh (at least when I knew something was an animal…sadly I knew that cow=beef but I did not know that beef=hamburger…I took things at face value as a kid…) Anyway, all of my Thanksgivings have primarly been vegetarian…I love Stove Top stuffing and won’t eat the turkey-ass stuffing some people make…and I hate real gravy and have always used the cranberry relish on my mashed potatoes…I won’t eat tofu or simulated animals…but the vast majority of dishes at Thanksgiving work for me.
It’s not surprising that a conservative blogger would lack any real understanding of vegetarianism or how vegetarians have usually learned to adapt to finding something edible even at a steak house. Besides, the real point of Thanksgiving has never been about eating a turkey, its about taking time out to take stock of one’s life and express gratitude. For some that is expressing such gratitude to “God” and for an agnostic like myself, I prefer to express my gratitude to the people around me. That is Thanksgiving.

bear in mind, ms. schlussel is another of those who would eagerly deny marriage to two people (neither of whom is her), because it supposedly adversely affects her own male/female relationship, and just smacks her religion silly. how this may be remains among life’s mysteries; neither ms. schlussel or her compadres ever provide a coherent answer. my wife and i have been trying to figure this out for years, to no avail.

that she feels the need (again, for no apparent legitimate reason) to denigrate those who choose to eat differently than her should come as no great surprise. the surprise would be if she didn’t.

Someone should clue her into the estrogenic effects of many pesticides, and the proportional quantity of pesticides needed to grow a crop of soy beans for eatin’ purposes versus a crop of stuff-to-feed-to-livestock purposes.  You want manboobs on a population-wide basis?  More factory farming, if it please ya then. 

Other fun things that cause manboobs: liver failure and a certain diuretic blood pressure medication.  Might check on those too.

Now, I’m not going to fight with an endocrinologist about this; for all I know, it could be true.

That something is possible, medically, doesn’t mean that it’s likely.

Here’s an interesting paper on the subject:

Results: A 60-year-old man was referred to the endocrinology clinic for evaluation of bilateral gynecomastia of 6 months’ duration. He reported erectile dysfunction and decreased libido. On further review of systems, he reported no changes in testicular size, no history of testicular trauma, no sexually transmitted diseases, no headaches, no visual changes, and no change in muscular mass or strength. Initial laboratory assessment showed estrone and estradiol concentrations to be 4-fold increased above the upper limit of the reference range. Subsequent findings from testicular ultrasonography; computed tomography of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis; and positron emission tomography were normal. Because of the normal findings from the imaging evaluation, the patient was interviewed again, and he described a daily intake of 3 quarts of soy milk. After he discontinued drinking soy milk, his breast tenderness resolved and his estradiol concentration slowly returned to normal.

Conclusions: This is a very unusual case of gynecomastia related to ingestion of soy products. Health care providers should thoroughly review patients’ dietary habits to possibly reveal the etiology of medical conditions.

Link

”This years butternut squash gnocchi was hardly limited to the vegans.”

Recipe please

If soy causes Moobishness, then why isn’t their a pandemic of Moobs in areas of the world where soy is a staple crop?

Three quarts of soy milk a day is a lot. I suspect that’s the level of consumption we’d have to be talking about to make a difference.

More generally, men who have well-developed pectoral muscles tend to develop man boobs later in life due to gravity and weight gain. When they’re already large, it doesn’t take a ton of fat or a ton of sag to get a bit of man boob going on. It happens. Just like I don’t expect my breasts to remain at their current latitude for the next four decades. We can’t all be young and taut and golden forever.

Chunks of tofu are nasty no matter how they’re prepared, but I also can’t stand the texture of mushrooms, so I think it’s more of a texture thing.  I’ll happily eat veggie burgers since they’re so much easier to make at home than meat burgers are—toss ‘em in the microwave for a couple of minutes, toast an English muffin as a bun, and you’re ready to go.

Whenever a vegetarian tells me that something tastes “just like meat,” I know that not only is it not going to taste just like meat, it’s going to taste nasty.  Morningstar Farms or Dr. Praeger’s veggie burgers don’t taste like meat, but they’re still really good.  Just tell people it’s tasty, not that it tastes “like” something it’s not.

Schlussel is, as always, a total retrograde idiot.  I am not generally a big fan of turkey, which has become one of the least tasty birds available.  I love side dishes, however.  Made braised chard with (fresh, local) chantrelle mushrooms and acorn squash along with baked white (firmer and less sweet than the yellow ones) sweet potatoes topped with a mix of paprika, cayenne, and a pinch of garam masala, fresh cranberry sauce, and traditional bread stuffing.

The secret to good turkey is not to buy a Butterball or similar factory farmed variety.  I had an all natural, fresh, local Hutterite turkey leg (I am NOT cooking a whole bird for one person) and it had great flavor and was infinitely better than the commercial varieties.  Flavor comes in large part from diet, exercise, and the like, so natural/‘organic and free range is good (though the latter will be tougher).

Thanksgiving is a vegetarian bonanza if you actually know how to cook. I love turkey, but my vegetarian guests always find plenty to eat when I do a traditional Thanksgiving spread. When I was in grad school we had about 30 people for Canadian Thanksgiving, about a third of whom were vegetarians.

Tips:

1. Before Thanksgiving, make some rich vegetable broth. You can freeze it and keep it on hand until you’re ready.
2. Bake your stuffing outside the turkey. Your turkey will cook more quickly and evenly, you have less chance of poisoning anyone with a foodborne illness, and your stuffing will stay deliciously fluffy and crisp on top instead of steaming inside the bird. Plus: Vegetarians can eat the stuffing if it hasn’t been saturated with turkey juice.
3. It’s easy to make half your stuffing veggie and half not. On pan of stuffing is never enough anyway. As it cooks, baste your veggie stuffing with veggie broth and your regular stuffing with drippings from the bird.
4. Make a roux and thicken some of your vegetable broth to make veggie gravy.
5. If you make the crust with vegetable shortening and resist the urge to dot with butter, fruit pies are the perfect vegan dessert.

my wife’s a vegetarian, and generally she doesn’t like soy-based meat substitutes, because she doesn’t like the taste of meat. (Our family joke is that she doesn’t like meat because of years of eating her mother’s cooking. Her mother is a *terrible* cook.)

our traditional Thanksgiving entree is a delicious vegetable-and-cheese pie. With all the other traditional T-giving side dishes like cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and other vegetables.

I don’t get why people take someone else’s vegetarian diet as a personal attack. My wife has no problem with anyone (including me) eating meat; she just doesn’t herself.

“Men who have emotions, other than lust, rage, anger and hate, are not real men” is pretty much Debbie’s second favorite theme other than “The Mooslims will kill us all”.

I remember when the last Rocky movie came out a few years ago, she wrote a review saying “Girlie man alert, did we really need to see Rocky cry?” (Rocky was crying because his wife died!) Implying that this icon of manly manliness has been all girlified by our decadent faggoty age, entirely a phenomenon of the 2000’s.

I’m actually a fan of the Rocky movies (they’re dumb fun, shut up) And Rocky cries in Every. Single. Movie.

I quite like turkey and don’t find it bland.  Even the white meat.  My mom usually cooks a turkey breast only since we don’t have a big family.  It’s delicious even without gravy and such. 

As for moobs, well, living in Asia I would think that the abundance of soy would lead to a lot of female sex traits in men.  Actually, men in recent years have gotten a lot ... uh ... prettier than they were even 50 years ago.  One woman told me plainly that this was the fault of McDonald’s and their beef full of hormones.  (She was pretty pissed that men here do things like hold their gf’s bag for her and whatnot.  “MEN SHOULD BE MEN!  THAT’S NOT MANLY!” she said.)

I would believe the soy before I would believe it was the evil influence of McDonald’s.  Surely the average person eats far more soy than mcbeef. 

Tofu supposedly tastes better here.  I still think tofu is kind of like an evil pudding that will eventually mutate into some sort of blob-like monster.  Blech.  I do like the annin-dofu.  But that makes no beans about being pudding.  (OH I AM SO FUNNY.)  And it has a nice almond flavor.  Real tofu is just ... milky squishy grossness. 

Lastly, I think people who say stuff tastes “just like meat” have forgotten what meat tastes like.

Gaaah.  I can’t think of anything more needlessly divisive and hateful than playing one-upmanship exclusionary games over what people eat.  Food is bounty, food is joy, food is togetherness and sharing and pleasure and family rituals.  Food is not a competition.

I love turkey, all kinds, from Butterball store-bought to Jake the tom who I raised from a baby and ate over the summer.  I don’t find it bland, but that’s my taste.  I also like tofu.  My partner and I adore meat; her daughter is a vegetarian.  Gosh, how could we ever get along?  When partner’s daughter visits, we either make all-vegetarian meals (Thai peanut udon FTW) or we include a veg option.  Simple.

Why would anyone pervert the joy and pleasure of sharing food into othering and exclusion?  Makes my head hurt.

The trick to making a good turkey is brining it overnight in spiced and salted water.  No flavorless, dry-ass crap then, let me tell you.  My mum cooks a fantastic, juicy fucking bird.

I’m actually a fan of the Rocky movies (they’re dumb fun, shut up) And Rocky cries in Every. Single. Movie.

You’re not my co-worker, are you?  She keeps a Rocky standee in her office.

And, like you said, Rocky always cries.  That’s kind of the point:  he’s a big lug, but he’s also a sensitive guy.

Butternut squash gnocchi

And just for the record, if you eat enough carrots every day, your skin turns orange. I’m pretty sure it’s still good for you to eat a normal amount of carrots.

Mnem, the “just like meat” thing is a sign that a veggie is a noob without a lot of guidance. They’ll get over it.

So government small enough to fit in the bedroom isn’t enough for Schlussel, that she wants to nose around in the kitchen, too?

None of it sounds too delish.  Soya chunks?  Yuck-a-not-licious.

That little phrase would have Dorothy Parker asking Schlussel to step outside.  Somebody unplug this woman’s television.

I cooked a vegetarian Thanksgiving meal yesterday.  The menu was:
1) Fresh bread
2) Mushroom stuffing of sauteed oyster mushrooms, my vegetable stock, good bread, and my mushroom sausage (I generally don’t like the idea of fake meats, but this one tastes and feels uncannily like sausage.  Saute a few kinds of mushrooms with some salt and pepper until they’ve sweated and that’s evaporated.  Add sausage herbs and spices like sage, rosemary, cayenne, etc.  Stick it in a food processor and chop it fine.  Add some egg and slightly blend it some more.  Then brown it like you would sausage)
3) Cranberry/pomegranate sauce
4) Korean sweet potatoes with fresh ginger (lots of it), mashed with coconut milk, then baked until there was a dark brown crust
5) Garlic mashed potatoes
6) Portobello gravy with my vegetable stock (hardly a meal goes by in my house with making some vegetable stock.  The stuff you can buy sucks and basically tastes like water).
7) Hunks of sauteed portobello
8) Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake

I was cooking for my girlfriend and her family.  Her, her sister, and her mom are vegetarian.  Her dad, brother in law, and I am not.  Her dad made a turkey and ham that was barely touched.  I actually love turkey, and though I cook almost no meat now I’ll occasionally braise a turkey leg.  Turkey cooked how most people cook it though is barely edible.

Thanks Av0! I totes and utts LOVE gnocchi.

Mnem, the “just like meat” thing is a sign that a veggie is a noob without a lot of guidance. They’ll get over it.

Actually, I almost always get it from older people who’ve been vegetarians since, like, the Summer of Love.  Vegetarians my age tend to lean more towards telling me it’s yummy.

“Food is not a competition”

...of course it is, just like everything else.  Not that it should be, but it is.

And Frau Schlusslemeyer is just demonstrating the fact that wingnuts see political dimensions to every human choice and act.

Ho hum, another day in paradise…

I’m a vegetarian and my family got along just fine for Thanksgiving. My mom made turkey, but she also prepared a really yummy spinach and mushroom vegetable lasagna as a second entree. She had homemade stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, grilled carrots and asparagus, fresh rolls with butter, and corn. Along with crackers and a variety of cheeses for an appetizer (I found out that I love Brie cheese). So I got along just fine, and nobody acted weird because I didn’t have turkey.

I happen to love tofu, but I know it’s not for everyone. I enjoy making teriyaki stir fry with silken tofu. I’m not a big fan of most meat substitutes, but veggie crumbles and veggie burgers are better than the real thing, in my opinion. My university has its own vegetarian lunch section in the cafeteria with some quite delicious and interesting food.

My aunt once asked me what vegetarians eat. Anyone who doesn’t realize there’s a whole world of food out there beyond meat is sorely missing out. It’s easy for me because I never liked meat much anyway.

I’m pretty sure that it was here some past Thanksgiving that Amanda framed this same issue as the hoiday Meat was what the men were responsible for/focused on and all the rest of the food was side dishes done by women: meat=men=important, veggies=women=unimportant. Schussel can’t even come up with a good version of a lame complaint.

Soya chunks?  Yuck-a-not-licious.

Go crawl into a fucking hole.  I started eating meat again a few years ago, after a decade as an ovo-lacto veg, but I will never give up my bean curd.  I get regular serious cravings for deep-fried tofu or—my favourite Japanese dish bar none—agedashi (deep-fried silken tofu in mackerel sauce with ginger and scallions—crispy on the outside, hot and melt-in-mouth soft on the inside).  You will pry my bean curd out of my cold dead hands.  It’s not some poor-cousin alternative to anything, but a fabulous ingredient in its own right that sings like Callas when it’s prepared well.*

Just last night the hus and I had Thai takeout with a chicken dish, a pork dish, and a tofu dish (bastards didn’t have a single eggplant dish).  Meat/bean curd is no either/or proposition, and some of us meat-eaters can go days without ingesting fish or mammal because there’s just such a variety of foodstuff out there (if you live in certain places and have a certain amount of income).  The writer is obviously unfamiliar with Asian food, and also? insulting the palate of one quarter of the planet.

*I love a proper turkey, but put bird and gravy on one plate, and agedashi on another, and ask me to choose?  It will come down to mood.

Using Jeremy Piven as evidence of anything is pretty funny.  He is notorious for using dietary woo as an excuse for bad behavior, causing the producers of Speed-the-Plow to sue him.  Here’s the NewYork Post version of the story.

The one thing I do not get about (some kinds of) vegetarianism is fake meat. You don’t want to eat dead animal, good for you. Why do you *pretend* it’s dead animal, though? Especially when it’s not Halloween?

inge at 54:

Comfort. Most Americans grew up eating meat. When you give it up for ethical reasons you can easily still miss the taste. Most people including many vegetarians before they became veg dpn’t think about what their burger or steak actually is, so the taste is never really associated with the carnage.

I like plenty of meat substitutes, but I try to eat them in moderation because they’re so processed. Eff that today though, today is the day my husband and I celebrate our own Thanksgiving with a delicious tofurky roast and vegan pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

Av0 for the win with the recipe!

Seriously, Thanksgiving is supposed to be a celebration of our bounty and welcoming people to the table.  Pilgrims and Indians eating together instead of shooting/scalping anyone?  In college it’s a big deal for all the kids who don’t go home to either band together and make a dinner or for friends to take them home, welcoming them and introducing new food traditions.

Where does slamming anyone’s food choice come in?  Unless you’re a hateful assberet, of course.

<quote>And just for the record, if you eat enough carrots every day, your skin turns orange. I’m pretty sure it’s still good for you to eat a normal amount of carrots.</blockquote>

Also works with sweet potatoes.  Middle child only liked sweet potatoe baby food, and we had to cut her off when she turned a bit orange.  We were self-employed and using Illinois All*Kids for well baby visits at the time, and the doctor called in all the nurses to look at her.

“This is NOT jaundice.  See the white of her eyes are still white.  This is what happens when white babies eat too many carrots.”

“Sweet potatoes” I piped up.

A neighbor’s daughter was the same way, but even though they knew the sweet potatoes were causing it, they continued to feed them to her every day.

That was the weirdest color child I have ever seen.  Seriously Oompa Loompa-ish.  She also didn’t get any teeth till well after her first birthday, though I don’t think carrots/sweet potatoes can be blamed for that, but it did slow down introducing other foods to her.

Damn, Ranylt.  The conservatives are needlessly defensive over their meat, but that’s pretty defensive over tofu.  I don’t like brussels sprouts.  At all.  Or salami.  Anybody feel the need to berate me for either of those things?

Well, libdevil, I’m pretty convinced that people who don’t like brussels sprouts just haven’t have them prepared well (they’re frequently way overcooked), but I’m not going to berate you. I have memories of my grandmother demanding to know, over and over again, WHY I didn’t like broccoli. As if a kid can articulate that.

Caren, that’s an awesome story. I’d read case studies, but never actually seen an orange kid. I’m jealous. I assume she got over it before starting school though? Happily for my family, blueberries do not turn you blue. Which is good, because they’re all my son ate for months at a time.

I think people are threatened by vegetarians exactly the same way their marriages are threatened by gay marriage. Neither makes sense to me, but I’ve certainly witnessed both phenomena. Part of it is a lack of imagination. They can’t imagine why anyone would give up meat, so they think it must be out of some sense of superiority. Likewise, they can’t imagine that LGBT people might want to be married for the exact same reasons they do, so they assume it must be to stick it to the church somehow.

I wish everyone a bountiful and copious Thanksgiving, which communicates the Autumn celebratory roots of the holiday in a way that saying ‘have a happy Thanksgiving’ cannot.

thanks Av0gadro!

ooooo… they have nutmeg in them too

I work in a vegan office (and eat vegan most of the time and vegetarian all of the time), and I haven’t seen any moobs.  Everyone at the office is somewhat disturbingly vital.  I suppose that is a side effect of working focused on health and nutrition, but most staff at doctors’ offices look unhealthier than my co-workers.  The office provides soy milk and soy creamer for the coffee.

Regarding Thanksgiving itself, the idea that vegetarians or vegans can’t enjoy the holiday is just stupid.  I don’t personally enjoy the holiday but that is just me, and I felt that way before I became vegetarian.  I just spend the day on my own with my animals.  I tend not to even eat very much. 

There were any number of vegan potlucks that I could have attended if I was so inclined, and my parents would have been happy to make the many delicious sides that they make each year in a vegan way instead of with butter and/or milk.  The whole holiday can easily be enjoyed without animal products if that is what one wants.

I never liked meat, so I don’t seek out food that tastes “like” meat.  I eat Sunshine burgers that are made from rice and veggies.  I don’t think they taste anything like a hamburger (from what I remember), but I do think they are very tasty!  I like tofu although I don’t eat it very often.  I have celiac disease, and many celiacs develop an intolerance to soy so I minimize my exposure.  Soy is a common allergen, but so are wheat, dairy, eggs, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, and peanuts.  I don’t see Americans abandoning those foods.

libdevil, try my mom’s brussels.  I bet you’d like them (but I would never force you to finish them).

My mom’s a great cook and loves to try new recipes.  We used to joke “Eat as much as you can!” when something was really great, b/c we knew we’d never see it again.

So when my high school boyfriend invited me over for dinner, and his mom said they were having spinach, I thought “yum”.  He and his sister groaned, and I thought they were just being silly.

His mom took frozen spinach out of the freezer and boiled it into a black, slimey mess, that I then choked down.

Holy shit.  I’d had spinach salad and a variety of dishes with cooked spinach, but it was always GREEN.  ugh.

So I assume something bad happens with brussles, especially since they can be overdone.  I believe pretty much any food can be made delectable.

—-

Av0—The orangeness doesn’t last!  Depending on how orange you let your kid get, it can take a few days to a week of no carrots/sweet potatoes to fade.  We’d let her have them again, but as soon as she’d tint up, we’d cut her off.  My daughter is very tiny, so she wasn’t even 20 pounds at this point and still nursing mostly.  She just really really liked sweet potatoes, and she hated bananas, which were our usual go-to snack for her brother.

Our neighbors moved away, so I never saw her baby a normal color, but I’m assuming she eventually grew teeth and ate other foods, thereby diluting the orange power of carrots.  That kid definitely needed a week or more to fade back to human.

Piven looks to me like he has… pectoral muscles.  Schlussel’s analysis is stupid and hateful as usual but even the premise makes no sense.

The Lady:

Corn Pudding
Preheat oven to 400

Three cans of corn (pour juice off two cans)
Mix in one small container (8 oz) sour cream
One box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix (8.5 oz if you can’t find Jiffy, although it’s the best)
One stick of completely melted butter (pourable)
4 Tbsp sugar, or to your taste
Thoroughly mix.  Cook 40 minutes until top is firm.  Should be golden brown.
Sprinkle with a Tbsp of sugar.  Let stand; serve warm.

Before I even look at the other comments, I have to say, no vegan would touch traditional pumpkin or sweet potato pie what with the lard or butter in the crust and eggs or even eggs and cream in the filling.

Years upon years ago, in one of the Frugal Gourmet’s cookbooks, he told a story about some vegetarian friends who stuffed a pumpkin for Thanksgiving. Last year, on my cooking show (local access thing), I decided to do exactly that—I used a red kuri squash, not a pumpkin, but made a vegetarian stuffing with cornbread and porcini mushrooms and sprinkled it some rather exotic single-origin brown sugar that a friend of mine had picked up at a natural foods store. It was very good, and I say this as someone who, as far as squash is concerned, can only tolerate grilled zucchini and spaghetti squash with heavy doses of butter and maple syrup or brown sugar.

At the risk of getting too personal on the manboobs issue… I had gynecomastia at puberty. I only ever got teased for it once, and wondered for years whether I would ever get reduction surgery. Then I figured out rather recently that manboobs, ugly though they are, are kinda fun…

Conservatives have an irritating inability to distinguish function and purpose.

Thanksgiving’s about a lot of things, but a big part of it is about feasting with your loved ones. 

Schlossl, I see, is one of those people who wants to corrupt t that she can’t see the family value in having a nice dinner with your relations without overriding it by implying that any family member who doesn’t eat meat is unwelcome.

Seriously, what kind of person does that? Vegetarians are pretty common these days. What sort of sicko approaches the holiday season by looking for a new way to be divisive and mean?

Yesterday, I had Thanksgiving at my fella’s folks’ place in Brooklyn. Eleven guests, aged 11 to 82. Eight dishes for appetizers. Fifteen dishes for the main course. Seven dishes for dessert. If a vegetarian skipped the three or four things with meat, she—like the rest of us—would still have been barely able to move afterward.

And if we’d known a vegetarian was coming, there would have been a couple more dishes on that table.

That’s how civilized people (1) do it.
___________________
(1) Also, people who like to cook.  It’s not unreasonable to expect any woman who blathers about how awful feminism is to have some domestic skills, but from Schlossel’s complaint here, I’d guess she has the homemaking abilities and hospitable graces of a Norway rat.

@helen w.h. pumpkin pie is seldom vegan-friendly because the most common versions are condensed-milk custards with eggs. But apple pie is almost as traditional as pumpkin, and it’s easy to make a vegan apple pie—just make the crust with Crisco or other vegetable shortening. Pecan pie is another vegan-friendly option if you substitute margarine for butter in the filling.

Molly,

I’m sorry, but it’s completely unacceptable in this thread to number the dishes.  What were they?  You had 30 dishes, and we want to know!

Because sharing recipes/dishes is also a sort of welcoming/community building exercise in the spirit of the holiday.

I share your disgust with Schlussel’s attitude.  It just amazes me that she’s not just unaware that be being unwelcoming she is the antithesis of the holiday, but also that she thinks it’s perfectly fine to publicize her inhospitality and expects it to be roundly appreciated.

It’s inthe same vein as a Martha Stewart show I caught once flipping around.  This was back in college, before Martha went to jail even, but I never forgot it.  She’d picked up some china at a tag sale.  The next day, the woman and her children showed up and offered to buy the china back, b/c the woman hadn’t realized her children wanted to keep the set in the family.

Martha replied “A deal is a deal!” with a chortle.  As if this inhospitality were normal, and the people asking for their family china back were way out of line.

I’d like to think most people would return the china.  Some assholes would sell it back at a profit.  But it takes a real piece of work to stomp on someone’s feelings, and then brag about it.  Schlussel seems to be in the same blithely unaware state of rudeness.

Sorry, that should have been:

Schlossl, I see, is one of those people who wants to corrupt the term “family values” to mean exclusively “trying to stick your nose into other people’s bedrooms.” She therefore demeans the sense of “family values” as it relates to activities that actually represent and engender affection and cohesiveness within families (e.g.,  having a big dinner with your relations) by implying that any family member who doesn’t eat meat should be unwelcome at a family get-together.

My spouse can make a mean vegan brown gravy.

Also, when we did a vegan Thanksgiving (ten years ago now!) we made molé portobello caps to replace the turkey.  It was delicious.  The eggs were the hardest to replace, but we went with a persimmon bread pudding.

Made it all from scratch.  Molé sauce is delicious, but literally takes eight hours to make!  We’ve only made it a few times since, but it never lasts long enough… It gets eaten too quick.

Oop!

Lastly, ‘fake meat’:  Many things aren’t so much fake meat but another way to enjoy chewy proteins in easy to access packages.  Tofu, TVP, tempeh, seitan are all traditional meat replacements, but weren’t made to replace meat but to enjoy the grains they’re made from in another storable way.

Personally, I prefer when they taste like they’re supposed to, rather than turned into ‘fake meat’.  But often, as a shorthand for what they resemble, they’re called vegetarian versions of some meat or other.  And in those cases, they’re still delicious.

Tofu pups that taste like tofu:  Nummy.  Tofu pups that taste like hotdogs:  Usually not good.

You want something that ‘tastes just like meat’?  “Chicken of the Woods” mushrooms, fresh.  Frozen is okay, too, but dried they come out more like TVP.  Dang things taste more like chicken than McNuggets.  We lucked upon some this fall while hiking.  Didn’t take but a small portion of what we found and still ended up with pounds and pounds of them.

Lindsey,I know that, but those were the examples Schlossel came up with in the part quoted in the original post.  I’ve always used oil or crisco in my pie crust (great-grandma had gone to crisco back when I helped her cook pies for T-day in ‘74 or ‘75, hers were the absolute best) and avoid excessive animal fats for everything as my spouse had triple bypass surgery at 39 (several years ago now). 

Sharing menus?  Okay.  Turkey was basted in olive oil with herbs and baked covered to keep moist; mixed mash potatoes (sweet and white); rice, bread, cornmeal, couscous, carrot stuffing; broth and corn starch gravy; peas, corn and tomatoes; fresh made whole wheat rolls (no extra gluttens and whole grains, spouse’s better than any we could buy loclly); cucumbers, beans and beets each soaked a few hours in vinegar (not actual pickles to keep salt content low); mandrin orange, apricot, currant, mango salad sprinkled with almonds; apple and strawberry rhubbarb pies with ice cream. 

Planning without meat?  That would have been no big deal.  Planning so as to keep salt, nitrates, sugar and fats low?  That’s a pain, and requires making most everything ourselves.  We were a little scaled back this year as daughter’s B-day was the day before (family dinner and cake with ice cream)  and son is across the country at his AFB in MT.

Damn, Ranylt.  The conservatives are needlessly defensive over their meat, but that’s pretty defensive over tofu.  I don’t like brussels sprouts.  At all.  Or salami.  Anybody feel the need to berate me for either of those things?

That wasn’t a screed against differing tastes, for cripes sake.  I have my turn-offs, too.  It was a screed against a hateful cliche (see article) and idiots who can’t distinguish between “it’s not to my taste” (or “I don’t happen to like Brussels sprouts”) versus “that particular food is shit and only pussy shitheads eat it” and outright mockery.  The former is fair, understandable and universal.  The latter is patently false and fucking objectionable.

Out of curiosity, have any of you veg folks ever found a truly non-threatening way to state that you don’t eat meat / whatever else? Because, while none of my friends/relatives are Schlussel material, they continue to get extremely stroppy with me when I try to say anything about my fairly recent conversion to vegetarianism. It’s like I’m saying “You are morally inferior,” when the words I’m actually pronouncing are “Chicken’s not my thing; can you pass the salad?”

I believe pretty much any food can be made delectable.

That’s been my personal experience (I hated fish and eggplant until my late 20s when people finally starting serving me fresh, properly done, inventively prepared fish and eggplant), but I’m not a supertaster.  I hear if your tastebuds are made a certain way, nothing you can do to cilantro or broccoli can make them palatable.  Some folks just got the short end of the stick in that sense (unless that branch of medical literature has been debunked since I last read up on it).  I suspect the world is made up partly of people who have never had eggplant properly roasted to tenderness (rather than the tough, half-cooked crap I was served in bad ratatouilles when I was a kid) and people who are biologically determined to taste something bitter where a lot of us taste goodness. 

Happy T-day, Americans.  All this turkey talk makes me wish my own Thanksgiving wasn’t weeks in the past.

Oh no.  Not able to enjoy cilantro?  What. A. Crime.

Having small people around, including one particularly picky eater, we have little ‘food wars’ fairly often.  They have to try everything, and the tiny one must eat protein before she can be excused.  The CW of the moment is it takes tasting something 50 times to develop a “taste” for it.

OFFS.

The “hurr hurr vegetarians suck, yay meat” jokes are so juvenile.  Adults can appreciate different kinds of food.  I eat meat, but I adore vegetables and happily prepare and eat vegetarian and vegan meals a lot of the time.  And I love what can be done with tofu.  One of my favorite Vietnamese restaurants here serves an AMAZING vermicelli with tofu and lemongrass.  I could survive on that.  Or on the vegetables with chili and lemongrass from my other favorite Vietnamese restaurant.  And let’s not even get started with all the fantastic veg-based Indian food.

And one of my absolute favorite festive meals is a vegan stuffed butternut squash.  Despite not being veg, I would ditch the turkey in an instant to serve that squash if I were in charge of the Thanksgiving menu.  Actually, I have a great full menu with recipes for a vegan Thanksgiving, and I like every one of those recipes better than the standard Thanksgiving fare.  Vegan mushroom gravy is so good I could eat it with a spoon.

Maybe if you eat like a five-year-old and can only handle hamburgers and chicken nuggets, being insecure about meat-free meals makes sense.  But those of us who can handle a variety of tastes and textures don’t throw fits about where the meat is when we’re served amazing, delicious food that just happens to be composed of vegetables, fruits and grains.  And we don’t throw fits when our friends say “Hey, I’m vegetarian” because we know we can prepare delicious veg food for dinner when they come over.

If you can’t think of anything but salad to serve a vegetarian, you’ve either got a small mind, small tastes, or both.  Branch out once in a while.

Out of curiosity, have any of you veg folks ever found a truly non-threatening way to state that you don’t eat meat / whatever else?

Seize, honestly - do not worry about being non-threatening, because the thing is - a simple statement of your dietary preferences is not threatening in any way, shape or form unless some jackass like Schlussel chooses to infer threats, insults, snobbery, whatever else from your words. And if someone does that, it’s not your fault and not your problem to fix. They need to get the fuck over it and stop acting as though anyone who is different from them is doing so to purposely make them feel badly about their own choices. There is nothing wrong with being direct and telling people they need to step off.

I could not possible care less if someone has a problem with me being a vegetarian. It bothers you? You don’t understand it? You think it’s silly? Gee, guess what - I don’t give a flying fuck. I also don’t drink alcohol, and don’t even get me started on the torrential downpour of moronic asshole bullshit I get from people for that - it often makes me think people just feel badly about how much they drink and are taking it out on me for having no difficulty with abstaining from alcohol purely by choice.

Since everyone else shared their liberal elitist gay T-day dinners - mine was with my parents, brother and his wife, and me. Brother, sis-in-law and I are all veg, so other than the turkey breasts for my parents, everything was meatless. Stuffing had roasted pecans and apples and was made with really delicious organic veggie broth - mashed yams with onions, dijon mustard, and spices - cranberry sauce which my mom thankfully does not overload with sugar - cannelini beans mashed with lemon juice and basil and spread on toasted baguette - kale salad with garlic, caramelized onions, yellow cauliflower - and my mom’s amazing heaven-on-Earth gingerbread (plus pumpkin pie of course, but I was more excited for the gingerbread).

Of course, that should say “I could not possibly care less…”. Too eager to tell people to fuck off to check my typing

Brussels Sprouts: Quarter fresh brussels sprouts and sautee them in extra virgin olive oil, a fuckton of quartered garlic cloves, and a little bit (unless you are a REAL MAN!) of crushed chile tepin.

Tofu pups that taste like hotdogs:  Usually not good.

Now you just reminded me to pick up some veggie corndogs at Trader Joe’s next time I’m over there.  Because I’m just Midwestern enough to love something vaguely sausage-like wrapped in fried cornbread.

One of the stranger ways I have experienced unease with vegetarian-ness concerns one of my co-workers. John is a decent guy who likes to tease people. I am not a vegetarian, but I often eat vegetarian, esp. at work, partly because it is light food and therefore does not make me feel tired. However, sometimes I get corned beef hash for breakfast, or something similar, depending on my mood & hunger level.

The first time I got corned beef hash, John started teasing me about eating meat. He asked me why I got corned beef. I told him, well, I just felt like it. He teased me some more and we laughed.

We laughed but I got the sense that he really found it odd that I would eat vegetarian most of the time, and then decide one day to get some meat. Perhaps he thought anyone who eats vegetarian most of the time must be doing this in because of a dietary restriction, or a moral choice, and my sudden switch into the meat-eating group was confusing. Of course, the main reasons I eat vegetarian are just 1. it tastes good, 2. it does not make me tired.

@86 Physio - or sub garlic for fish sauce (salty goodness) and tepin for chopped red chili pepper.  Make sure quarters are sauteed in cast-iron and slightly char. There’s a restaurant in Quebec City that makes this dish and cannot keep it in stock on busy nights.  It’s turned a lot of people onto the old sprout.

With regard to why I would eat ‘fake meat’: I went veg because of ethical reasons. But I really love meat.

In fact I can’t wait until someone comes up with a way to grow proteins in a lab/factory commercially without having to shave them off a dead animal corpse. I’ll eat the first ‘lab steak’, I will! Unlike many vegs I’m a technocrat. I don’t have an ethical problem per say with processed foods (I have one with the economic system which currently creates processed foods in ways that are more beneficial to the corporations than the customers).

However given my opinion on dairy, my real wishlist is for a decent substitute for cheese. Cheese curds in particular. This quebecois needs his poutine.

From #90

In fact I can’t wait until someone comes up with a way to grow proteins in a lab/factory commercially without having to shave them off a dead animal corpse. I’ll eat the first ‘lab steak’, I will!

I think that sounds pretty exciting too. I would love to eat meat that did not require the torture of an animal to create. The things humans do to animals, in order to get their meat, are pretty terrible: “Meet Your Meat”, Google Video, documentary.

I’m sorry that Peta is a stupid group, that mixes their message with all kinds of stupid bullshit and sexism. The fact is, the things we do to animals, especially on factory-style slaughtering facilities, are horrible. There is no way around this reality. And as the video makes clear, the way we treat Chickens is the absolute worst.

Out of curiosity, have any of you veg folks ever found a truly non-threatening way to state that you don’t eat meat / whatever else?

I’m not a vegetarian but, in general, it seems to work best if you don’t offer explanations.  I know that early on you want to offer explanations to everyone because it usually did take a lot of conscious thought on your part, but it’s like a recovering alcoholic going into a discourse about how their recovery is going every time someone offers them a drink.  Ninety percent of the time, it’s easier to say, “Can you please pass the salad?”  If someone offers you the chicken, say, “No, thank you.”  Most people probably won’t even notice that you’re not eating the meat (unless they’re like my mother and comment on everything that goes into your mouth while you eat, but that’s a completely different problem unrelated to being a vegetarian).

This is really only advice for when you’re already seated at the table, however.  If people are still planning the meal and haven’t actually cooked/prepared it yet, feel free to pipe up and inform/remind them that you’re a vegetarian and it would be really nice if they could have a non-meat dish or two for you.  Most people will be happy to comply.  I’ve made pasta for my friends where I cooked the sausage separately from the sauce so the meat-eaters could add it if they wanted but the vegetarians could leave it out.

People who try to argue with you about it get the Miss Manners treatment:  “I prefer not to discuss it.”  You may have to say it 10 times in a row, but they will eventually give up.  Even my mother will eventually back down if I say that to her enough times.

That’s not to say you can’t ever talk about being a vegetarian, but food is so emotional for most people that having the conversation at the dinner table can go south very quickly.  It’s better to have it beforehand when people won’t be feeling insulted because they feel like your vegetarianism is a direct slam on their grandmother’s roasted chicken recipe.

A tip from my meat-eating past:  Turkey breast isn’t quite so dry and flavorless if you roast the turkey breast-side down.  Though I did definitely favor the dark meat anyway.  And the crispy, crispy skin!

I haven’t eaten red meat since 1981, and during the time between then and now, I have never shamed anyone for his dietary choices, no matter how fetid, blood-oozing or rancid-looking (ahem).  Never.  (Well, maybe in my head, but anyway).  AND YET…I can’t count the number of times I have been attacked for my vegetarian (and ovo-lacto vegetarian) eating. 
Comment #19: litbrit on 11/27 at 12:29 PM

I’m surprised no one has yet noted the similarity in response between “I don’t eat meat” and “I don’t believe in God.”

[Martha Stewart] picked up some china at a tag sale.  The next day, the woman and her children showed up and offered to buy the china back, b/c the woman hadn’t realized her children wanted to keep the set in the family.

Martha replied “A deal is a deal!” with a chortle.  As if this inhospitality were normal, and the people asking for their family china back were way out of line.
Comment #71: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes on 11/27 at 04:19 PM

I gotta wonder, was it that their children wanted it but hadn’t said anything?  Or the parents said “we got smallnum bucks for it” and the kids checked eBay and freaked?

Yeah, I have that suspicious kind of mind.  But I would have sold it back (not given it back, that wouldn’t be fair to *me*).

Soy can a problem, actually. Phytoestrogens, not great for you if you suffer fromlow- thyroid isses, for example. Given that breast tumours are apparently sensitive to estrogens, it may be wise to avoid them.

Ah, but wait! some inevitably cries at this point. Folks in Japan, China, Korea etc eat lots n’ lots of soya and have lower rates of estrogen-dependent tumours! This is the point where we must stop and consider a point made by Michael Pollen in In Defence of Food: food removed from its original cultural context often results in lowered health benefits simply due to lack of cultural knowledge of optimal preparation.

In Japan, China, Korea etc the vast majority of soya products consumed differ in a major way from the vast majority of soy products eaten in the West : the soya mostly consumed in Asia is fermented before consumption, which does something to the phytoestrogens that renders them harmless. Soy sauce, natto, tempeh, miso and other common regional variations are all fermented soy dishes with various health benefits. Natto is practically a wonder-food, fyi, incredibly nutritious.

Soy milk, soy burgers, soy ice-cream, soy junk food, the soy shaped into meat substitutes, the endless soy used as cheap filler in a host of cheap, unnutritious packaged food is composed of unfermented soya and thus actually not great for you at all. Unofrtunately, this is mainly the kind of soy your average westerner consumes.

I have no idea about manboobs, but the way we (over)consume unfermented soy in much of the western world (we often don’t even know we’re eating it due to its widespread use as filler) is anything but healthful. Want the benfits of soy without the harmful stuff, stick to soy prepared the way it traditionally is in Asia.

Out of curiosity, have any of you veg folks ever found a truly non-threatening way to state that you don’t eat meat / whatever else?

Yep. “Thank you, no. I don’t eat meat.” If the other person wants to take that as a threat, that’s his/her own insecurity. I certainly haven’t said anything disparaging about what they choose to put in their mouth. If he (and it always seems to be a he) pushes the subject, I simply say, “I don’t understand why you’ve decided to make an issue out of what I choose to eat or not eat. It’s none of your business, it takes nothing away from you, and doesn’t affect you in the slightest.”

Yesterday was spent at a friend’s house with two people I knew, and a bunch of people I didn’t know. I brought my famous Weary Outrage Biscuits, and a porcini musroom-tofu-butternut squash casserole topped with crusted parmesan cheese. Instead of cream of mushroom soup I used part vegetarian broth, part organic butternut squash soup. It was a hit, as were the Weary Outrage Biscuits. The hostess made the turkey, other friends brought stuffing, corn, fresh locally grown green beans, fresh locally grown pineapple (yay for living in Hawaii). One guy I had never met tried to pull me into a debate about veg vs. carnivore when he noticed I wasn’t eating turkey, but I refused to take the bait. I simply smiled, repeated the phrases above, and voiced my pleasure at his enjoyment of the biscuits I had made.

However given my opinion on dairy, my real wishlist is for a decent substitute for cheese. Cheese curds in particular. This quebecois needs his poutine.

Seconded, although a good veggie chili-fries serves nicely as my ridiculously unhealthy fried potato chunk dish for now.

I eat fake meat* on occasion because it’s easy and tasty.  Sausages made from vegetables are particularly nice. I image this is because sausage bears very little resemblance to its components at any rate. Give me a grilled Yves Bavarian sausage on a bun with some mustard and sauerkraut and I’m a very happy flexible vegan.

Veggie burgers are also very good.  I don’t really know how they compare to former-cow burgers, having not eaten one in six-odd years now, but I was once the only vegetarian at a barbecue where veggie burgers were by far the more popular option.

*Tofu, tempeh, et al. are not fake meat, they are stand-alone protein ingredients. I like those too.

um, ok. So if I consume soy products as a regular part of my diet, hows come I still have 32As? And Butternut Squash gnocchi

and butternut squash gnocchi sound fantastic! Think I’ll make them this weekend. yum.

cannelini beans mashed with lemon juice and basil and spread on toasted baguette

ooooh, alisonrose, I have cannelini beans in my cabinet.  mmmmmm.  Thanks for appetizer suggestion fo r tonight.

Veggie burgers are also very good.  I don’t really know how they compare to former-cow burgers, having not eaten one in six-odd years now, but I was once the only vegetarian at a barbecue where veggie burgers were by far the more popular option.

There was one big work barbeque I went to where, being an omnivore, I got a meat burger and then was disappointed to discover after I’d eaten it that they also had Dr. Praeger’s veggie burgers available and no one had told me.  Not that the meat burger wasn’t good, but I really like the Praeger’s and it would have been nice to have one fresh-grilled over charcoal and not made on my Foreman grill.

Caren - here’s the recipe I used http://www.herbivoracious.com/2008/03/recipe-crostini.html

I used a little less lemon juice and a little more pepper. Was really delicious, and super easy to make, and would probably be a good appetizer/side dish with a lot of meals.

I gotta wonder, was it that their children wanted it but hadn’t said anything?  Or the parents said “we got smallnum bucks for it” and the kids checked eBay and freaked?
Yeah, I have that suspicious kind of mind.  But I would have sold it back (not given it back, that wouldn’t be fair to *me*).

I don’t think so, mostly b/c Ebay didn’t exist when I was in college and watching this show.  The story was longer than I posted—it was a grandmother’s or great-grandmother’s set originally and the mom didn’t think the kids would care.  They did, so they wanted to buy it back.

They weren’t asking her to just *give* it to them, but seeing as she’d had it for less than 24 hours, you’d think she could have been a little bit gracious.  Especially since that’s supposed to be her thing.

If anything Martha was the one who knew how much the china was worth and knew she’d snookered those folks.  Even so, she could have sold it back at it’s real value, but no, “a deal is a deal”.

It was just so nasty the way she said it and she was totally oblivious to how it sounded.  Utter lack of empathy toward others.

I hear if your tastebuds are made a certain way, nothing you can do to cilantro or broccoli can make them palatable.  Some folks just got the short end of the stick in that sense (unless that branch of medical literature has been debunked since I last read up on it).

Is it related to this?

The ability or inability to taste the compound phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) is a classic inherited trait in humans and has been the subject of genetic and anthropological studies for over 70 years. This trait has also been shown to correlate with a number of dietary preferences and thus may have important implications for human health. The recent identification of the gene that underlies this phenotype has produced several surprising findings. This gene is a member of the T2R family of bitter taste receptor genes. It exists in seven different allelic forms, although only two of these, designated the major taster and major non-taster forms, exist at high frequency outside sub-Saharan Africa. The non-taster allele resides on a small chromosomal region identical by descent, indicating that non-tasters are descended from an ancient founder individual, and consistent with an origin of the non-taster allele preceding the emergence of modern humans out of Africa. The two major forms differ from each other at three amino acid positions, and both alleles have been maintained at high frequency by balancing natural selection, suggesting that the non-taster allele serves some function. We hypothesize that this function is to serve as a receptor for another, as yet unidentified toxic bitter substance. At least some of the remaining five haplotypes appear to confer intermediate sensitivity to PTC, suggesting future detailed studies of the relationships between receptor structure and taste function.

Link

Interestingly enough, there is an Asian form of soybean used as a meat substitute:

Tempeh
Tempeh is a fermented soya bean paste made by inoculating cooked soya beans with the mould Rhizopus oligosporous. This mould forms a mycelium holding the soya beans together and is responsible for the black specks in tempeh. Tempeh has a chewy texture and distinctive flavour and can be used as a meat substitute in recipes. It may be deep-fried, shallow-fried, baked or steamed.

Link

Dark Avenger, your first link is behind a subscription wall.  :-(  Does the non-taster allele mostly show up in particular populations the same way that almost everyone but Europeans loses their ability to digest milk as adults?

Soy can a problem, actually. Phytoestrogens, not great for you if you suffer fromlow- thyroid isses, for example. Given that breast tumours are apparently sensitive to estrogens, it may be wise to avoid them.

In healthy people, however, there’s no consistent evidence that phytoestrogens to anything particularly terrible.  This study[1] found a slight reduction in testosterone with high isofalvinone intake, but there’s evidence to suggest that it doesn’t decrease fertility (or, as this study[2] puts it: “phytoestrogen dose consumed [has] no effect on semen quality”).  There’s some interest in the use of phytohormones in preventing cancer and heart disease, although the evidence is mixed. This study[3] (which may or may not be behind a subscription wall) found a reduction in breast cancer risk with phytoestrogen consumption, although there methods are a bit off the gold standard. Here’s another one[4] linking phytoestrogen consumption to risk reduction of all kinds of cancers (again, beware of epidemiological studies).  It’s true that women with known breast cancers should avoid them, though.

I should also mention that, despite the name, certain phytoestrogens can have an anti-estrogenergic effect for biochemical reasons that I suspect nobody here is interested in.

[1]http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/135/3/584
[2]http://www.clinsci.org/cs/100/0613/cs1000613.htm
[3]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T1B-3TDYHCY-6&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f6900c626ee1fd2e63b3da13d95b3ada
[4]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W85-466924B-S&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=079a74ee7e3b586a329b36d605878f9e

If you took judges and stripped them of their masculinity issues, hatred of vegetarians, fear of food with any flavor, and xenophobic “concerns” about where tofu comes from, and you gave them a slice of oven baked turkey and some tofu strips, and the tofu would win without a fight

Maybe if you buy a cheap mass-produced Butterball special and then fuck it up. Otherwise, no.

Look, Schussel is a screaming wingnut, and the Anxious Masculinity folks are clearly not yet over their childhood trauma of Mommy forcing them to eat their vegetables, but I really don’t get why proselytizing vegetarians try to tell everybody that tofu is delicious and turkey is yucky. That’s about like trying to argue that real merguez sausage is so much better than steamed beets that you should immediately give up your vegetarian ways.

It’s inthe same vein as a Martha Stewart show I caught once flipping around.  This was back in college, before Martha went to jail even, but I never forgot it.  She’d picked up some china at a tag sale.  The next day, the woman and her children showed up and offered to buy the china back, b/c the woman hadn’t realized her children wanted to keep the set in the family.

Martha replied “A deal is a deal!” with a chortle.  As if this inhospitality were normal, and the people asking for their family china back were way out of line.

I’d like to think most people would return the china.  Some assholes would sell it back at a profit.  But it takes a real piece of work to stomp on someone’s feelings, and then brag about it.  Schlussel seems to be in the same blithely unaware state of rudeness.

That’s the typical hard-nosed businessperson’s attitude towards a transaction.  It is not the buyer’s problem if the seller has seller’s remorse and wants to buy the items back as the seller should have done his/her due diligence with him/herself and other family members before selling.  If s(he) didn’t, that’s their problem, not the buyer’s. 

And some in a modern Japanese history class wondered why Confucian-oriented samurai during the Tokugawa era(1603-1868) had a desire to slice off the heads of those in the merchant class who “looked” at them the wrong way and why merchants were ranked at the bottom among commoners in the Confucian social order in Imperial China.

Interestingly enough, there is an Asian form of soybean used as a meat substitute.

Tempeh tastes nothing like meat to me, but it sure is tasty.  It has a nice nutty flavor which reminds me a bit of brown lentils.

If you want to try it, you should divide it into cutlets (usually four to a package) and boil it for about ten minutes.  Immediately transfer it to your favorite marinade, leave it there for the afternoon, and then grill it or broil it in a cast iron pan (you can glaze it with some of the marinade if you like).  Serve the cutlets with some veggies and cut the leftovers into thin slices for sandwiches.

Smokin lotsa dope will get you a set of those man boobs right quick.

Personally, I love well-prepared turkey, but most of my older Chinese relatives only tolerate it for the sake of us American-born kids as well as Thanksgiving tradition.  Bring on the side dishes and the turkey, especially the dark meat. 

Other than lack of proper preparation, the other reason why turkey is perceived as bland is that there’s a strong preference for white meat over dark meat in the US when it is the dark meat which tends to be more flavorful.  While white meat can be flavorful, it does take much more work to make it so than dark meat so most people who have not fully been fully assimilated tend to prefer dark to white meat. 

As for the tofu argument, there’s nothing wrong with tofu as a food in its own right….though I prefer it prepared in the Chinese/Asian manner rather than the way most Westerners eat it.  Much more flavorful and soothing texturally to my tastebuds.  Also…I don’t know what Piven has been drinking, but I’ve been drinking a lot of Chinese-American made soymilk available at many Chinese supermarts/markets since I was a kid and I have not had the “issues” he’s or other American dudes have been having.

For Thanksgiving, we had a turkey prepared with a Chinese style sauce with potato salad, squash, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a heavenly fishball and vegetable hotpot soup with two fruit tart cakes for dessert. 

why on earth would someone even waste their time writing this drivel?! I mean, really?? So, there are vegetarians out there and she feels the need to attack them on Thanksgiving. WHY? As a student of psychology, it seems that people get the most defensive and project shit onto other people when they feel guilty or uncomfortable about their own actions and behaviors. Hmmmmm…....

I am a vegetarian, though cook and eat mostly vegan food. My husband keeps a vegan diet. We had a woooonderful, hearty and satisfying meal - shared with friends and family (none of whom are vegetarian). We are all respectful of one another and each other’s dietary choices. They even liked the vegan pumpkin pie we brought!

Doesn’t keeping kosher make you a girly man? Or does Schussel’s pet dietary system have the GodlyMan Seal of Approval?

Reni:

Keep in mind that pissing off liberals is a major goal for what people like Schlussel do. I’m not clear on what they expect to accomplish by this policywise, but there you have it. That and just being generally contrary assclowns.

T’was turkey, as usual, at the Pico household, with plenty of stuffing and gravy for the smashed potatoes.  But yeah, we also had green beans and cranberry sauce and bread and the usual cold plate (cucumbers, carrots, celery) and more than enough food for a vegetarian to get overly stuffed eating.

Next time I’m in Austin—which would be the first time I wind up in Austin—I’ll be sure to try some of Amanda’s many squash dishes, when she invites me over for dinner , and I guarantee that I won’t find my masculinity threatened.

Seize @79: I’m assuming that you don’t have a history of making it clear that you think your meat-eating friends and relatives are your moral inferiors, such that “No chicken for me, thanks, but please pass the potatoes” is not laden with overtones of “....because unlike SOME people, I don’t torture and murder adorable animals” - there’s not much you can do to be non-threatening to people looking for a fight. About the best you can do is put it out in the open: “I didn’t ask for a discussion of your eating habits or mine. I asked you to pass the salad.”

Hee!  My oldest kid turned orange due to an over-reliance on carrot, squash, and sweet potato baby foods.

No one in my close circle of friends and family is vegetarian, so we’ve never been particularly adventurous in that area.  A lot of these veg dishes sound marvelous.  Speedbudget, that corn pudding recipe sounds *so* much better than what my mother makes, which is tasty enough but has a texture that is…displeasing.

May I take a moment to rhapsodize about the wonder that is pumpkin pie made with fresh pumpkin?  Unfortunately, I spent this Thanksgiving with various flu-like symptoms, so there was no pie at all.

To test R. A. Fisher’s long-standing hypothesis that variability in PTC perception has been maintained by balancing natural selection, we examined patterns of DNA sequence variation in the recently identified PTC gene, which accounts for up to 85% of phenotypic variance in the trait. We analyzed the entire coding region of PTC (1,002 bp) in a sample of 330 chromosomes collected from African (n=62), Asian (n=138), European (n=110), and North American (n=20) populations by use of new statistical tests for natural selection that take into account the potentially confounding effects of human population growth. Two intermediate-frequency haplotypes corresponding to “taster” and “nontaster” phenotypes were found. These haplotypes had similar frequencies across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Genetic differentiation between the continental population samples was low (FST=0.056) in comparison with estimates based on other genes. In addition, Tajima’s D and Fu and Li’s D and F statistics demonstrated a significant deviation from neutrality because of an excess of intermediate-frequency variants when human population growth was taken into account (P<.01). These results combine to suggest that balancing natural selection has acted to maintain “taster” and “nontaster” alleles at the PTC locus in humans.

Link

during the Tokugawa era(1603-1868) had a desire to slice off the heads of those in the merchant class who “looked” at them the wrong way and why merchants were ranked at the bottom among commoners in the Confucian social order in Imperial China.

Howbout the fact that many of those samurai post-Tokugawa era themselves became merchants themselves?

Plus, looking to Imperial China, where such customs as polygamy and foot-binding flourished, for example, as a guide to anything regarding modern society is sadly misguided.

Thanks, Dark Avenger.  I have a couple of weirdo genetic quirks (sneezing in bright light and smelly pee after asparagus) so I’m always interested to see what other strangeness they’ve found lurking in our genes.

For anyone else with an armchair interest in genetics, I found a link that explains it in layman’s terms:

Natural selection at work in genetic variation to taste

I suspect I may have the taster gene because I can’t stand any cruciferous vegetables except well-cooked cabbage.

I made fajitas with Trader Joe’s “chickenless” strips. Molds are high in our area right now, making the idea of cooking a huge, complicated meal ridiculous. But there’s something festive about a sizzling pan full of tasty food served up straight to you.

Thanks, Dark Avenger.  I have a couple of weirdo genetic quirks (sneezing in bright light and smelly pee after asparagus) so I’m always interested to see what other strangeness they’ve found lurking in our genes.
Comment #118: Mnemosyne on 11/27 at 08:24 PM

Everyone’s pee is smelly after eating asparagus.  The gene controls whether you can smell the asparagus in the pee or not.

Everyone’s pee is smelly after eating asparagus.  The gene controls whether you can smell the asparagus in the pee or not.

Last I read, that was still in dispute among scientists—I thought that the asparagus-smellers were not able to detect the smell in non-asparagus-smellers’ pee.  But it’s too close to dinnertime here for me to be Googling “asparagus pee.”

TheLady, twice baked potatoes are potatoes that have been baked, had the inside scooped out of the skin, mixed with cheese (usually cheddar) and other flavorful things like herbs, or bacon for non-vegetarians. Then the mix goes back into the potato skins and put back in the oven for the cheese to melt and brown a bit.

French silk pie is a rich chocolaty gooey pie that has a texture sort of between pudding and mousse. With whipped cream garnish.

Howbout the fact that many of those samurai post-Tokugawa era themselves became merchants themselves?

Many did so either because they were forward-looking enough to realize that the feudal social order was no longer tenable and/or the more powerful samurai who were on the losing side of the Meiji Restoration were effectively bought out and encouraged to become capitalists with government assistance. 

Moreover, the anti-merchant attitude I cited had greatly faded by the time the Meiji Restoration occurred as a result of the changing social positioning between the samurai and the merchant classes, especially during the late Tokugawa period.  The fact wealthy merchants were eventually able to gain the traditional right to wear swords once exclusive to the samurai class if they gained the favor of a powerful samurai retainer/daimyo is one indication.  That particular attitude I cited was from around the early-mid 18th century. 

Plus, looking to Imperial China, where such customs as polygamy and foot-binding flourished, for example, as a guide to anything regarding modern society is sadly misguided.

Good point.  Was citing both historical examples as Martha’s Stewart’s behavior regarding the family china was a part of the common stereotype often cited by Confucians to justify their strong disdain of merchants/businesspeople. 

In a recent conversation with a friend on Chinese history, I brought up this attitude as one possible reason why so many Chinese intellectuals of the early-mid-20th century who were deeply inculcated in Confucian/Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, especially those in academia were so receptive to Marxist-Leninism.  This included the May Fourth Movement students and intellectuals who vehemently rebelled against Confucianism and many of the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.

Tofu wasn’t bred to have a giant, flavorless part that appeals the most to the timid eaters of America, true, but even timid eaters could probably eat tofu to their liking, since just because it can soak up flavors doesn’t mean it has to.  It just wins in every way.

Next time, Debbie, try beef when looking to taunt vegetarians.

I have a hard time explaining to my more meat-loving friends why, if I’m really craving meat and decide to splurge on it, I’m much more likely to go for pork or beef than chicken or turkey.  Chicken and turkey are about on par, in terms of flavor, with any number of vegetarian alternatives.  Giving them up is no hassle at all.  It’s a really amazing steak or fantastic barbecue that still makes my mouth water.

Okay, I lasted about 5 minutes before I had to Google “asparagus pee.”  I’m very disillusioned with The Straight Dope right now—Cecil Adams doesn’t include the 1980 experimental results that did apparently show that it’s a perceivers/non-perceivers issue and not an excreters/non-excreters issue.

Why is everything us against them with these people?  Why do they always have to have an enemy?  They are severely mentally disturbed.  I’m a vegetarian and I’m happy that my family doesn’t view the world this way.  I had a wonderful day yesterday, just wonderful.  If you have hate in your heart you bring that whever you go.  How can you have a beautiful day that way, no matter what you are eating?

Out of curiosity, have any of you veg folks ever found a truly non-threatening way to state that you don’t eat meat / whatever else?

I only find it complicated when I’m a guest in someone’s home.  And that mainly because it makes them feel bad that they didn’t know and didn’t prepare something special “that I can eat” (and of course I don’t announce it beforehand because I don’t want them to make me special food).  Yesterday I told my Thanksgiving hosts that I’m “a vegetarian in the grocery store”.  I.e. when I shop and cook for myself at home, I don’t buy or cook meat.  But when I’m in a stranger’s home, I will eat what they’re eating.

I imagine it’s a much more difficult situation if you’re an absolutely strict vegetarian or vegan, or if you’ve made that choice for ethical reasons.  It’s easy for me to just eat meat if that’s what’s been cooked because I don’t think it’s a mortal sin to do so.

For years my uncle would make me a tofu stir-fry for my main course at Thanksgiving, and every year I had to walk that line between appreciating it and telling him it was unnecessary because it took away valuable stomach space for roasted potatoes and stuffing. In 2007 he finally relented and I got to eat only side dishes.

We didn’t make it to family Thanksgiving this year, only the second time in my 35 years. 400 miles with my health was just too much this year. So my partner made a homemade tofurkey, not the one you can buy at Trader Joe’s. She followed a recipe with tofu, stuffing, and spices. We also had traditional green bean casserole, homemade cranberry sauce, a sweet potato/apple/walnut dish, crescent rolls from the tube that pops, and for dessert, chocolate pudding pie in a graham cracker crust.

If you’re ever passing through Newark, Delaware, I recommend Capriotti’s deli for both the vegetarian and the meat-eater. Well, I’ve never had the meat but I hear it’s just as good. The Bobbie comes in vegetarian and turkey versions and is a Thanksgiving sandwich available all year: turkey or fake turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce on a Philly sub roll. Nom nom nom.

I love Pandagon.  The whole “asparagus pee” thing with excreters vs perceivers is even better than going Cthulu.

(which we just did.)

re “taster” genes, asparagus pee, etc - I also know a few people who insist that cilantro (and some other herbs) tastes disgusting to them, like soap.  It’s apparently another one of those weird little genetic things - certain people taste certain herbs in radically different ways. 

Though, to clarify, I’m a “taster” and still like broccoli and related veggies.  Then again when I did the litmus test of whether one is a “taster” or not, I thought the virulently pungent taste was kind of interesting and not necessarily bad.

For years my uncle would make me a tofu stir-fry for my main course at Thanksgiving, and every year I had to walk that line between appreciating it and telling him it was unnecessary because it took away valuable stomach space for roasted potatoes and stuffing. In 2007 he finally relented and I got to eat only side dishes.

She didn’t do it for that reason, but one of my aunts used to make lasagna for holidays and it was the most god-awful thing you’ve ever eaten in your life.  For years that I hated lasagna because I thought it was going to be a gummy mass of cheese and overcooked pasta.  Turns out it’s actually a yummy dish as long as someone other than my aunt cooks it.

The really embarrassing part is, we’re Italian.  Though it probably explains why most of my aunts married men who can (and do) cook.  You haven’t lived until you’ve had my uncle D’s handmade raviolis.  He doesn’t even bother to make them square—he just bundles the ricotta and spinach up in a little square of fresh pasta and drops them straight in the pot.  Yum!

Brian X - you speak the truth.

I can’t stand tofu, never have, never will.  De gustibus non disputandam est, and all that…

As for a substitute for turkey, I’ve had good success with ham baked with root vegetables and apples.  Much tastier than turkey any day of the week.

My son got a little bottle of Monster crap at a Ski trade show.  He complained that it was sickenly sweet.  I tasted it and it was BITTER BITTER BITTER.

That’s because certain artificial sweeteners taste notsweet to me.  That is a genetic variation.

My family has that genetic variation, Ms Kate. I had to put up with years of people trying to sneak me diet sodas because they didn’t believe that they really tasted disgusting to me.

It’s not even uncommon. People are just mean.

<blockquote>We vegetarians continue to get invited to Thanksgiving dinners and we even throw them ourselves!<blockquote>

Not to mention every meat eating cook I know who gives a Thanksgiving dinner prides, absolutely prides themselves, on being able to stuff their veggie friends and relatives with food. Not just food either, but really good food. You don’t have to cook the stuffing in the turkey (it’s a bad idea, anyway) plus it’s not that big a deal to replace chicken broth with vegetable broth. I’m glad you brought up the squashes because my mom does a beautiful squash dish that has every color of squash in it so it’s beautiful as well as delish. Last year she added a grilled Portobello mushroom dish that went quickly. I guess my point is this lady doesn’t understand how many cooks out there pride themselves on serving everyone in their home with original and creative good food, not just the get-it-anywhere stuff. Plus, douchebags don’t feel the need to purposefully exclude others from THANKSGIVING. sheeesh.

I would tend to agree with you for most of this.  Yes there are certainly masculinity panic issues involved in the “Soy products give you moobs” argument.  Nevermind that the sort of person that would snarl at Thanksgiving being “not for vegetarians” probably snarfs down a diet packed with soy product laced processed foods. 

Anyway- I must stand up for the virtue of turkey.  Turkey can also be marinated.  And with just a modicom of skill and preparation an entire turkey can be roasted to delicious perfection.  I should know, as I happened to do this just yesterday and had the deliciousness confirmed by the 10 other people I fed.

More importantly, I find it a little more than amusing that the author of this post should slip into the “my highly negative opinion about a foodstuff proves the superiority of my dietary choices” argument that her subject makes.  Trashing something you’ve never had a positive experience with (turkey, for instance) seems an awful lot like Little Debbie trashing a dietary choice with which she seems to either have never had a positive experience with or is refusing to admit she’s had a positive experience with.

Mnem @118- I read the article about photo sneezing and while that seems like an interesting theory the article says no one really knows why it happens but my Psycho-Bio (biology of the brain) prof seemed sure when he used it as an example to demonstrate the our sensory neurons are specialized, not exclusive. So the sensory neurons for the sense of smell can be triggered by a normally visual type of stimuli, like walking into bright sunshine after being in a dark room, if the stimuli is larger than normal. Tickling and sneezing is another example, as well as loud noises and watery eyes.

I’m obsessed with genetics too. Plus, I like being able to blame my loathing of broccoli on genetics.

I’m still a meat eater, and always will be, but spaghetti squash is awesome and has permanently replaced mashed potatoes as much healthier and still delicious option in all the meals I make at home. The fact that it’s easier to make is a bonus, too.

Also the fact that east Asians have being eating soy for centuries and seem to have no problems with testosterone levels (as evidenced by the fact that the Chinese had so many babies the government had to put a limit on them) seems to put lie to this theory.

My absolute favorite dish from a local sushi eatery (all due apologies to Mr. Piven and his alleged mercury poisoning) is their tofu salad.  Squares of tofu fried and marinated in a lovely dressing and displayed on a bed of greens and drizzled with that same dressing.  A great intro to the sushi and sashimi to follow.  A few guys getting man-boobs is a small price to pay for that culinary pleasure.

I luv’s me some good vegetarian cooking, haven’t eaten meat in years, and mostly just eat soy burgers when I’m a guest somewhere - it’s often just easier to just have a veggie burger than expect the host to make an entirely different entree for me and DH, when everyone else just wants standard “American” fare.  Sometimes bringing a dish to pass is OK and I do it, but sometimes it isn’t welcome.

Of course, it depends on the occasion, and whether the host is much of a cook.  My meat eating Mom will make fantastic, adventurous vegetarian entrees, but the rest of the family & in-laws… well, if they offer to microwave a veggie burger, for them, they’re going out of their way to accomodate us, so I’m grateful, even if it tastes like wet cardboard more than what I recall burgers to be like.

The extended family sees vegetarianism as just another odd feature of our urban, somewhat foreign lifestyle, not a threat to anyone’s masculinity.  We’re still welcome at the table, and thankfully on Thanksgiving there’s enough yummy side dishes that the nuked Boca burger is unnecessary!

We’re still welcome at the table, and thankfully on Thanksgiving there’s enough yummy side dishes that the nuked Boca burger is unnecessary!

Boca Burgers are nasty.  I don’t know why, but whenever I’ve made one in the microwave, it has this weird slime on it when it’s done.

Morningstar Farms for veggie burgers, all the way.  Especially the spicy black bean and pizza burgers.  As an omnivore, I can definitively say they don’t taste like a beef hamburger, but they’re really good at getting the texture and the spices right and it microwaves like a champ.

I eat meat. (However, thanks to exposure to different cuisines, I can go for days without it.) Even before I acquired any veg*n friends, I always thought that hating on veg*ns was pointless. I mean, really. Who gives a damn?

It’s not as if compromise is that difficult. I remember a particular “orphan” Thanksgiving potluck that was thrown by a couple of friends of mine many years ago. We didn’t know any vegans then, but about a third of the guests were vegetarian. We had turkey. The stipulation was that everything else was to have no meat or meat products (like broth) in it. There were about twenty dishes, so even if you didn’t eat meat, you’d be as stuffed to the gills as the rest of us.

There was one vegetarian that didn’t get the memo. She went to one of the hosts and asked him, “So what dishes here have meat in them?”

“The turkey,” he said.

“Yeah, that I figured,” she said. “What else?”

“That’s it.”

At which point she said, “Wow! I can eat everything? This rocks!”

Which brings me to my second point. The whole point of a hosting a large feast is to make your guests feel welcome and comfortable. If you can’t do that, leave the hosting to someone else.

I’d like to chime in as a vegetarian from a family of vegetarians. I’m 27 years old and have been celebrating vegetarian thanksgiving my whole life. To say it’s not “for” us is the stupidest shit I ever heard. Some people apparently eat NOTHING BUT meat and I guess just can’t understand how we can have a whole feast without any meat at all. I even go to other people’s thanksgivings as the only vegetarian and manage to fill up just fine.

Around thanksgiving time I get asked all the time, “but, what do you EAT with no turkey?”. I usually say, “is that all you have on your thanksgiving?” My family usually makes stuffing, soup, vegetable pie, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, various vegetable dishes, salad, and dessert like pumpkin or apple pie. We love tofu but I’ve never actually had it on thanksgiving…. We also sometimes make some Jewish dishes too.

Seems like thanksgiving is obviously a time to eat foods that are harvested this time of year. I’m pretty sure turkey wasn’t even originally part of the tradition.

I also don’t buy the soy gives men breasts thing. My dad has been drinking soymilk for 20 years and doesn’t have any manboobs.

I’m a happy little carnivore, and my Thanksgiving’s been rather plain, but some of the dishes posted upthread sounds nice. I should introduce my father to them, he’s the cook in the family, usually.

That said, this reminds me distinctly of this oldie but… well, not goodie, at anyrate, from Wingnut Daily: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53327

The Opoponax wrote:

I only find it complicated when I’m a guest in someone’s home.  And that mainly because it makes them feel bad that they didn’t know and didn’t prepare something special “that I can eat” (and of course I don’t announce it beforehand because I don’t want them to make me special food).

Yet you wouldn’t find it so awkward if you needed to tell them that you were allergic to a specific kind of food.  If you have food restrictions, it’s best to let people know as far in advance as possible.  And, realistically, it’s incumbent upon a host to ask people at the time of any invitation if they have any dietary restrictions.  There are too many people with food allergies, or diabetes, or who keep kosher, or are vegetarians, not to ask.

Mnem @ 92:

Yes, I have already realized that “the wise veg defers until plates have been cleared” - learned that one the hard way. Telling people what Youtube vid of factory farming finally made me change my mind is just plain impolite when someone else is trying to eat a chicken leg. But I’ll take your advice when it comes to the Emily Post part; developing a simple, low-info refrain will probably be a lot easier than actually explaining myself.

Interesting parallel to draw, between quitting booze and quitting Chicken McNuggets. I actually found that, while I was quitting drinking, people just gave the entire issue an immense berth. People who did not know I was quitting, and thus offered me alcohol on some occasions, were usually personally mortified and apologetic when I would beg off. It’s different because people readily accept that you, personally, an have an alcohol “problem” - it takes way more mental rearrangement for people to realize that society might, just possibly, have a meat “problem.” Splinter v. log, splinter 0, log 1.

(Incidentally the log(1) = 0, but don’t get me started on that.)

alisonrose @ 84:

Don’t worry - I don’t actually care what they have to say to me, it’s not going to change the way I feel or the way I eat. It’s more that I just want to stop the inevitable tirade from happening.

Yet you wouldn’t find it so awkward if you needed to tell them that you were allergic to a specific kind of food.

But I’m not allergic to meat.  And I hate it when vegetarians act as if they are.  Vegetarianism is a choice, our bodies do not completely lose the ability to digest meat*, and we won’t die if we eat it.  It’s not my boyfriend’s stepmother’s job to cook a Thanksgiving meal for the whole family which is catered to my culinary whims.  I’m sure there’s some other guest who doesn’t like peas, and the host is not going to stop the presses to make sure there are no peas in anything.

Kosher is sort of a different story, though most people I’m aware of who really do conform strictly to kosher dietary requirements generally don’t eat anything they haven’t cooked themselves.  Anything short of that is sort of like vegetarianism - I respect your choices, but let’s be honest with ourselves here.

*weeeellllll, to be honest, if I eat a lot of it, it sometimes doesn’t go down so easy.  But I can’t imagine getting into that situation at Thanksgiving unless you are spending it with a family of wolves.

Actually, exholt, the Confucian view towards merchants is that they produce nothing, unlike the noble and humble peasant farmer, or the noble and humble scholar, as all merchants do is exchange goods for money.

Peter Drucker having been born some 2,500 years too late to advise them that merchants do give value for the money they received, or they couldn’t stay in business very long, this POV probably led to the decay of the Manchus when they went along with their conservative Chinese courtiers and civil servants in an attempt to be as Chinese as their servant nation.

Depending on the food allergy, some people find it plenty awkward to bring up to hosts.  I belong to a celiac listserv, and many of us isolate ourselves.  I have celiac (technically an autoimmune disorder) plus an intolerance to corn plus I am vegan (ish).  I encounter a disturbing number of people who think that I should “let it go” regarding being vegan since I can’t eat wheat, rye, barley, or corn.  I wonder if they would ask that of a Jew keeping kosher or a Muslim keeping halal.  I’m an atheist, but my veg*nism is pretty important to me.  I don’t demand or even request that people cook special for me, but I do opt out of most home hosted meals.

Most of my friends in DC live in small enough apartments that we go out to eat anyway.  After living here for a few years, I know safe restaurants in many neighborhoods.  Since my diagnosis nearly 5 years ago, I can count on 2 hands the number of individuals whose food I have eaten.  I was more brave at first, but I kept getting sick until I stopped eating food prepared by others outside of a few restaurants that I have tested.

Then there are the relatives and other people who don’t think my celiac is “that bad”.  The symptoms don’t show up right away and aren’t always outwardly visible although I occasionally get neurological symptoms.  There are a disturbing number of people who want to prove that something is all in a person’s head by exposing them to an allergen.  I’m sure there are just as many people who enjoy screwing with veg*ns, and no, it isn’t the same.  It is still rude though.

@ Seize - I am always tempted to say to people who ask that I will tell them my reasons but that it is rude to do while they are eating.  I have said it only a few times because most people seem to be asking out of genuine interest and curiosity, but the ones who seem to be itching for a fight get the more confrontational answer.

But I’ll take your advice when it comes to the Emily Post part; developing a simple, low-info refrain will probably be a lot easier than actually explaining myself.

Keori’s comment at #95 and mythago’s at #115 had some pretty useful refrains as well.  It’s not so much, “Never discuss being a vegetarian” as “Wait until after dinner when people are relaxed and want to have a conversation.”  Criticizing people for what they eat when they’re actually eating it is kind of a douchebag thing to do.  You can say, “Well, they shouldn’t feel like I’m criticizing them for eating chicken just because they’re eating a piece of chicken while I’m telling them all about how horrible factory farming is,” but let’s be realistic here.

After she stopped drinking, a friend of mine who’s a recovering alcoholic went from vegetarian to vegan to anorexic but, once she realized she was treating food the same way she had treated alcohol (all or nothing), she was able to get back to a healthy (mostly) vegetarian diet.  So that’s something to keep an eye on if you have the same tendency.

Actually, exholt, the Confucian view towards merchants is that they produce nothing, unlike the noble and humble peasant farmer, or the noble and humble scholar, as all merchants do is exchange goods for money.

This perspective, while correct, is not the only critical reason.  From reading many writings by scholar gentry and/or officials and talking to plenty of older Chinese intellectuals who were deeply inculcated in Confucian/Neo-Confucian orthodoxy in their formative years, there is also a strong perception that merchants’ main concern in life is to pursue the gain of wealth selfishly…an ambition which if not checked can become greed pursued at the expense of others, social harmony, and the Confucian social order. 

It is also a factor in why the concept of “Intellectual Property” has been somewhat alien to Chinese and other Confucian influenced East Asian societies….someone with greater knowledge/talent is expected to spread it for the benefit of the rest of society, an idea that has similarities to the idea of fair use and the public domain when the patent and trademark laws were originally created and something which has been effectively downplayed/trampled with the ridiculous extension of copyright times to as much as 95 years after the death of the author of a given IP work.  To demand payment, especially the exorbitant amounts and the onerous terms which undermines the idea that IP should at some point become part of the public domain would be seen by many Confucians as deeply unbecoming of a true scholar and something only a greedy ethically challenged merchant would do

Though some of this is projection as many scholar-officials can match the greedy avarice of the merchants their class often criticizes, the reasons for the Confucian disdain for merchants goes far beyond the fact merchants were perceived to not produce anything except moving goods and money around advantageously.

I used to be veggie and I never got some people, like my grandma, to calm down about it.  She just never accepted that I could get enough to eat without eating meat.  When I stopped being vegetarian and first ate chicken at her house, she said “You ate chicken!!” with such joy and relief in her voice.

She also used to constantly apologize to me for preparing meat or even mentioning it in front of me.  I kept telling her to prepare what she wanted; she always makes plenty of vegetable side dishes and I could eat very well just with those.

Other people just enjoy being jerks about it and making juvenile jokes.  There’s nothing to do but roll your eyes at those people and avoid them as much as possible.

But most of my family accepted it when I told them “I’m not judging anyone else for eating meat, I promise.  I’m just not eating it myself.  Please don’t apologize or feel guilty about eating meat in front of me.”

OT-esque but have y’all ever heard of something called a “hypocrite burger”? It’s a veggie burger with bacon.

Delicious, by the way.

I used to fire up a nice pot of Pumpkin Peanut Sweetpotato soup for my vegan niece and nephew to enjoy at thanksgiving.  The carnivores would usually finish the pot.

OT-esque but have y’all ever heard of something called a “hypocrite burger”? It’s a veggie burger with bacon.

I actually encountered a few college kids on a Boston area campus who actually thought bacon was compatible with vegetarianism/veganism.

This was compounded by their befuddled confusion when people shook their heads, rotflol, and in a few cases went off on them for their appalling level of ignorance about food.

What is surprising is that with the anti-merchant stance of Confucianism, that so many Chinese emigres became merchants in so many places in the Far East that in the 19th Century a Siamese monarch referred to them as “The Jews of the East”.

“But I’m not allergic to meat.  And I hate it when vegetarians act as if they are.  Vegetarianism is a choice”

Maybe for you, but I cannot eat meat and have never been able to eat meat.  I am disgusted by it and always have been.  I certainly do not eat meat situationally so as not to disturb people.  I could not. 

Sorry you “hate that”, but I really don’t care.

Telling people what Youtube vid of factory farming finally made me change my mind is just plain impolite when someone else is trying to eat a chicken leg.

As a meat-eater, I am actually going to disagree with this.  I really have no problem hearing about factory farming, how animals are butchered, etc. while I eat.  I know where my food comes from and I don’t have to ignore what I know in order to eat and enjoy meat.  I do not understand meat-eaters who can’t stand to be reminded that their food was once a living, breathing animal.  They bother me far more than vegetarians ever could.

What does drive me crazy (although this has nothing really to do with being a vegetarian) is the “If you saw/knew the way those animals are raised or the way a baby cow looks at its mother, etc., then you couldn’t eat that hamburger.”  Of course, this is no better or worse than the way rude people behave in other subjects:
My mother: “When you look down at your first child, you will know there is a god.”
Others: “If you really understood what went into making a movie, you wouldn’t enjoy The Matrix.”
Some meat-eaters: “If you tasted this hamburger, you couldn’t be a vegetarian.”

I prefer Boca burgers to Morningstar farms. I haven’t tried them in the microwave but they cook great on the skillet. I prefer them to be a little burnt. Morningstar are a little too hard in texture for me, but the spicy black bean ones aren’t bad. My favorite are portabella mushroom burgers. Portabella is almost like beef when it’s grilled, but without the fat and I personally think it tastes better.

I like eggplant as a replacement for hamburger too.

“If you really understood what went into making a movie, you wouldn’t enjoy The Matrix.”

this is a side to an aside, but if you really understand what goes into making a movie, you’d be more prone to liking the matrix.
The acting and script for the movie are terrible. awful. it has action set pieces, but lots of flicks have that.

no, it’s real achievements are all technical, camerawork, blocking, sound and visual effects, filters and effects.

What is surprising is that with the anti-merchant stance of Confucianism, that so many Chinese emigres became merchants in so many places in the Far East that in the 19th Century a Siamese monarch referred to them as “The Jews of the East”.

Not surprising as the anti-merchant stance was most strongly held by those of the scholar/gentry and/or scholar-official elite….the very people who have very little incentive to emigrate from China because they were the effective ruling elite. 

Most emigres who became merchants either were already merchants or poor farmers/artisans who left because they felt there were better opportunities to be had abroad than at home.  In short, they were either disenfranchised and/or felt constrained by the prevailing economic conditions and/or hierarchical social order…..reasons similar to ones which motivated European and other immigrants to come to the states. 

Closest thing we have in this class-related divide in the Western European context is the disdain for businesspeople/commerce present in medieval-early modern Europe among the aristocracy…though the waning powers of the aristocracy in the face of the rising burgher/merchant class in late medieval/Renaissance Europe made this disdain far less important as time went on…especially when certain merchant families like the Medicis became aristocrats in their own right without fully abandoning their merchant sensibilities.

@karpad

I completely agree, but maybe because I agree I have never been in arguments with people who held that opinion.  The arguments against liking The Matrix have never really made sense to me, but I have heard/read TONS of them.  To continue one of my other asides, I think I am narcissistic enough that when I do I have a child, my response will be less “Thank God” and more “Holy Shit, I am incredibly awesome and have made my own person!” (in the you’d think I invented childbirth all on my own vein).

I think all of these arguments are really bad in addition to being rude.  In that respect, they are really different than “I became a vegetarian because (insert personal experience here) affected me (personally) because (personal reason that does not necessarily apply to audience),” even if we are all sitting around eating dead animals.  Similarly, “The Matrix sucked because I saw it with an ex who was incredibly obnoxious and liked to pretend he was Keanu Reeves” would be fine even if we were all sitting around watching the movie while “If you stop to think about this scene, you will agree The Matrix is the worst movie EVAR!” is not.

I actually watched The Matrix for the first time last night. It was interesting, not awful, kept my attention. I agree about the bad acting/script. There were some moments in action scenes and just in the movie in general that were unintentionally funny. It was really cheesy. Not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but not terrible, either.

But it was nice to see that Trinity wasn’t over-sexualized and a pretty strong character who can fight alongside the action hero. You don’t see that much in action movies.

@ArtofMe

The unintentionally funny amps up a bit in the sequels, but I still find them enjoyable.  I agree that Trinity is pretty good, but (after seeing all three), I can’t help wishing that Neo was the female role and Trinity was the male role.  It is actually a little amazing how little of the dialogue, etc. would have to be changed at all, and while we certainly have a lot of sacrificial/sacrificing women, we somehow have very few (none?) female Jesus-figures (Jesuses?  Jesi?).

Damn it.  I forgot to log out on my partner’s computer.  That should have been Atheist, A Feminist.  (Just in case, that post makes you angry, you can be angry at the right person/login.)

Comment #58: Av0gadro on 11/27 at 03:01 PM

I have memories of my grandmother demanding to know, over and over again, WHY I didn’t like broccoli. As if a kid can articulate that.

And of course, there’s the fact that the true answer is “because you always overcook it,” and grandma probably wouldn’t have liked that answer…

Comment #80: Ranylt on 11/27 at 05:06 PM

I hear if your tastebuds are made a certain way, nothing you can do to cilantro or broccoli can make them palatable.  Some folks just got the short end of the stick in that sense (unless that branch of medical literature has been debunked since I last read up on it).

It’s not that I’m skeptical that there are genetic differences in taste, but the thing that bugs me about this theory that cilantro dislike is genetic is that it seems to me that it’s contradicted by the existence of whole nations of millions and billions of people that, as far as I can tell, all eat cilantro regularly.  There’s also the inconvenient fact that cilantro used to be common in European cuisine, and then just fell out of use (except in some parts of Portugal).

I bet that if we’d had modern-day genetics 50 years ago, people would have been saying the same about garlic, or worse (e.g., “the Nordic race has the gene for garlic aversion, which is an adaptation for avoiding the disgusting semi-rotten foods that the backward races dress up with garlic to make them palatable for their low tastes”).

I have a hard time explaining to my more meat-loving friends why, if I’m really craving meat and decide to splurge on it, I’m much more likely to go for pork or beef than chicken or turkey.  Chicken and turkey are about on par, in terms of flavor, with any number of vegetarian alternatives.  Giving them up is no hassle at all.

Dark meat.  Dark meat.  The perfect dish to illustrate the goodness that is chicken thigh meat is oyako-don.  Put 1.5 cups of medium or short-grain white rice in the rice cooker (preferably one with a keep-warm setting).  Cut some boneless, skinless chicken thigh into bite-sized pieces.  Slice half an onion.  Put half a cup of water, 3 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp mirin and salt to taste into a saucepan, and bring to a low boil.  Throw the onion and the chicken in, mix thoroughly, and cook covered on medium heat for a few minutes until the chicken is cooked through.  In the meantime, crack two eggs, and beat them very lightly; also, cut some green onions for garnish.  When the chicken is done, pour the eggs into the pot on top of the food, and cover again.  Cook egg until it begins to set, turn off the heat, add the green onions and mix very lightly, cover to keep warm.  Divide the warm rice into two deep bowls (there’s special bowls, called donburi, just for this kind of dish), then spoon the cooked chicken, egg and sauce over the rice.  Serve immediately.  (Good things to add to this dish: chopped cabbage kimchi (add with the onion) and kamaboko (add with the eggs).  I’ve tried to add more stuff to this, and it always detracts from the chicken-and-egg goodness of it.)

For the record, Thanksgiving menu here was baked chicken breast and arroz con gandules.  And damnit, after all this talk about tofu, now i want some sundubu jjigae.

What, no raw egg on the rice?

The egg is supposed to be incompletely cooked, not raw.

Oh, and I made a mistake: that half-cup of water is supposed to have a quarter teaspoon of granulated dashi…

I only know that I don’t like cilantro; I don’t know if it’s genetic or not, but I do know I find it vile and think it tastes like some kind of cleaning product.

sacundim:

There’s no shortage of racist literature from that era—maybe there’s some on food preferences that says exactly that.

(Oh, and I do know for a fact that at least around the turn of the 20th century, Anglo-Americans really did look down on people who consumed garlic. I have an Italian cookbook from that era (“The Cook’s Decameron”—it’s on Gutenberg) that only ever uses garlic as whole cloves and then throws it away when the dish is done. Heresy.)

I really have no problem hearing about factory farming, how animals are butchered, etc. while I eat. 
Comment #162: Atheist, A Feminist on 11/28 at 06:18 PM

I never had problems thinking about the essential origin of meat when I ate it.  I was the girl who saved money in college by buying whole chickens and cutting them apart, who ground her own ground beef, who noticed and was not upset by a similarity in smell between (some) pork and actual living pigs.

There’s a big difference between “yes, this animal dies and is cut up to make meat” and “yes, this animal was treated abominably from birth/hatching to death to save a few pennies in the process.” 
Are you sure you mean the second?

I’m sure Schlussel would say that she was just being funny and we should all get a sense of humor, to which I must reply, “but it wasn’t funny and so it doesn’t speak to OUR senses of humor”.

Anyway, I like turkey, but I started brining the bird a few years ago and that definitely adds a lot of flavor.  We were only two for Thanksgiving this year, so we got a 9 pound, free range, no hormones, free range bird.  It was delicious and continues to be so (we’ll finish it in the next couple of days, I expect).  I don’t see how this would be a difficult holiday for vegetarians, but non-vegetarians are sometimes threatened by vegetarians for the same reason that white people are sometimes threatened by black people or men are sometimes threatened by women and so on.  I used to think it was ignorance, but I now suspect that there is a genetic component to being threatened by something that isn’t what you, personally, like or are.

Of course Thanksgiving has lots and lots of food choices for vegetarians.  You’d have to be an idiot not to recognize that.  For just the two of us, Mrs DBK and I made dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (fresh, not canned, and it is so easy to make that I can’t see why anyone would by canned sauce) and green bean casserole (with fresh green beans and other ingredients…go to the food network web site and look up Alton Brown’s recipe; it’s worth it).  We had so much that we didn’t bother roasting the yam and acorn squash and other vegetables we bought for the holiday.  Good thing winter squash and so on stay good a long time, because we’ll be eating leftovers for another couple of days at the current rate, and then we’ll get to the stuff we held back.

One thing we don’t do is eat until we are groaning and unbuckling our belts and so on.  We each ate about a five ounce portion of bird each time we had it and a sampling of the other items.  There was so much to eat, though, that we still felt quite full without feeling bloated and ill.  I’ve seen people eat themselves sick on Thanksgiving like they thought it was an obligation to do so.

@BrianX, “Anglo-Americans really did look down on people who consumed garlic.”

Someone here must play Frank Capra FTW. And that was in 1946.

It’s not that I’m skeptical that there are genetic differences in taste, but the thing that bugs me about this theory that cilantro dislike is genetic is that it seems to me that it’s contradicted by the existence of whole nations of millions and billions of people that, as far as I can tell, all eat cilantro regularly.

I would google “supertasters” for more info.

Ranylt: none of the reliable-looking information I can find suggests that being a supertaster has anything to do with disliking cilantro.  In fact, I actually find results that try to dispel it as a misconception.

Also, while I find a lot of results repeating claims like “25% of Europeans (or Americans) are supertasters,” I don’t find any information about its prevalence outside of this group, nor any reason to believe that this isn’t the global prevalence of supertaste.  All I interpret from that is that the studies have been mostly done on Americans and Europeans.

What I mostly see on a supertaster-cilantro connection is ordinary folks who dislike cilantro and, for some perverse reason, insist on clutching at straws to argue that it’s because of their genes.

What I mostly see on a supertaster-cilantro connection is ordinary folks who dislike cilantro and, for some perverse reason, insist on clutching at straws to argue that it’s because of their genes.
Comment #179: sacundim on 11/30 at 07:01 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123446387388578461.html

“At the annual Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, Dr. Wysocki and fellow researchers asked 41 pairs of identical twins and 12 pairs of fraternal twins to rate the “pleasantness” of cilantro. His scale ranged from plus 11 to minus 11, with zero indicating “neither pleasant nor unpleasant.” More than 80% of the identical twins gave ratings similar to their siblings, while only 42% of the fraternal twins did—suggesting cilantro hatred may be a genetic trait. But Dr. Wysocki cautions that he hasn’t yet analyzed enough fraternal twins to draw a firm conclusion.”

So there may be a genetic contribution.  You’d expect even if it is purely genetic that the correlation between twins’ preferences would not be 100 percent.  The genetically cilantro-averse would show identical results, yes, but the genetically cilantro-tolerant would show the same kind of taste variation between like and dislike as seen in other tastes between identical twins.  And there’s also the problem that some people who think they are identical twins actually aren’t.

oldfeminist @180: I’m still going to object that there are whole nations of millions and billions of people where cilantrophobia all but is unheard of.  On the face of it, either you have to argue that Europeans and Anglo-Americans have a much higher incidence of a cilantro-aversion gene (which I find hard to believe), or you have to accept that the role of any genetic factors just pales in comparison to the cultural factors.

Here’s a comparison to another food: hot peppers.  That stuff hurts, literally, yet people from cultures where they’re eaten routinely learn to enjoy them.  If people can routinely learn to like food that hurts, why can’t they learn to like food that (supposedly) tastes like soap?

sacundim: “On the face of it, either you have to argue that Europeans and Anglo-Americans have a much higher incidence of a cilantro-aversion gene (which I find hard to believe), or you have to accept that the role of any genetic factors just pales in comparison to the cultural factors.”

There’s at the very least a third possibility.

It could be like hot peppers—people who eat them when they’re young become accustomed to them, people who don’t may or may not ever become able to like them.  I can eat moderately spicy food, but really hot food doesn’t work for me.  It’s a real, physical reaction I can’t control.

This is neither genetic nor “cultural” in the sense that it’s not something people decide to like based on who eats the disliked food. 

Or maybe you’re just wrong in assuming that no subset of European people could have different genetic material than people in the rest of the world.

What I mostly see on a supertaster-cilantro connection is ordinary folks who dislike cilantro and, for some perverse reason, insist on clutching at straws to argue that it’s because of their genes.

Well, I’m not clutching at cilantro as the basis of the supertaster argument, anyway—just one one of many examples I’ve come across.  You could well be right.  I don’t really care.  What I care about is people being condemned as “picky” or “unadventurous” when they have a real biological basis for not liking something (whatever that something is).  The “bitter to that person’s tongue” when it’s not bitter to mine seems like a pretty sound finding (insert whatever food you like into the equation).  Whether that bitterness has to do with lack of genetic habituation or cultural exposure I’ll leave to the scientists, but it looks like research on tastebuds has something to say on the matter. I’m not personally qualified to dispute it in terms or expertise or tastebuds, not being a supertaster myself (nothing tastes “bitter” to me, except maybe Bitrex and bitter melon and citrus pith and coffee that’s been sitting in a pot for 6 days…).  And I’m sure not denying that there are certain folks out there who ARE just being mulish about this stuff because they had one bad <insert food here> experience in their youth. 

(And for what it’s worth, I’ve met my share of Asian immigrants (raised to adulthood in Asia) who recoil at the cilantro everyone else in their family could eat, so is it just a “white” thing?  And it sure as heck isn’t just a cilantro thing—let’s get past the cilantro!  Poor cilantro.  I feel I owe the sprig an apology.)

hypocrite burger?  Sounds good.  I actually like ham and cream chese on onion bagel.  Think about it.

helen w. h. , I’ve seen bacon bagels for sale, too…that is, bacon bits baked into the bagel itself.

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