NYTimes.com Article: Meatless, Not Joyless

[Guest guest]

The article below from NYTimes.com

has been sent to you by jayelle.

 

 

Thought you guys might like this--a meat-eater explains why vegetarian diets can

be flavorful, ethical, and fun for omnivores in a very mainstream paper!

 

jayelle

 

 

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Meatless, Not Joyless

 

May 19, 2004

By MARK BITTMAN

 

 

 

 

 

I MADE dinner the other night for five, two of them

vegetarians, and while shopping I realized how often such a

situation now arises. Vegetarianism, common to most of the

world but still regarded skeptically by staunchly

carnivorous Americans, has made significant inroads into

the national culture, and it is increasingly making itself

felt at American tables.

 

Vegetarians coming to dinner? I complained about this

prospect for nearly 30 years. Now I was champing at the bit

of opportunity.

 

What changed? Thirty years ago vegetarian food in America

meant either brown rice and vegetables stir-fried until

lifeless or something cooked in the style of the original

Moosewood Cookbook - heavily laden with cheese and cream.

Now vegetarian food draws from the traditions of the entire

world, traditions that, in the form of ingredients, spices

and cooking tools, are now available to everyone, at least

those with access to good supermarkets or the Internet.

 

A generation ago, you had to travel all over town - yes,

even in New York - to find real Parmesan and naturally

brewed soy sauce, let alone jasmine rice or aceto balsamico

tradizionale. All four are now available at most

supermarkets, along with everything else necessary for the

two meals that follow - two menus, one Italian and one

Chinese.

 

It is amazing that people talk about the Mediterranean

tradition of vegetable-dominated meals and the fact that

Chinese cooking is largely composed of vegetables accented

by bits of meat, while continually cooking Italian and

Chinese meals centered around meat. The menus here take

another approach, and retain their distinctive national

characters and flavors while doing away with meat entirely.

Together, I think, they prove that meatless menus built

from traditional foods can be not only satisfying but also

enticing. And easy.

 

When I hear the term " vegetarian lifestyle, " I reach for my

skirt steak. But the arguments for eating vegetarian food,

if not daily then at least regularly, are quite compelling,

even to lifelong omnivores like myself. I am no preacher,

and I will be grilling meat tonight, but consider the

following:

 

• The livestock population of the United States eats well

enough to feed the world's human population several times

over.

 

• Raising animals for food has caused extensive

environmental damage not only to equatorial rain forests

but to North American prairies.

 

• Using increasingly limited resources to produce meat

sometimes sounds just dumb. (My favorite statistic: it

takes dozens of gallons of water to grow a pound of wheat

and thousands to raise a pound of meat.)

 

• And finally, a terrifying little fact: 70 percent of all

antibiotics sold in the United States are used to treat

healthy livestock. I won't even mention mad cow disease.

 

All of the above makes me ambivalent, but none of it has

converted me. Nor too many other Americans: most surveys

find that less than 3 percent are vegetarians. But there

are additional reasons, not much discussed, to consider a

vegetarian diet at least part-time, and to introduce a

meatless take on the Minimalist that will run regularly.

 

No one, after all, says you have to be a committed,

converted, proselytizing vegetarian to eat a diet less

oriented to meat. Besides, many self-described vegetarians

are not, strictly speaking, vegetarians. Today's rules seem

pretty flexible, sometimes to the point where there is not

much difference between vegetarians and people who eat

moderate amounts of meat.

 

Furthermore, almost everyone eats vegetarian meals from

time to time, whether by choice or because peers, friends

or, increasingly, the children do. (It appears, though the

statistics vary wildly, that somewhere between 10 and 25

percent of Americans under 30 eschew meat.)

 

And though elitist food enthusiasts rarely talk about it,

from a epicurean perspective, vegetarian cuisine has become

far more appealing, thanks largely to the growing influence

of Asian vegetarian traditions. (We do not hear, either,

that a vegetarian diet promotes weight loss, probably

because studies have not been done. But I don't know any

overweight vegetarians, though maybe they are walking

around hungry.)

 

Still, it sometimes takes a bit more technique to produce

vegetarian food that pleases the spoiled palate. For

example, I generally make chickpea soup with chicken stock

and sausage. But I found that I could create a soup with

just as much flavor and body as my original version by

slow-cooking the onions until they are brown; by exploiting

the fact that, unlike other dried legumes, chickpeas

produce a delicious broth as they cook; and by adding

spinach, whose character is just as distinctive as that of

sausage. Serve this with homemade croutons if you can, or

at least with good bread.

 

Such contrivances, however legitimate or clever, are not

often needed: most of the dishes here are pretty much

unchanged from the traditional versions. Ris in cagnon, a

Lombard dish I learned from John Thorne (who writes a

superb food newsletter that has led to several wonderful

books), is not much more than arborio rice with butter and

cheese, but it is faster and easier than risotto, and it

uses no stock. (It also may introduce you to a good

alternative method of cooking rice, in the manner of

pasta.)

 

The classic braised escarole dish, which uses a series of

techniques that can be applied to almost any green

vegetable, relies on a hefty amount of garlic and olive

oil, which are added both at the beginning and at the end

of cooking, the final additions to freshen and intensify

flavors. This dish can be enhanced with toasted pine nuts,

raisins or currants, pitted black or green olives, or

chopped tomatoes. Wine can replace the water, for a

slightly more complex dish.

 

The Chinese menu includes a few slightly unusual

ingredients, but is more a combination of infrequently seen

and quite common dishes.

 

Cold braised celery is the kind of thing that begins a meal

in Taiwanese and some northern Chinese restaurants, a

little tidbit that is the equivalent of an amuse-bouche.

 

Tofu salad starts with pressed tofu - well-drained,

extra-firm tofu that you cut in half and press between

layers of paper towels under a weight (a big cutting board,

for example) for at least half an hour, changing the paper

towels as they become saturated. If you visit a Chinese

market, you should find prepressed tofu, often cut into

strips. Also known as pressed bean curd or extra-firm tofu,

it has a brown exterior and is usually packed in plastic,

without water.

 

If you have time, make the salad in advance, so the tofu

absorbs the flavors of the dressing. The salad goes nicely

with homemade scallion pancakes, which are easier and more

successful than you might imagine.

 

The meal is capped by the kind of soft, tender, highly

seasoned eggplant dish you have probably ordered in

restaurants but may never have made. It is best to begin

with long, slender eggplants - I like the lavender ones,

but the color doesn't matter - and large oyster or bai-ling

mushrooms. If you go to a Chinese market for pressed tofu,

you will probably find all of these, but if not, regular

eggplant and button mushrooms will do.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/dining/19MINI.html?ex=1085982593 & ei=1 & en=94a0b\

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