Vegan Miscellanies

Weird Shit: What We Vegans Always Eat

The last few days we've cooked and eaten some great vegan food at home. Last night, for instance, Jihan had made a wonderful raw beet salad while I made veganised Mexican white sauce with whole grain linguine.

Here's the Mexican white sauce, traditionally served drizzled over fish tacos, chiles rellenos, chicken enchiladas, veggies, and green fried tomatoes or whenever you want a lighter sauce instead of a red sauce. I'll provide details another time.

Over the whole grain linguine...

 

And the lovely raw beet salad with which we started our meal:

 

It's what happened when I brought this brilliantly colourful raw salad to work that this post is ultimately about.

I heated up my pasta with Mexican white sauce, left over from last night's dinner, and went to have my lunch at the picnic table outside the office. Before getting to the pasta, I opened my little container of the raw beet salad and began eating it. One of the three coworkers sitting there with me, one who not infrequently joins me there, asked whether I had pickled beets there. No, I answered, raw beet salad. Saying she'd never had raw beets, I offered her some, which she politely declined.

Another coworker, whose food-related xenophopia has inspired a previous post on this site and with whom I do not normally have my lunch, spat out this gem: "He always eats weird shit." It is, quite frankly, the rudest comment I've had to date on my food. After the initial shock wore off, and after having thought of a few choice replies, I focused back on the utter deliciousness of my food instead of wasting my time on her.

Here's an interesting little aside. Apparently conservatives are more easily grossed out in general, and when confronted with food that doesn't fit into the narrow confines of their diet (I was going to say chosen, but most such people don't chose a diet but rather stick mainly to what they've always eaten, that is, what they grew up with) they are grossed out.

"I Just Find it Bland": Reactions to Foods Considered Ethnic, Foreign, Other

Some time ago while traveling in the U.S., I stopped in a mid-sized Wisconsin town to grab a coffee and a bite to eat at a local coffee shop. Being vegan, I asked the server for a bagel with margarine and fresh vegetables, and a coffee with soy milk on the side. The server looked at me blankly and asked me to repeat the request.

"Could I have some soy milk for my coffee," I repeated. 

"I'm sorry, I've just never heard of such a request before," she said. "What's it like, soy milk in coffee?"

I told her that I quite liked it, but that some people, unused to the taste of soy, find the taste a little beany at first. She told me that she doesn't like trying new things, and that, in fact, she never eats anything she doesn't already know. How strange and boring, I thought, to spend your whole adult life eating only foods to which you had been introduced as a child.

I can't imagine spending my adult life within the narrow culinary confines of my childhood diet. There are so many wonderful things to try, so many ways in which to expand the palate, so many culinary traditions to discover, embrace and adapt. But I suppose, with food as with ideas and culture, many people find it frightening to wander outside the known. Yet food is often the most palatable aspect of culture, if you'll excuse the pun.

Anyway, for a few months now, working in a fairly small and quite homogeneous office environment, I've noticed people regard my eclectic lunches with considerable interest. Some have enjoyed sampling various vegan foods I've brought in--homemade spicy guacamole, hearty vegan potato salad, channa masala, aloo gobi, potato curry, Thai basil curry, hearty vegan chili, hummus, vegan adaptations of Mexican and Mennonite soups and stews, vegetable stir-fries, tofu and seitan (gluten or wheat-meat) sandwiches, etc. You get the picture.

Others , it seems, are interested only in the strangeness of my lunches, and don't care to partake. I don't mind, but I have found one commonality in these people's reactions quite interesting--at least three women, all thirty-something and white, have used a particular word to describe certain dishes. When people express interest in my food, the foodie that I am, I like to offer them a sample. One of them, to express that, or why, she does not like curries, says curries are bland. Curries bland? Maybe some watered-down British adaptations, but not the pungent, hot and spicy Thai and Indian curries I eat!

How could one possibly call Thai and Indian curries, Middle Eastern dips, and hot Mexican bean and vegetable dishes bland next to hot dogs, burgers, fries, onion rings, meat and potatoes with gravy and peas, or microwaveable frozen pasta entrees? Excuse me while I swallow some expletives!

An online medical dictionary defines 'bland diet' as "one that is free of irritating or stimulating foods". Hot Indian and Thai curries? Definitely stimulating! For many a Western palate even downright irritating. Health Square, a health and nutrition website, describes a 'bland diet' as "limited to foods that are soft, lightly spiced, and low in fiber," and prescribes it for people suffering from "ulcers, bowel problems, nausea, vomiting, or gas." Hummus? Soft, perhaps, but lightly spiced and low in fiber? Nope and nope.

So is saying some foods are bland just a new, less politically incorrect reaction to 'ethnic' or foreign food? Is it supposed to be a gentle, inoffensive way of declining foods one considers too strange, exotic, or foreign to try? I can't explain it any other way. If it's too strange, too foreign, too far outside of one's culinary comfort zone, call it 'bland'.

Originally Posted on Tuesday, May 29, 2007