The Vegetarian Option

By Simon Hopkinson
Stewart, Tabori, & Chang

In the past, Simon Hopkinson has been referred to as the best cook in Britain who nobody in the States has heard of, but I’m hoping this will soon change. After devouring The Vegetarian Option, I know the chef has a lot to offer when it comes to beautiful, simple food.

Hopkinson first gained acclaim with his 1995 cookbook Roast Chicken & Other Stories, but it seems as if the public has always been a little behind in praising him because it wasn’t until 10 years later in 2005 that a panel of chefs, food writers, and consumers in the British magazine Waitrose Food Illustrated voted it “the most useful cookbook of all time.”

Obviously, roast chicken does not a vegetarian make, which is the reason why The Vegetarian Option was so interesting to me: It was written by a non-vegetarian and the book allows readers to determine how strictly they want to adhere to the vegetarian guidelines--giving them the vegetarian option. Hopkinson even urges readers to add protein to some of the dishes if it suits their fancy.

The book, though a bit stiff, was right up my alley because in terms of cooking, there’s nothing I hate more than tortured vegetables. I’m sure you’ve witnessed this: People who don’t really like vegetables slather broccoli in cheese sauce, encase cauliflower in casseroles, and boil everything else until it’s within an inch of its life. Hopkinson’s recipes honor the integrity of the vegetables and by breaking them down into seven sections (Vegetables, Herbs, Pasta, Legumes & Grains, Rice, Eggs, and Fruit), he ensures that the book will include something even the most staunch vegetable hater will be sure to love-or at least like.

Thanks to Hopkinson, I am now the proud owner of a simple Korean kimchi recipe (though it takes five days to ferment and come to fruition), which I used to love eating as a kid when visiting my best friend. Her mother, aunts, and grandma used to spend entire weekends making gallons of the spicy cabbage delicacy and though Hopkinson’s isn’t as spicy and doesn’t include shrimp paste (many consider this essential to kimchi), it’s a nice standby to have on hand.

Lately, I’m very big on conflicting flavors in a single dish. Perhaps this is why I went crazy for Hopkinson’s incredibly healthy and oh-so-delicious carrot salad with cilantro and green chili. Carrots are one of those vegetables that don’t get enough play; they’re jam-packed with essential vitamins and nutrients and delicious eaten raw or cooked. This salad requires a measly seven ingredients (including salt), but the addition of coriander seeds, fresh cilantro, and a spicy jalapeno really bring it to life.

Another standout was the broiled eggplant with pesto; this recipe couldn’t get any easier. After blending together a classic pesto (olive oil, pine nuts, basil, garlic, and parmesan) in my rickety and ancient food processor, I simply smeared it on top of eggplant halves and broiled them until they were golden and bubbly. Frankly, I loved this because it’s stupid simple, yet I would have never thought to combine eggplant and pesto on my own to such delicious results.

At the age of twenty-five, I’ve only encountered one vegetable that I do not like: parsnips. Because of this reason, I gave myself permission to “torture” them a bit by following Hopkinson’s recipe for cheese-crusted fried parsnips with romesco sauce, which is an outrageously tasty blend of almonds, olive oil, garlic, chili, sundried tomatoes, and peppers. Truth be told, an old shoe would taste good if it were crusted in cheese, fried, and dipped in romesco sauce, but these delicious little treats made me a parsnip believer.

I could go on forever about this book, but unfortunately I can’t. I will say this, though: Whoever said that vegetarians are missing out doesn’t understand all that vegetables are capable of.

Review by Tina Vasquez

The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis

By Tara Austen Weaver
Rodale

Food writer Tara Austen Weaver was raised in a vegetarian home since her birth. As an adult, she unexpectedly gets diagnosed with thyroid disease. What’s she to do? Fast for forty days? No. Go macrobiotic? Nope, not that either. Instead, Weaver must eat meat—by doctor’s order. So she turns to a carnivorous diet. What unfolds is part chick lit-cookbook and part treatise on farm animal rights.

Weaver’s introduction to the world of animal flesh brings her into contact with many meat-industry types. Some she casts in an ethical light. These include kind butchers and organic cattle ranchers. She also comes to know a charming meat blogger. Readers may object to the notion of ethical, caring cattle ranchers and butchers, but I can assure you these characters would cause anyone to re-examine their assumptions.

Throughout the The Butcher and the Vegetarian, Weaver’s writing is lively and clever. Readers will enjoy her wit and keen use of hyperbole. At one point she describes a Holy Grail-like experience wherein she smothers her steak in a rapturous chimichurri sauce.

The Butcher and the Vegetarian’s cover art depicts tiny hearts and cute cartoon characters, but the book offers up several dark and unexpected twists. One minute I was reading about pork tenderloin; the next thing I know, Weaver is describing how her mother's boyfriend molested her when she was thirteen and her two subsequent suicide attempts. Woah! Hold it right there, meat lady. I need a minute to digest!

Although surprised by the confession, I appreciate Weaver's honesty and think the topic of abuse deserves a place in the book. Weaver's relationship with meat mirrors her relationship with men. To her, meat is a very masculine experience.

In passing, Weaver mentions that she doesn't consider fish to be meat. And as for chickens, I was equally shocked to find out she puts them in the category of "almost not a meat." Still, The Butcher and the Vegetarian shares some good information about the treatment of farm animals and the truth about our (and their) sources of food. These facts are of great value to readers.

Although once a vegetarian, Weaver is no activist, and she also makes her preference for food over animal welfare transparent from the beginning. It does strike me as suspicious, however, that someone so horrified at eating a steak and so knowledgeable about the farming industry would be okay with consuming eggs and dairy. I wonder if she doesn't recognize the incongruity.

Personally, I could care less about how to prepare meat; it’s simply not part of my life. Though The Butcher and the Vegetarian is well written, Weaver lost me at each mention of fine cuts of X or a special preparation of Y. What I did find fascinating (and thoroughly graphic) was Weaver’s research visit to the farm where she witnesses the process of slaughter. She writes that seeing this occur repeatedly has a desensitizing effect, that it becomes ordinary, or even "normalized."

In my experience, there was nothing normal about it. When I was in veterinary school, I witnessed the slaughtering process several times, and the blood of those poor cows still floods my nightmares. Maybe that makes me overly critical. But it’s the truth.

Review by Laura Koffler

Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism

By Melanie Joy
Conari Press

I will say it, here and now: I eat meat. Now that I have announced that, I fear that Melanie Joy will fly through my window to tell me how the meat industry recapitulates Nazism. Okay, I don’t really. But you catch my drift: this woman is serious.

As a person with very close vegetarian friends, and who has also purchased, prepared, eaten, and enjoyed seitan, quorn, and tofu, I would say that I have a decent understanding of vegetarianism without actually practicing it. I am not convinced, however, that Joy’s book offers much that is new to the vegetarian rhetoric.

The title led me to expect a book that delved into humankind’s history with animal relationships, that would try to scratch the surface of when and why certain animals took on specific functions in our lives and others didn’t. But rather than that, this book is focused on the psychology that “allows” humans to be comfortable with meat eating. To talk about this topic, Joy has made up a word for meat-eaters: carnists. She defines carnism as “the belief system that enables us to eat some animals and not others.” Throughout the work, Joy examines how the carnist mindset and the meat industry work together to keep animals as a dinner item despite various displeasing realities connected with the practice. While doing this, Joy describes the inhumane conditions at slaughterhouses and factory farms, and the effect that the meat industry has on the Earth.

And I don’t dispute any of that. I believed it the first time I read it, in books such as Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, which Joy quotes and references an obscene number of times in her 150-page book. So much of the book is gleaned from other works that it reads very much like a college thesis paper; I suspect it once was.

Despite her legitimate arguments regarding the disgusting and hidden reality of factory farms, Joy doesn’t take into account people who raise their own animals in perfectly humane conditions or who hunt legally, or people who have any number of health issues that make a vegetarian diet anywhere from impractical to dangerous. The meat debate is a huge topic that goes far beyond the dualism of carnism and vegetarianism, and Joy doesn’t come close to covering all the bases here.

As I implied before, this book also has an irritating tendency to mention Nazis a lot. While I understand the connection Joy’s trying to make on a cerebral level, something about describing meat eating—not cruel factory farm conditions or inhumane slaughterhouses, but just eating meat—as being akin to being a member or supporter of the Gestapo is just distasteful to me.

I do applaud Joy on her willingness to acknowledge the suffering of slaughterhouse workers and others whose employment in the meat industry is dangerous and taxing. Many times, when it comes to arguments against the meat industry, I feel as if workers are under attack for earning a paycheck and given no sympathy whatsoever for the dangerous work they do. This author doesn’t suggest that the fate of the human animal is less important than other animals, and I appreciate that.

Review by Kelly Palka Gallagher

That's Why We Don't Eat Animals: A Book About Vegans, Vegetarians, and All Living Things

Written and Illustrated by Ruby Roth
North Atlantic Books

If you are planning on raising a vegetarian child who will be well-prepared to explain his or her beliefs to inquiring peers, teachers, and friends’ parents, That's Why We Don't Eat Animals is a great start.

Did you know that turkeys blush? Or that newborn quail start walking the moment they are hatched from their eggs? I didn’t, but any child who reads That's Why We Don't Eat Animals will know. Facts like these work to emphasize the connections between living things in a way that small children in the book's targeted audience (about age 4 and up, in my estimation) will understand and appreciate.

The book shows animals in their natural habitats, and explains the difference in the quality of life an animal will experience if it is running free versus living in cramped quarters on factory farms. The book also illustrates the effect that factory farming has on various biomes and the health of the Earth overall. The animals are charmingly drawn in a caricaturist, almost geometric style, and their environments are depicted with bright or dark colors, depending on their living conditions. The vocabulary is simple and straightforward, doesn’t get too dark or complicated for children, and avoids a preachy, overbearing tone in favor of a sensitive, informative one.

In another review I’ve written this month on a book promoting the vegetarian lifestyle, I’m not nearly as praiseful. The books share primarily the same messages—that eating animals is morally shady and bad for the environment—but the book for adults tends to alienate and divide, as if putting meat-eaters and vegetarians on opposing sides of a war, while the children’s book emphasizes the connectedness of living things. Whether or not the children ingest the other moral and environmental messages of the book, that one message trumps all.

Review by Kelly Palka Gallagher

PETA'S - Dirty Vegetable Commercial

This ad was banned from showing during the SuperBowl

'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad
Wow - If only the PETA members really looked like these ladies !