Thank you for taking the time to pick up our magazine. With all the options out there, we are honored. In this issue of Edible Milwaukee, we explore the world of vegetarian and vegan cuisine.
I’m not afraid to admit it, I was a proud vegetarian for over half of my life. I became a vegetarian when I was 15 years old, and to be honest, it was to impress a girl. I justified my decision in so many different ways at the time, because of the environmental impact, animal welfare, health, etc. In the end, I converted to soy milk and veggie dogs in the name of love. As a 15 year old vegetarian, life can be rough. I found replacing meat with french fries in a hamburger was delicious, and I discovered the famous apple pies at McDonald's were surprisingly vegan. Family dinners were a little more challenging, as I’d find jars of beef gravy in the garbage, even though the meal was “guaranteed” vegetarian. As time passes, you start to read labels and look through ingredients with a closer eye. Once you start to realize what’s in your food, a light goes off and it’s hard to go back to careless eating.
While my childhood love faded, my passion for food grew! Over the next 20 years, my palate developed beyond substituting meat for fries. I fell in love with Indian food and lentil beans, marinated tofu, fresh produce, roasted and pickled vegetables, farmers markets and co-ops. In my early 20’s, I got a job at Outpost Natural Foods Co-op, which would be a turning point in my culinary adventure with vegetarianism. Through the various characters I worked with (most of them vegan), I learned about not only the different flavors and possibilities eating meat-free, but I also learned about the politics behind the food we eat. I learned about factory farming and processed foods, from there I made a commitment to myself and my community that I would help do whatever possible to educate friends and family about food.
In 2008, I started a television show called Wisconsin Foodie. People close to me thought it was hilarious that I was producing a food show, seeing as I didn’t eat meat. To me though, it wasn’t about the meat, but the people and stories behind it. I would judge chefs on how they prepared vegetarian meals; in my mind, the ones that did the best were also the best chefs in the city. It’s easy to cook a piece of meat, but it’s much more challenging to cook vegetables. If you go to Bacchus, there is a special vegetarian menu. Any fine dining restaurant will cook vegetarian food.
My breaking point came a couple years ago, when a close friend of mine wanted to roast a pig underground for his birthday. So, a group of us sourced a pig from Yuppie Hill and stuffed the pig with different goodies and wrapped it in banana leaves and burlap, cooking it underground for 24 hours. When it came out and was on the table, I had a very visceral connection to that pig and the process, and felt it was disrespectful not to eat some of the meat we had prepared. I knew who raised the pig, how it was raised and had a personal connection to cooking that whole animal.
What had started at adolescence traversed through the years into my 30’s, and I like to say that for my midlife crisis I started to eat meat again. Here I am, a meat eater, but my decision to become a vegetarian early on would inform and direct my life in a very meaningful way, which has created a livelihood for my family and employees. Think about the food you eat; it has the ability to change both your life and the world.
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