Meat in the Middle
by Kate Wicker in Food on Monday, August 17, 2009 6:00 AM
Before I got married, I heard the classic kibitz from wise, old married couples warning me to never go to bed angry and to always remember that the key to a healthy marriage is compromise.
Even before we exchanged our vows, my dearly beloved and I became experts on keeping the fire alive, having joint checking accounts and our love languages, thanks to the Pre-Cana premarital boot camp we attended. In short, we weren’t jumping into marriage with our eyes closed. We knew what to expect.
That is, until we started regularly congregating at the dinner table.
No one ever warned us that my being a vegetarian would shake the very foundation of marital bliss. Okay. So it wasn’t that dramatic. But the fact that I actually eat and like tofu did make those first few months interesting.
When we were dating, meat, or the lack thereof, was never an issue since we frequently ate out and ordered individual dishes.
But when you’re eating together every single night, year after year, it gets a little trickier. No problem. I had plenty of ideas for delicious vegetarian fare that even meat-lovers would enjoy.
I thought egg dishes were a perfect compromise (there’s that word again) since it boasted both protein and vegetables. I made a lot of frittatas and quiche during our first year of marriage.
Dave would tell me how delicious dinner was, and I was quite pleased with myself, the dutiful wife. It was soooooo satisfying to know I was adhering to all the marital advice I’d been given.
Until one day I saw a commercial for Hungry Man meals. “Pity the poor man who has to eat quiche for dinner,” the TV boomed as the screen flashed contrasting images of strapping, smiling men with their plates of beef and mashed potatoes while a dejected man poked his fork into a soggy quiche.
Quiche happened to be on the dinner menu for the night.
I panicked. Was Dave just being nice? Did he really like broccoli frittatas, or was he a hungry man longing for meat and potatoes?
“Honey?” I asked him that night. “Do you like my frittatas?”
“I like anything you cook.”
Obviously, my husband took good notes during marriage boot camp.
“C’mon now. Do you really like them?”
Dead silence. Dave squirmed as if he were under an interrogation light.
“Honestly?”
I nodded. Nothing but honesty in our marriage.
“Actually, I’d rather have plain eggs,” he admitted.
The moment of truth.
Suddenly, I began to wonder what else he didn’t like. Turns out the stir-fry where I surreptitiously hid the tofu wasn’t a favorite either. And forget anything with cilantro.
But like any healthy married couple, we’d opened up a discussion. We were communicating, and perhaps it was time to reassess my vegetarian lifestyle.
I come from a long line of carnivores, but my feelings toward meat changed abruptly one day when I was 10 staring at my Happy Meal and not feeling very happy at all. Without warning, my cheeseburger patty transformed into unappetizing, gray and lumpy sludge. I couldn’t help thinking of Moo-Moo, my beloved stuffed animal cow. So I pushed the cheeseburger aside and swore off meat for the rest of my life.
Although I admit to having a soft spot for cute animals, my decision to remove meat from my diet admittedly was not a moral one. If I wanted to save all the cattle of the world, I’d only be buying “pleather.”
In college I went vegan. A few weeks into my new lifestyle, I was enjoying a bowl of Lucky Charms swimming in soymilk (in case you’re not familiar with the term, vegans don’t eat any animal by-products) when a veteran vegan gasped, “Don’t eat the marshmallows!” Turns out marshmallows come from Mr. Ed’s feet. Who knew? I certainly didn’t.
Grumpily, I picked each marshmallow out and ate the mushy oats. For the record, Lucky Charms without the charms really isn’t a very fortuitous experience at all.
That was the end of my veganism.
Surely I could make a sacrifice for the sake of my life partner if I ditched veganism for marshmallow charms. After all, dinner was a time to be together and to share about the events of our day. I wanted Dave to look forward to eating with me, not dread another egg-inspired or tofu-loaded dish.
So I started eating white meat again. Yet, just as I began to broaden my eating horizons, I noticed a change in Dave as well. One night while dining out, he looked up from the menu with bewildered eyes.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” he said. “Nothing looks good except for the vegetarian pasta.”
He ended up ordering a meat dish, probably out of fear I’d brainwashed him or that watching Babe really had struck a chord with him. Still, we’ve definitely made a lot of progress.
These days I still don’t eat red meat, and Dave will never like tofu. But we’ve learned to meet halfway and that makes for a happy, healthy marriage.
—Kate Wicker is a somewhat omnivorous mom and writer. She blogs at KateWicker.com.
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