The Downward Spiral, Part 1

So, there I was, happily vegetarian-with-fish for 16 years. And then in 2005, the hubby and I went to Argentina.

It seemed like a good idea. I mean, I know they are famous for their beef, but they are famous for their cheap wine too. And they have Italian food. Gnocchi. I love gnocchi! I could eat a lot of gnocchi for sure.

Well, no, as it turns out, I can't. I can tell you from somone who has tried, gnocchi gets really tiring after about 3 days. And if you ever find yourself in Buenos Aires, do not - repeat DO NOT - order fish.

Enter my mother-in-law. She had always wanted to see BA and asked if she could meet up with us there. Had we been on our own, I'm sure Jason & I would have made it through the vacation, fueling up on $3 bottles of Malbec and occasionally choking down another plate of gnocchi. But there we were, sitting across from Breda, while she oohed and aaahhhhed over the fantastic quality of Argentinian beef, cooked over an open fire.

This continued on, night after night, until finally Jason gave in. "Give me a bite of that," he said.

I shot him a look, "Are you sure?"

"Yep"

"You're sure you're sure?"

"mmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

So, I did it too. I was nervous. I took a bite of the steak. I tried to shoo the words 'cow corpse' out of my head. It was okay. I didn't feel sick, like I thought I might. Mostly I thought , "I don't really miss this."

But it continued this way for the rest of the vacation. A bite here, a few bites there. Jason ordering his own steak and me grabbing half of it off his plate.

And why not? Here we were in Argentina. How could we go to Argentina and not try the beef? It's not like it was USDA horrible inhumae feedlot beef. This was grass-fed. Happy cows come from Argentina. And you know what? They are already dead. It's not like that cow's going to come back to life if I don't order the steak.

So we made a new pact - we'll eat meat when we are traveling. No meat at home. No horrible American hormone-laden antibiotic-injected beef. But if we happen to find ourselves in a new place, and eating meat just happens to be part of the overall cultural experience, well then so be it, we will eat the meat. (Now what other famous meat places can we visit?)

At the airport, waiting for our flight home, I ordered a salami sandwich. God, I used to love salami and it's really the only meat I ever craved. So, I snarfed down my last bit of meat before returning to American soil, where the rules would kick back in. Then I ordered another salami sandwich, just because I could. The second one wasn't as good as the first. I felt kinda sick.

I'd post a photo here of us eating steak in Argentina, but there aren't any. Like French aristocrats covering their heads to hide the shame of devouring the adorable ortolan, we made sure not to take any photographic evidence of our fall from grace.

Going Cold Tofurky

All through high school, I flirted with vegetarianism, like a good little punky-goth girl should. Notably for a few months after skipping school to watch 'Faces of Death' with my friends, and then again when I got the Smiths 'Meat is Murder' for Christmas in 1985. I couldn't even listen to the title track.

But it never really stuck, until one day in college, when I was eating a bean and beef combo burrito from Burrito Brothers. That was it... the last piece of cow I would eat until well into my 30's.

What was my motivation for giving up meat? This is a question I had to answer a lot in 17 years. But mostly, it was just the realization that meat eating, for most people in the USA, is totally hypocritical. Sure, I'll eat meat if I can walk into a grocery store and buy a slice neatly wrapped in plastic. Just don't remind me that it ever used to be a living breathing creature not unlike my pet dog. And I thought that was wrong. I still do.

But then I started feeling a bit unhealthy. Oh, and I was craving shrimp. So, I started thinking - If I were left to my own devices, and I were hungry, and there were no supermarkets around, what would I eat? I definitely wouldn't kill a cow, or a pig, or really any mammal. I might kill a chicken because I don't really like birds, but that would still be a stretch. But hell yes, I would kill me some shrimp. I killed cockroaches all the time just for coming in my house and a shrimp is really just an aquatic cockroach, right? And fish, well, they're bigger but still, I could kill one if I had do.

And so, one day in 1989, I became a pescatarian.