Confessions of a Former Vegetarian

Reading: Al Dente by Rafael Lugo

Butchering, Ecuadorian style

Aside from the plethora of cultural difference that living in Ecuador has provided, one of my biggest adjustments has been starting to eat meat again. I’m sure that most of you are thinking that Peace Corps volunteer plus former vegetarian can only mean one thing: animal loving tree-hugger. Now, I swear that although that could be applicable to some parts of my lifestyle, it isn’t the case with my dietary preferences. I really, honestly, truly just don’t care for the taste and texture of meat. Granted, the idea of eating muscle sort of weirds me out, but in the same way that flat feet do...

So when I left the States, I promised myself that I was going to really work at being less of a fussy eater. I wasn’t going to be bothered when food was served to me all touching and running together. I was going to deal with things being extra fried and the lack of fresh, raw vegetables. And more importantly, for integration sake, I was going to stomach meat for the next two years.

This challenge, more than anything, not ceased to provide rather interesting situations. To preface, before I saw the meatless-light in college, I was extremely picky about the quality, cut and preparation of my animals. However, here in Ecuador all of those concepts simply do not exist. One book that we read in training described the difference in food between the poor, the middle class and the wealthy as such: the poor is concerned with having enough to eat, the mainstream is worried about taste and the affluent are preoccupied with presentation.

Thus, there goes any standard of quality. With this, there is no understanding of specialized cuts of meat. For example, the standard way to prepare chicken is to simply hack it all up, cook it and serve it. This does prove helpful at times, like when you need to determine what kind of animal your eating.

Example: As an amateur meat eater, I’m not especially well versed in what exactly I’m eating. I’ve tried to explain to my host family that I really don’t like pork as a last stance, however, there’s some confusion as to what constitutes as pork and what doesn’t… so the other night at dinner, when I wasn’t really sure if the greasy, pasty hunk of something that I was served was chicken or pork, I simply just had to pick at it long enough to find the hacked up spine that was once a chicken.

The other interesting twist to the situation, is that I’ve actually started to prefer meat to other eat objects. Mostly, this is due to the partiality to white rice in this country. As in, they eat rice at every single meal. Rice, which I never thought was a horrible grain, has now become absolutely repulsive to me. Perhaps this is because, Ecuadorians seems to have some aversion to the idea of flavor. So they literally just eat plain, white rice. Well, I guess I should say that they add a bunch of vegetable oil to the cooking process, but they don’t even do the rice the courtesy of frying it up and adding in some vegetables. Consequently, where I would have normally simply avoided whatever meat I was being served, I now opt to eat the meat in an effort to avoid rice.

Needless to say, I am eagerly waiting the day when I can return to my vegetarianism, with extra red pepper, garlic and ginger.