When T. was a kid (yearsandyearsandyears ago), The Vegetarian Times had a running cartoon joke, the punchline of which was “Chicken is a Vegetable.” In the cartoons, people were offered concessions of all sorts at restaurants when they asked for vegetarian entrees. “We have chicken fingers!” one waitress announced. Dryly the diners noted, “Of course. Because chicken is a vegetable.”
We have friends who call themselves vegetarians, but they eat fish, which interests us, since we were raised vegetarian, and that meant “we eat nothing which was once both breathing and ambulatory.” The whole fish thing is somewhat confusing (and once netted us big bowls of some sort of seafood stew with suckers and claws at the home of a new acquaintance. Oops. Awkward.), but we do know from pescatarian, which is Vegetarian-but-eats-fish.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There may be too many -tarians for the average person, but this is important stuff! Because of that, we’re here with a pictorial tutorial from our Christmas-in-July supper:
C. is a pescatarian. She eats poisson en papillote with shallots, lemon, and asparagus tips.
…
T. is a vegetarian. She eats shark en papillote with shallots, lemons and hot sauce…
It’s tofu shark, of course. We knew you’d appreciate the visual.
There really is too much fun to be had with cookie cutters.
Too cute! I’ve been working hard these days to not get too annoyed at people who say they’re a vegetarian and then clarify “oh, but I eat fish” but I guess it’s not that important relative to world hunger/poverty/floods/etc 🙂
Hahah! Um, no. Perspective, my dear.
It just confuses me, but I just shrug — everyone defines things differently. Words like “vegetarian” and, oh, “Christian” are apparently open for discussion…
I’m pleased to see you two can stick to your beliefs.
Nan
People are very supportive here, and there are quite a few restaurants who are starting to put some thought into a vegetarian menu. We’re having fun being creative with our own meals when omnivorous friends come over — we can all cook together as long as we’re flexible!
I’m dying over the tofu shark.
They were TASTY, too!