When I was a kid, being vegetarian was *WEIRD* and unusual. When at a friend’s house, I’d often have to sort out my meal ahead of time, so as not to worry the parents about what I’d be eating. It was just a fact of life, and one I’d come to accept. This morning, as I was cleaning out the inbox of Outlook at work, I saw an email for Bossman. It was from a friend of his son’s at school, asking about setting up a play date. (I didn’t know people still did that. Awesome!) The parents wrote back and forth, and one line struck me: “I know (MiniBossman) is vegetarian … what does he usually choose as a snack?” No sense of panic, as my parents would have gotten as a kid (“WHAT DO I FEED HIM!?”), but a matter-of-fact question about what’s cool to feed the kiddo.
Man, how much things have changed. The mom wasn’t whining about having to make a special trip to the grocery store to pick up something. She wasn’t saying how it’d be sooooooo hard to make something SEPARATE (because of course, if you eat meat, that is all you can ever eat, on everything, all the time, ever ever ever, and if you dare to have something without meat in it, your body will shrivel up and die of painful death; or at least, that’s how some folk make it seem) for him. Instead, it was, “I’ve got _________ that I think is safe. Is it?”
I just think it’s very encouraging to know that more people are starting to realise that eating plants isn’t difficult. In fact, I’ve noticed the same thing with my friends who are omnivores. My husband and I will go over to a friend’s house for a party, or other get-together, and none of them will have any problems at all with finding stuff for us to eat. In fact, I’ve been impressed, on many occasions, with what they’ve managed to turn out. This is a far cry from going to my BFF’s house back in 2000, and her being the only one of my friends who consistently kept her house well-stocked for my needs. She always had plenty of pasta, garlic, spices, herbs, potatoes, and hummus, bread, and crackers in the house at all times. Granted, the family liked to eat those things too, but it was especially nice that she’d make sure to keep such things in stock so that any time I came over, there’d be something for me to make.
How awesome is it that we can all sit together and share in something that bonds us, without fuss or trouble?
What have your experiences been with getting vegan food at friend’s or family’s houses?
