Up until not too long ago, I was a vegetarian. Yes, I know what you're thinking right now; Eating chicken instead of beef does not a vegetarian make. Besides, Texas doesn't have any vegetarians anyway, right? The only herbivores in the lone star state are the ones we eat. Like cows.
You're right- being a vegetarian back home was a lot like being 5 shades darker than an albino after 9/11; very, very dicey. You may want to voice your political opinion, but you don't, because people in Texas are a little myopic. Especially when they are peering at you through the barrel of a gun. Nonetheless, I refused to eat any creatures or creature-like products. I had many reasons for this decision, but most of all I just wanted to avoid eating anything that could be considered as intelligent or more intelligent than I am. My one exception was fish, because quite honestly I think they are just vegetables with fins anyway.
My choice to take up this wild and crazy lifestyle was, of course, frowned upon by my parents. To my father, "vegetarian" is a dirty word, only to be muttered in the privacy of one's home, if at all. One day over lunch, while I was munching on a non-creature, my dad paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and asked me if I was still not eating meat. That's exactly how he asked me, complete with avoidance of the dirty v-word. I probably should have told my parent's I was a Black Panther homosexual sociopath first- the vegetarian thing might have gone over a lot better that way.
Even for Thanksgiving, a time when my mother and father and I sit around a table for an hour and pretend to be related, there were still no accommodations made for my special diet. The dinner consisted of meat, meat, and a side of meat. Throughout the entire meal I sat there and quietly chewed on a cracker as I wondered if the bloody carcass on the table, the same one nestled in between the intestinal gravy and the chicken pot pie, was their silent attempt to inform me that if I wanted to enjoy any future holidays with the parentals I had better start eating something that walked off of Noah's ark.
My militant no-meat diet began the day I read Fast Food Nation and ended the day I discovered a small teensie weensie problem. I don't like vegetables. In fact, I can't stand them. I like tomatoes and pickles but, technically speaking, they don't count.
Now that I'm in Tokyo it's as if my body is recovering from a long bout of iron-deprivation. I love meat, the rawer the better. My new favorite thing is Prosciutto, and I eat it raw and straight out of the package almost every day. Because it is essentially pig, It goes against my policy of trying to not eat an animal that is as smart or smarter than I am. Still, it's just so freaking good. I'm salivating right now thinking about it. V, correctly sensing that if this habit persists he might have to supplement the whole lawyer thing was another job as a physician, has made me promise to eat cheaper things, like the McDonalds Juicy Chicken Sandwich.
I don't know if that sandwich exists in the United States, mostly because I never stepped foot inside of a McDonalds in the United States, but if it doesn't then it should be. I would go so far as to say that people who have never had it should book the $1,700 flight to Tokyo just so they can try it.
Preferably plain, without any annoying veggies getting in the way, just the way I like it.
Food is too delicious here to turn it down, especially delicious food with extra delicious meat. For instance: the omfg oishii niku ramen I had for lunch today. (Plus, it's like 5-10 minutes from Waseda!)
And I'm pretty sure that anything good you got from a McDonald's here, even if it's the same item, won't be even near as delicious in America. Japanese fast food places typically put the American ones to shame, from what I can remember.
Posted by: keitorin | September 19, 2008 at 07:53 AM