Terry Hope Romero author of Viva Vegan (a latin vegan cookbook)
When I was in high school my best friend decided she was going to be a vegetarian. I have no idea how it happened but I was pretty sure she must have been kidnapped by hippies. That was the only logical explanation why a Dominican teenager would give up a delicious diet of rice, beans and whatever the meat of the day is (there’s a reason this is a stereotype. It’s true).
Honestly, at 17 vegetarian meant eating salad every day and there’s no way I was giving up my mother’s ribs. Now it’s 10 years later and the unthinkable has happened. Somehow, I accidentally started eating vegetarian. Yes, accidentally.
It all started when I moved out of my mother’s house and started living on my own. My mom never really sat down and taught me how to cook*. Maybe she took pity on me or perhaps she just didn’t want to be responsible for a roommate who died from starvation but my homegirl from college decided to show me how to make basic dishes. She is also very health conscious and everything I learned to make was pretty much vegetarian and healthy.
I learned to make pasta and tofu and chickpea salads. Trust me it’s much easier to make a salad than it is to bake a chicken. Out of laziness, and habit, I started to cut out meat from my diet except for those times I went to visit my mother. There is no way she would understand how I could have “una cena vacia” (an empty dinner), meaning one with no meat.
Taken from Food inc
Lately, I’ve been thinking that I should start making a conscious decision about what I eat. Not out of laziness or circumstance but because I really care what I put into my body. I was watching Food inc with my girls once and I will never get one image out of my head. There are chicken farms where the chickens are so full of antibiotics and so fat that they can’t walk. You see them waddling for a step or two and them tumble over to their side. It’s heartbreaking but it’s also really disturbing to think that’s what I’m putting in my body.
I’m trying to go from accidental vegetarian to an on purpose vegetarian. It’s going to be very hard to explain to my mother**. I’m also going to miss all my favorite childhood meat centered dishes. But, I can’t help but think I’ll feel better about myself when I consciously decide what to eat.
Last week I texted a friend of mine, who happens to be vegetarian, and asked her for the name of a vegetarian cook book. Her response was “welcome to the dark side”. Well, I never much of a goodie goodie anyway.
*I’d like to think this was because she was a single mom who worked full time and not because on many occasions I almost burned down the apartment.
** I promise to write about it when I get the balls to tell her. Dominican mami’s can be scary.
the Ella project 
