Mike, the Liberal Atheist Vegetarian, sent an open-letter to Italian eatery (should that be in quotes?) Olive Garden regarding their menu items for vegetarians and vegans. Mike says that the OG doesn’t make it clear which of their items are suitable for non meat-eaters, and the first thing to pop into my head was this: while being a vegetarian or vegan is far from being a new and kooky concept these days, I (personally) think the masses are themselves unclear about what it means to be a vegetarian or vegan. Like, if I tell my aunt that I’m a vegetarian, and she offers me the fish dish instead. “But fish isn’t meat,” they’ll declare. Or when I dabbled in a vegan diet while I was nursing and had to keep repeating why I couldn’t have the pastry (because it contained eggs and milk).

So when the OG says “we can suggest the following items as meatless, but not necessarily vegetarian or vegan” I immediately think about spaghetti without the meatballs, but instead of marinara sauce, it’s meat sauce. Or seafood, because after all, that Shrimp Primavera is “meatless.” Well, unless you’re one of those nit-picky “vegetarians.”

Filed by Maria in food