Saturday, July 3, 2010

Health vs. Culture: vegan sausage


I made some fake breakfast sausage links today and I have to say they are really good. Maybe not so good if you are expecting a greasy Bob Evans link but good for just sausage. I put slices on pizza with green chile (a local favorite pizza topping) and enjoyed it immensely. Ate all the leftover bits, too.

I'm not sure what to do when I go visit my Dad this fall, though. I don't think I can get him to understand this vegan/vegetarian thing.

He called a couple days ago with an urgent question. How was my supply of chorizo? Seems he found a local source that carried Spanish, as opposed to Mexican chorizo and wanted to know if I needed some. I said truthfully that my supply was fine. "Dad", I said, "I have several packages of chorizo in the freezer and we aren't eating much meat these days anyway". Well, maybe I soft pedaled it a bit but John is still eating a little meat occasionally so it was true.

The conversation ends with Dad saying he's going to go ahead and send me some anyway and me saying sure, I'll try it out and let him know what I think. Sigh. What a coward.

This would all be OK if I weren't going there for a week. If I try to eat now like he'll want to cook for me, I'll end up the last several days in the bathroom. I need to explain but he'll worry that I'm a) not getting the nutrition I need and b) rejecting my cultural foods. That equates to rejecting my whole culture since food is so intrinsic.

Well, I have a new plan after today's sausage success - vegan chorizo! Surely that's possible. I have a few months to work it out, then I can pack it with dry ice or frozen gel packs, send it ahead and tell Dad I'll do dinner one night. Vegan asopao! I don't have to use shrimp or eat it if I do.

OK, there's one problem potentially solved. Now I have to figure out how to deal with being treated like a twelve year old without getting hostile. 

Update 7/14/10: Well, I picked up vegan chorizo at the grocery store. Looks pretty awful but I'll try it.