October 17, 2000

Chef Offers a Few Choice Words on Veggies and Vegetarianism

by Bryan Salvage

Vegetarianism is a topic that is downright upsetting to some The Meatingpplace.com readers. Here's something these readers should enjoy: A chef who takes a very dim view of this sub-segment of the population.

The Meatingplace.com is excerpting this story from the July/August issue of the Animal Industry Foundation newsletter and are comments appearing in a book entitled, "Kitchen Confidential," written by Chef Anthony Bourdain.

"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction -- vegans -- are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glaze, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

"Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for: the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by the [mere] rumor of a cold.

"Oh, I'll accommodate them. I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate,' if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost just fine."

This article reprinted with permission from Meat Marketing and Technology Magazine.

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