I’m TRYING to Be a Good Little Vegetarian, but…

Many years ago in an office I was working in, the topic of conversation turned to vegetarianism. At that time, a lot of folks strangely equated vegetarianism with cutting back on red meat consumption. One such person in the office asked a vegetarian friend of mine, “But you eat fish and chicken, right?”

I’ll never forget her answer: “I don’t eat anything that has a face.”

I thought of her the other night as I was preparing a vegetarian meal. I was peeling and chopping potatoes and it was taking much longer than I wanted it to. I wished I’d inherited my mother’s culinary magicianship. She could peel a potato in one long slice—a single, unbroken curlicue of skin the end result. Not me, though. Chop and peel, chop and peel (yes, rather than peel the whole potato, I chopped it into wedges first, and peeled second; it seemed more manageable somehow). Then the next little golden potato I brought to the cutting board was the one in the photo.

Do you SEE its happy little FACE?! It befuddled me. I could hear my friend again: “I don’t eat anything that has a face.” I didn’t know what to do.

What would my friend have done? Not eat that particular potato but have no problem with the other faceless tubers in the bag? Stop eating all potatoes altogether in honor of the happy-faced spud?

Does every vegetable have a face and we just fail to recognize it most of the time?

Oh dear. I must stop pondering this. Otherwise, whatever will I be able to eat?