November 1999

Thoughts about Thanksgiving...
and going mainstream

This year, for the first time, Gourmet magazine is featuring a vegetarian Thanksgiving along with their traditional menu. I'm proud to say that I designed that meal, and if you haven't already got your issue of Gourmet, I hope you click off your computer right now and rush out to buy it.

I bring this up not only because I want to show off, but to make a point - things do change.

It may seem that they change slowly in the world of food, but thousands of years of tradition and habit flow into each meal we eat - along with a blast of commerce and advertising - so what else should we expect?

When I first became a vegetarian, you couldn't get a meatless meal in most American restaurants without making a special request. I couldn't find a vegetarian cookbook that I wanted to buy - so I had to write my own. When a meatless restaurant opened in London, it was called Cranks, in playful recognition of the common image of vegetarians. And Gourmet Magazine, which I read religiously and loved, wouldn't have dreamt of a vegetarian Thanksgiving.

Now there is a different feeling in the air. I don't know if the number of actual vegetarians is on the rise, or not. But it's interesting to me that the number of teenagers who identify themselves as vegetarians at any given time is around fifty percent. And the shift in the number of people who are almost vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian, or sometimes vegetarian, is enormous - this change is a tidal wave. It's the mainstream.

How does it happen?

In part, it happens through greater awareness of health issues, or philosophical ideas. But mainly it happens because eating meatless is so much easier and more attractive than it once was. Bookstore shelves are lined with vegetarian cookbooks - some of them very good! Restaurants offer meatless selections. Magazines - even Gourmet - offer wonderful vegetarian recipes.

It does not happen because people are lectured, or have their wrists slapped if they pick up a shrimp at the buffet.

When delicious vegetarian food is widely available, when learning to cook without meat does not mean inventing the wheel, when good recipes are easy to find - of course it's easier to make that choice. Well - duh!

This is the tune I've been singing for about twenty-five years. From the start, during those college days when I wrote my first book, I wanted not to proselytize or lecture, but simply to offer a range of delicious possibilities for anyone who wanted them. Anyone - including committed carnivores who only wanted to try something, or were baffled by the eating habits of a teenaged son or daughter. I didn't segregate my food.

I was remembering, recently, my first trip to Italy. The food was so glorious - and there was so much vegetarian food on every restaurant menu, but it wasn't called vegetarian. The penne arabiatta and the pasta e fagioli were alongside the ragu. It was all part of the delicious traditional cuisine, and you could choose what you liked. I felt immediately at home.

Over the years, I've tried to hold that attitude central in my cooking and writing - to be inclusive. It was with that idea that I approached my third book, The New Vegetarian Epicure. It's a menu book, and I wanted to include a great Thanksgiving menu. I based it on a meal that I had served with much success in my own house, a dinner of traditional flavors and fresh new twists.

I designed the meal around a fine polenta dish, a torta made with caramelized onions and roasted squash. It's a gorgeous, golden thing, served on a platter and surrounded by dark, glossy sautéed spinach. With it I served a wide array of fall vegetables: roasted fennel and onions, red and gold cipolline in a balsamic vinegar glaze, green tomatoes stewed with jalapeños, a cranberry sauce flavored with red wine and orange zest, a gratin of yams and pineapple...

It was a splendid harvest feast. But my husband and my kids, though they liked it all, wanted their traditional turkey as well, and our guests were a very mixed group. So my husband spit-roasted a turkey. Everything went with everything, and everyone was happy.

When it came time to finalize the menu for the cookbook, I included the turkey. I called it "Thanksgiving for Everyone," and added Greg's guest essay about the spit-roasting of the bird.

I took some flak for that (though less than I expected). There were a few critical letters from vegetarians who feel that there is only one right way and they know what it is, and the odd snippy e-mail from folks who think they own the copyright on the word vegetarian.

In my experience, an easy-going tolerance has always worked better. The Thanksgiving menu in The New Vegetarian Epicure is just grand. If you don't want turkey with it - leave it out. The menu certainly doesn't depend on it, and I won't be standing in the kitchen holding a gun to your head.

For me, food is not a battleground - it's a pleasure, and I want to invite everyone to the party. We can all get along.

So what am I doing for Thanksgiving this year? I might do the menu in The New Vegetarian Epicure again - I do love it. Or I might open up my Gourmet Magazine...I haven't decided yet. Either one would be delicious, and not for vegetarians only. On the other hand, if this unseasonable hot spell goes on, I might be on the patio, drinking iced margaritas and giving thanks for the goat cheese and chipotle quesadillas that take ten minutes to make.

For all the other days of November, when you might want a simpler meal, I've got The Great Pumpkin Soup - it's a meal in a bowl, hearty and satisfying without being too heavy. Excellent pumpkins are plentiful now; the giant jack o'lantern varieties are out of the way, and you can find the smaller "pie pumpkins" that are so much tastier. Look for the soup in New Recipes - and have a great Thanksgiving.

November 1999 recipe