Twenty years ago, vegetarianism was relatively less common than today, and our habit disconcerted friends and family. Jamie’s mom would say, “I don’t know what you fellas eat,” even though we said, anything but meat: carrots, rice, spinach. My mother opted to make macaroni and cheese every time we visited. A couple of months after we moved to a new town to take a caretaking job for a historical society, we were introduced to someone who said, “Oh, so you’re the new caretakers. You’re vegetarians, aren’t you?”
We were vegetarians except for pepperoni on pizza. It was, and still is, hard to imagine those succulent and savory little disks were ever remotely connected to four legs. While some vegetarians will tell you that they will eat anything that doesn’t have a face, others define it more loosely and permit chicken and fish. We ate fish, but no fowl. Not until we moved to the island.
It happened this way. One Thanksgiving we invited our friend Dave, and Jamie’s mom and brother from Belfast, to spend the day with us. In honor of the day, I thought it would be a good idea to have a turkey because I could always send the leftovers home with my mother-in-law. It would hardly be Thanksgiving without a turkey even though Thanksgiving is always a good day for vegetarians who can count upon there being a great deal of other good stuff – vegetable dishes galore, rolls, and plenty of room left for pies (pumpkin, apple and mince, especially in these degenerate days when most commercial mince hasn’t even a whiff of meat in it). I did all my baking the day before as always, and had the turkey thawed and set to go when Jamie’s mom called to say she had a terrible cold and that she and Scott wouldn’t be coming for dinner. What to do. I roasted the turkey anyway. So there we were Ñ one turkey, three people. We were, nevertheless, outnumbered. Outnumbered by the rich aroma, the brown crackling skin, the gravy soaked stuffing. Like Adam and Eve, we ate. It was the turkey’s fault. I’ve often wondered what made this possible after so many years of not eating meat. I think it was mainly a shift in our relation to the source of our food, not just our personal relation, but that of this place in the world. More of our neighbors raised their own chickens, pigs, and ate deer meat, as we also now do. We can, if we want, buy lamb from the man who knows the sheep personally. There is among us more personal responsibility for the taking of an animal’s life but also the dignity of doing it with our own hands or at least, by our own choice. Blessings on that turkey many years ago. We are glad to be omnivorous once again.
— Sandy Oliver
Islesboro