My First Time—Food for Thought

By Ralph McGinnis

At 17 I became a “vegetarian” after visiting a slaughterhouse on a field trip. My mother’s face crinkled up when I told her no thanks to the pork chops she was cooking. “No meat?!” She looked at me as though she’d just heard the most bizarre thing in her life. She rolled her eyes, turned back to the stove and the crackling meat, and said, “Uh…well I don’t know exactly what you think you’re going to eat…’cuz I’m cookin’ pork chops.” I didn’t know what I was going to eat either. That night I started my two-year diet of ramen noodles.

Though it’s true New Orleans has spectacular cooking, eating healthy there isn’t easy; even the pickles are deep-fried. So being a “vegetarian” for me usually meant grilled cheese or vegetable fried rice. Looking back, this dilemma with food symbolized my life at that point—my desire to break out from everything I had previously known or expected. I read more books, dreamt bigger, and met people from beyond the veil of my experience. Opening up to entirely new food groups was a natural extension of this new way of life.

The first time I heard the word “organic” was from my friend Valerie, who ran the vintage clothing store I frequented. She was a Californian, in her mid-30s, with wild red hair. Opening her refrigerator for the first time was like Dorothy stepping into technicolor Oz. She had milk in a glass bottle, dozens of strange, stinky cheeses, and shockingly brown eggs. She had unknown foodstuffs like tofu and miso paste. Her crisper drawer brimmed with bizarre vegetables. “What is this?” I asked. She gave me nearly the same look my mother had and said, “Uh… that’s spinach, Ralph.”

Valerie was a great cook and a wealth of information. She fed me my first sushi (literally holding it up to my mouth, chanting, “C’mon, eat it!”). She wasn’t a health nut, a strict vegetarian, or preachy—she was just open to possibilities and thoughtful about what she consumed, be it food or anything else.

Because of people like Valerie, I take a harder look at the items meant to feed me. And it’s a philosophy that extends beyond the grocery aisle. I’ve come to believe that the world has much more to offer than the current blockbuster film, No. 1 pop song, or New York Times best-seller. I hope my diet will allow me to live long and well enough to experience the variety of life—to savor every morsel of it—and then go back for seconds.

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