TJ ver 6.0

Japanese concept: meat is a side dish.
American (especially Southern) concept: meat is the meal.

Treating meat as a side dish is definitely a new concept for me. For those of you new to the site / not paying attention / suffering from a life-threatening case of ADD, I was born and raised in the South. Okay, technically I was born in Kentucky, but they have a tooth to IQ ratio we find acceptable, so they count. Anyway, we Southerners are inherently superior to all other Americans for several reasons:
1) We don’t talk as funny as alla y’all.
2) Many of us don’t feel the need to attend all four years of high school.
3) This is the birthplace of Dale Earnhardt, Elvis Presley, and Jesus.
4) In the second fattest country in the world, we lead the way!
5) In fact, if it wasn’t for us, the rest of you peacenik tofu-loving Yankee hippies might well let our country slip into third or fourth place, dangerously close to those emaciated French and Italians.
6) You’re welcome.

Around here, no meal is complete unless it includes dead animal flesh; in fact, meals are planned around the meat. When you ask “What’s for dinner?” you’ll never hear rice or corn given as the answer. Vegetables and grains are optional and must be customized according to the cooked carcass. Fried chicken? Serve with mashed potatoes and gravy if hot, or garnish with potato salad if eating a picnic lunch. Country fried steak? That’s a mashed potatoes with gravy and fried okra meal if I ever saw one. Catfish? Hush puppies and fries.

I just realized that, without even trying, I’ve been eating mostly vegetarian foods this week. Last night I had miso soup with tofu and green onions and a couple of shrimp gyoza (pot stickers) on the side. I was going to have a little rice on the side as well, but I just tossed it in with the soup instead of reheating it and topped it with a little shichimi togarashi (seven flavor pepper). It was pretty good, but I forgot to add the hon-dashi for a little fishy goodness. D’oh (or however you say that in Japanese).

Southern cuisine does not do vegetarian foods with a couple of rare exceptions.
1) For an in-between meal nosh, you can have a healthy vegan non-meat snack such as fried pork rinds or deviled eggs (made with mayo) or mozzarella cheese sticks breaded and deep fried and dipped in ranch dressing.
2) On very rare occasions, it is acceptable to have a vegetarian meal comprised of battered and fried okra, cornbread (typically made with lard, but my mother used vegetable shortening as a healthful substitute) made with buttermilk and slathered with real butter, green beans or collard greens cooked with salt pork or fatback, and black-eyed peas seasoned with more pork. Of course, if you parents want to feed your kids this healthy meal, you’d better have plenty of ice cream and peach cobbler afterwards to satisfy their craving for unhealthy foods.

A couple of other things I’ve learned:
1) The basic ingredients blend really well (tofu, miso soup, soy soup base, rice, green onions, etc.) so you can mix and match for a little variety. Basic Japanese cooking is the ultimate home cooking for drunks – just toss a little of everything in a pot, and cook (but briefly – more on that another time).
2) What’s for breakfast? Leftovers. Instead of having those dried packages of noodles, I just make a little extra at nights and reheat it in the morning. It all reheats well. When reheating soups, it’s good to toss the rice in just before sticking it in the microwave (although soaking rice in a soup base overnight will cause it to bloat and become mushy).

Tonight I think I’ll try a variation on the hot soba recipe by adding some tofu. Then I’ll go out and step on a woodchuck. Just because I’m eating vegan doesn’t mean I should mess with the balance of nature by letting a bunch of useless fuzzy animals live.