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I'm Vegan but go to a Culinary school that makes me cook meat products
Hello, I've never really done anything like this but myself sister has used this website before and I thought I would use it for this inquiry I have. Basically I learned about the pain and suffering of animal at a young age 12 to be exact. I learned about it from the internet and became a vegetarian and soon as my mom let me which was when I was 13 or 14. Now that I'm older and have been making my own food and dont have to eat what my mom makes anymore. I realized that I was still watching videos on Veganism but still remained a vegetarian. One night I it came to me and I decided to become Vegan. It has been difficult especially when I go out with my family. I will not lie I have messed up a lot some on accident some on purpose. I can handle that. The real problem is that I'm in a school called EVIT it's a vocational school where you get to be hands on experience in the career you want to pursue. I was in culinary at my school for two years but then I saw that EVIT had a lot more to offer then my school. So I'm now currently in EVIT it is my second week and I started to cook foods. A lot of them have dairy or meat in them. Taste is one of the most important components of culinary so the fact that I cant taste things is terrible for me. No one really even knows I'm Vegan except one girl who I told when she told me to taste something. While no one might challenge me on the hypocrisy of making food with meat products in it but not eating it I do and dont know how to feel. I dont feel like I can call myself Vegan but I dont want to ruin my career because of this. I know this was a lot to read but it's what I've been thinking. Am I being selfish? I think so. Do you?
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I am mostly vegetarian but when it matters, I have learned to eat some meats. I was strictly vegetarian as a child by choice from age 5 or so as I simply didn't like meat. I am now a grandmother and along the way, I have learned to like certain things like fish, chicken in very small quantities. While I don't feel it is bad to eat meats which means killing animals, I am more disturbed by the extremes they go to in raising and keeping animals cages or cramped with no freedom. Just that to let you know where I stand but I do support people wanting to be vegan. In your cased, I would have to agree with the other advice giver. I don't believe there are vegetarian or vegan schools where one can learn culinary skills so the only way to learn would be a school that cooks everything even meats. You must have seen something good about the school when you said they have a lot more to offer.
I would suggest to remember you are there for those reasons. Once you graduate, you could try to find work with a vegan or vegetarian restaurant although they are still few and far between so you may have to move to work at one. I think it would be a good thing to do because once you have some experience in working in a vegan restaurant, perhaps you might go into business with someone and open a small vegan place of your own where there isn't one currently and that would give an option to vegans to eat out and there'd be steady, dependable returning customers. You will need to be able taste foods now to know what they should taste like. My husband worked in restaurant industry when younger. He says that coming up with combinations in food that taste so good that people just don't want to stop eating, even if they are full, well, thats the kind of taste you are looking to create. I have had things like that where I am swiping the last bit of sauce off a plate or cup with my finger because it was sooo good.
To deal with the guiltiness of eating something that was once alive, you might look into what Native Americans do when they need to kill for sustenance. Before they kill, they say a prayer asking for the animal or fish of choice to come their way. They ask for the right one to come, one that isn't a mother with babies, etc. and they also thank the creature for giving up its life, even though technically it had no choice, but they did pray for the one who was willing to come and give up its life. In history, before farming, people were hunters and gatherers, eating mostly meat and berries, roots, nuts, and fish, what ever they could eat that grew naturally and didn't have to be farmed or grown on purpose. There are more humans on the planet so that doesnt work anymore. I remember going fishing and having the fish in my net and I said a prayer over it before I took it out of the water to cook later. The only moment of feeling strange was that moment. I had no trouble eating it later. You really don't have much choice as far as your training. But if there is a restaurant in your area that is even just vegetarian, it would be a terrific idea to work there part time as your school schedule allows so you are in a way learning as an apprentice the specifics of what substitutes work in recipes compared to what you have learned. Basically, you would still have to learn veggie or vegan recipes even after schooling. So another suggestion is watching you tube videos where you are told how to prepare a vegan dish, what ingrediants, and then if you make it to your taste and fiddle with amounts of ingrediants or substitute for other vegan ingrediants, you will already feel more confident and have more of the knowledge that would work at such a place. Best wishes.
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Hello! That sounds like a really good school to be in, I wish there were options like that when I was in high school.
I think in this situation, you will need to look at it like you did when you had to eat what your parents provided. In your heart you may have been vegan, or vegetarian, but because of the situation, you needed to eat what your parents gave you. During your time in school it will be the same way... Just a temporary time in your life where the situation calls for you to put a pause button on vegan - just during class, in order to learn all you can. Then after class and at home you can eat vegan.
We will always need to find compromises when two things we want in life conflict. If your goal is to be a chef, then in the long run, it will be more important to learn and taste as much as you can, so that when you're done, you can do whatever you want and replicate dishes in a vegan variety, after you know what they should taste like and have the skills to adjust things to your vegan preferences.
You also have the option of tasting, but not swallowing. For example, if your friend wanted you to taste her dish, you could explain that you're vegan and are willing to put it in your mouth, but will be spitting it out without swallowing as a statement and testament to your beliefs. That way the message is out there, and you are still able to offer feedback to your friend.
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