Of Vegetables and Meat

I worked in a government institution in Singapore way back 1995. The people in my team were Indians and Malays and are practically hands off to pork. Having lunch with these people means having the option of eating either a vegan cuisine or a chicken dish. Since I was with them, we always end up going somewhere where there's meat.

One day, they thought I should try doing their diet since they haven't seen me eat a pure vegetarian meal. I agreed and they ordered a bunch of food from a vegan restaurant to be delivered to our floor for lunch. Lunch time came and they had all these vegan food in front of me.. mostly with yogurt and some stuff that I can't even pronounced.

They were so proud of themselves as I sat among them. They pointed at each dish and described to me what's in it and I would nod my head and ask what's in the next dish. Finally, I settled on something which looks a lot less scary. Okay, I'm exaggerating. I did pick on a dish which I thought would somehow be palatable for me.

I was wrong. That was the worst 10 minutes of my life. All of them were gorging on these dishes which I honestly think looks absolutely fabulous. I'm sure they were tasty too. But not for me. I went down to the cafeteria and got myself some lemon chicken to go and brought it up to our floor so I can eat with them. They laughed and so did I.

I'll never do something like that again. I didn't fight my way on top of the food chain just to eat grass.