A Prosciutto-eating Vegetarian

Aah!! Prosciutto. A gift from the gods. Oh alright… from pigs first.


Whoever heard of a prosciutto-eating vegetarian? If you have read my previous blog, this may seem a bit hypocritical, and understandably also a bit confusing, taking into account that I am known as the High Priestess of Vegetarianism. Although, it must be admitted, that those close to me have ceased to be baffled by anything I do. According to them, I have long since checked into the Mental Marriott – with no check-out time in sight.


All through my childhood, we never saw meat on the table. My grandmother, or Ba as she was known, would have never allowed it. And neither would the cook. Our retinue of servants included a Brahmin maharaj, whose ‘twice-born’ self would have had an apoplectic fit had we even mentioned the word ‘meat’ - let alone bring any of it in the house or the inner sanctum of his kitchen.


In my late teens and early twenties, I traveled extensively out of India. Traveling around Europe in the 70s, I discovered that finding vegetarian food was akin to walking into an AA meeting looking for alcohol. In Germany, ‘curry-rice’ meant white, non-basmati rice with a liberal sprinkling of yellow curry powder. This concoction was in point of fact served to the three of us during a boat trip on the Rhine. At the bottom of this river there may still, as of today, repose three bowls of the stuff, probably in pristine condition - the fish refusing to eat it with the same disdain my sisters and I had shown. In Italy, there is only that much pasta you can eat every day, before it plugs up your system for the rest of the trip. In Spain, the paella always included fish and the only other viable option was eating patatas, which made us happy, because it tasted similar to the way maharaj made it (albeit sans haldi and jeera). But five patata meals later made us want to see never see potatoes again, in any form – so that pretty much ruled out eating pommes frites in France as well. In Switzerland, we survived on cheese for a week, till we never wanted to see cheese again, not even a cow. In fact, we would have dearly loved to wipe the smirk off Elsie’s bovine face.


And so, out of the humble desire to stay alive during my ‘phoren’ vacations and photo conventions, I turned to eating meat…which included prosciutto. And I was hooked. Like the Pope to his Bible.

An explanation for those that have never tasted it: prosciutto is cured ham, a specialty of Parma, Italy, salted and air-dried for up to two years. It is then cut into paper-thin slices and eaten raw, sometimes with melon or mixed in a salad.


When I moved to California in the 80s however, I became a born-again vegetarian. I think it may even be a law if you were to move here. Out of the 7.3 million vegetarians in the country, I would be willing to bet the hemp shirt off my back that half of them live in California. Another (big) incentive was marrying a devout vegetarian and die-hard follower of Gandhiji (never, ever, say Gandhi without the ‘ji’ in our house).


But giving up prosciutto? It would be like asking Charlton Heston to give up his gun. (I wonder if they did pry it from his "cold, dead hands”). On this one subject, therefore, I shrink from my veggie convictions and make an exception.


And yes, there is a major guilt factor, not to mention nightmares about being chased by machete-wielding vegetables crying “Leave pork off your fork!”


Glossary:


maharaj: cook
haldi: turmeric
jeera: cumin