EATING VEGETARIAN IN A FRATERNITY
HOW YOU CAN WORK WITH A CHEF
By Tamir Stahler
Of the many perks that Frat Row residents at the University of Maryland in College Park claim, the private chef surely is at the top of the list. This is how it was sold to me: You come home and great food is ready for you, lunch and dinner. If you're not there, he'll plate it for you and have it in the fridge in a box with your name on it. At the end of my sophomore year, I was deciding where to live for the coming junior year. With all my friends moving into the house, there wasn't much of a decision. Plus, there's the private chef thing. As great as it sounds, I was actually quite concerned about moving into the house. And for one reason. That wonderful private chef service you hear about.
I've been vegetarian my whole life. When you grow up like that, you become very good at creating food for yourself. Many more options have opened up for vegetarians. My freshman year I had a meal plan with the university, which was required. There was such a wide variety of food available, and I basically just skipped any food that had meat or fish in it. This was not hard at all. There was also, to my honest surprise, a vegetarian section. Not without flaw, the vegetarian section was at least one of the better attempts I had seen to incorporate options for people who don't eat meat into a large-scale food service. My freshman year was very do-able, if I were to describe it best. Not the greatest options, but always something available. I was totally fine.
Home Cooking at College
My sophomore year, I moved into an apartment where I would be cooking for myself in my own kitchen. Besides the part about managing my own money for food (a daunting task for a kid focused more on calculating how much alcohol will be needed each week), cooking on my own was great. I was able to buy all the vegetarian specials I wanted. I had my fridge stocked with Beyond Burgers and other vegan meat analogs. One of my roommates cooked great rice every day, and I always had ramen noodles (the one vegetarian flavor) to fall back on when I felt particularly lazy. Most important, though, had to be the fresh produce. I could finally take trips to Whole Foods and get real fruit that tasted like it was grown on an actual farm. Sophomore year was great, to be honest. But it was all about to come to an end when I moved into the house junior year. Who is this chef? Can he accommodate me? I hate being the kid with the special diet, but I need to eat. All these are typical anxious thoughts that enter the mind of a young man who is about to be "that kid" who doesn't eat meat in the house.
I made a point to talk to the chef at the end of sophomore year. He seemed like he could figure something out, but to be honest, it looked grim. I was expecting the classic steak house vegetarian menu every day: grilled vegetables on a stick. But don't worry we seasoned them a bit. I could not have been more wrong.
Making it a Veggie Win
It took some sit downs, and brainstorming, but nowadays I eat like a king. Often my options are more complex or enticing than the standard omnivore offerings. In fact, an hour before writing this article, I was eating a Beyond Burger made into crumbles, baked into a bell pepper with fresh Middle Eastern topping on the side. The other option? Potatoes and meat loaf. Needless to say, there were a few kids interested in how they could get that kind of attention.
One of the biggest wins was securing Beyond Burgers. The company that we order our food from is US Foods. They're a huge food provider (throughout the country) for operations just like ours. They have a few veggie options on their website, which our chef showed me. There are some black bean burgers and a few other things. Not too bad, but for the money I'm spending on this meal plan, I was set on eating what I want to eat. Seriously, it's not cheap. After calling Whole Foods to order Beyond Burgers in bulk, we decided they were way too expensive, which they were, in the chef's defense. However, after some persistence on his end, the chef was able to get US Foods to order some in bulk directly from Beyond Meat for a reasonable price. This was a big win for me. I now can enjoy a great tasting meat substitute whenever it's involved in a meal.
Remember, Chefs Love Food
I don't often stress about a meat substitute, however. I eat some pretty healthy and well-cooked vegetable-based meals with minimal refined carbs and fats. This allows me to stick to my diet of weekly college beer intake and not get too overweight. The important thing is, something can be made for me and it's prepared with care because the chef's my buddy now. Other great meals he has put together included veggie quesadillas as well as a zucchini burger similar to mock crab cakes.
The bottom line: To anyone moving into a frat house with a chef or some other similar situation, don't stress about your dietary restrictions — be it kosher, halal, vegan, gluten-free, or whatever. Just walk to your kitchen with a smile and talk to the chef about your needs in a friendly way, taking into consideration their time, practicality, and economics. They're chefs; they love all food, preparing new dishes, and showing off.
Believe me, they won't mind a challenge.
For more information on working with food services, see www.vrg.org/fsupdate/index.htm.
Tamir is studying foreign languages at the University of Maryland and is a lifelong vegetarian.
