Vegetarianism Is The Bane Of This Good Ol' Boy's Culinary Existence. By Jeff Smith I'M NOT POSITIVE about this, but I don't think my folks ever had a dinner party while I was growing up. My brother Dave is nine years older, and according to him they used to have friends over and pound down the scotch and play bridge, but by the time I showed up, Dad's health was shot and he'd had to confront the fact that the jug whipped his ass every time he opened it. Plus the money was gone. People without ready cash don't throw dinner parties, they have friends drop by for burgers and beer in the backyard. Which is how I learned to entertain guests, and it has stood me in good stead 99 percent of the time. Occasionally, however, I find myself with a few bucks lying around and an event on the calendar that calls for something other than a bonfire. Hey, I'm a student of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and divorced these last six years; self-reliance is nothing new to me. Given time and the right sort of urging I can betake myself to the kitchen and sling some righteous hash. But that's not what stands in the way of me or any other contemporary dinner host. The trouble is that people don't eat normal food anymore. Getting back to my folks and the social style they set, I remember with certain bitter-sweetness the holidays when we used to get together with the neighbors down the block. Dick was my dad's cribbage buddy and they played a couple nights a week--once for sure after the Gillette Friday Night Fights, and any other evening there was nothing worth watching on the tube. They played for a tenth of a cent a point and kept score on the back of the box the cribbage board came in, and then onto a growing sheaf of note-paper. I rummaged through Dad's things after he died, and the final tally showed Dick down $10.3 million. I never bothered to ask him for it. Betty was a good cook, but different from Mom, so when we swapped visits for Thanksgiving, I had to smile and choke down stuff like candied yams and giblet gravy. I did it because my folks taught me manners, but Betty and Dick were more modern in their upbringing of Ricky and Debbie, and they'd pitch a fit if anybody tried to make them eat creamed peas and onions. I attributed this to their hay fever. The Kessler kids were years ahead of the rest of us: Nobody else in the neighborhood had allergies. But thinking back now, I realize it was Dick Kessler who set the tone for his children's dietary fussiness. Whenever he was over to eat, he made sure that Betty picked through everything for onions. As I said, my folks taught me manners, so I kept dark. But Dick Kessler and his onion thing taught me how to roll my eyes. Dad would grin and Mom would glare at me so I'd quit it before the Kesslers saw. At first I felt sorry for Dick, figuring he must be allergic to onions. His kids, after all, were allergic to everything and were always going to the doctor to get their shots. I guessed the Kesslers must be aristocrats, and of more delicate breeding than us. Betty was 20 years ahead of any other wife in the neighborhood, making this sort of cheese pie that she informed us was key-shay lorraine. About the third time she waltzed in with one of these, and out after supper with the leftovers, I heard Mom and Dad cackling over Betty's pronunciation of quiche. It was my first French lesson. Eventually I figured out that Dick only got sniffy over onions because it set him apart. I thought it was pretty silly--he could have used turnips. Later he got into maple syrup, and wouldn't put any of our Log Cabin on his pancakes. He'd read the label and only use the stuff that you had to mail-order from Vermont, the 190-proof kind. But I'd have Betty and Dick Kessler over for a dinner party in a heartbeat right now, because they really were great friends to the folks and Dave and me, and because for all their oddities they were nothing like as fussy and faddish as half the people I know--and sometimes try to feed--today. You've got your lactose intolerant, your wheat allergics, your fresh fruit crowd, your no-salt bunch, brown-sugar only, no processed rice, don't cook the carrots, hide the Coors when Brian's coming... ...and of course you've got your vegetarians. I say "your" vegetarians because I ran all of mine off. Those that I didn't shoot and feed to my carnivores. What in the hell is a man supposed to do when confronted with the prospect of a dinner party, and a guest list that requires a different main course with a separate complement of side dishes to suit each main course, for each individual diner at table? There's nothing you can do. Domino's doesn't deliver out here, and even if they did half the guests would peel the cheese off while the other half bitched the sauce was cooked and wasn't made with sun-dried tomatoes. Of course Annie would have to skip the crust--wheat--but in her case it's okay, on account of she's not being psychosomatic and Jessie James was her great-great granddad. For a brief stretch I got to feeling sort of bad about this, and tried real hard to dream up some kind of menu that would meet these many and varied criteria, but it all made me want to barf, and then it made me mad. It has struck me for quite a long time that virtually every vegetarian I know is pale and wan and skinny and weak, and given to lecturing me about how unhealthy and morally degenerate I am for eating meat. I never quite understood the ethical/political/socio-cultural component of vegetarianism. I think probably it's just more faddish bullshit. Then finally, two nights ago, Pam and I were gnawing on a leftover haunch of beef, and it hit me: Vegetarianism was invented by sissy boys who didn't want to get up and leave a warm, dry cave to go out and kill the buffalo. You see, in the natural order of things, the guy kills the buffalo and the girl cooks it. Don't go getting uppity on me: This is simply an extension of the biological thing where the girl has the kids and hangs out at home with them until they're weaned. So the guy, whose muscles are better suited to throwing rocks and spears and beating on things, wanders around outdoors until he finds something in the meat family for the main course. Mom can nose around close to home for salad stuff. This is the way the Creator intended, but there's always someone looking for a free ride: Eliminate meat from the menu and suddenly the boys are off the hook. You go ahead and throw together a little salad and wild rice, girls. I'll just sit here and daydream about interior decoration for this cave. See? Vegetarianism is both anti-masculine and anti-feminine. Real people eat meat. Preferably meat that was killed by real men and cooked by real women. And smothered in onions. Fried onions. We leave the sautéed to the French.

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