You were cold and hungry, and you and your husband were grateful that the diner I worked in was open so late. Being close to the airport, I’m used to accents, but yours was so thick I was really just guessing and smiling. It wasn’t until you finished your meal that your husband asked in a fairly clear voice if the brown gravy you were raving over was brown from beef. Your tears clued me in that this was not a weight-loss-related question. The 20 minutes I spent in the back “investigating” what made the brown gravy brown? I was hiding. And when I said it was brown due to natural and artificial coloring and flavors, I wasn’t lying. But the natural flavor was cow. My fellow waiter told me after you left that you flew in for an overnight trip and you practiced Hinduism. I’m really sorry I made you eat your God.
I, Anonymous
I Regret Making You Eat Your God
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@11: whenever I’ve fallen off the veg-only wagon (by choice or by misadventure), I’ve been in the bathroom paying out the @ss.
‘Course, I’ve been like that my whole life, hence the veg-diet, at least in part. That and the cute animal factor.
My sis, on the other hand, eats all the cute animals she can get her hands on and is never ill.
Go figure.
A cow isn’t a god–it might be a former human who fucked up, and had already mooved on to greener pastures.
Uh, people saying “I’m VEGAN/VEGETARIAN/(RELIGION THAT DOESN’T EAT X, Y or Z HERE)” — tell me, do you also make sure that your food doesn’t contain horse? Or that it’s not been prepared with grubs? Or that it doesn’t contain any number of other things that are commonly eaten in other cultures, but not here?
Of COURSE you make sure that you don’t get served those things – because they are the NORM in our society; if you grew up in a society where it just wasn’t normal to eat beef, you’d probably not be checking to see that everything you were served didn’t have beef in it.
So. Way to not recognize your privilege.
I’m a Hindu and I’m with #24. No obligation to not eat other meats, but in most of India, it’s pretty frowned upon.
That said, most westernized Indians do eat everything but cow. My parents never ate cow, but they took us to McDonalds and always told us the choice was ours. Nine years ago I gave it up of my own volition. Nobody danced with joy and there were no “I’m proud of you”‘s. My choice, it made me no better or worse a Hindu.
Look, you feel bad about it, which is nice…as one early poster said, it shows some human decency. But it happens, and I’m pretty sure God knows it wasn’t given or eaten with intent, so (s)he will be down with it.
As for getting sick, everyone’s system is different, but I’m sure if anything happened it’s long done by now.
And I regret having made you eat your cod.
Hiding out for twenty minutes just because you thought you made a mistake is just cowardly. However if you knew what was wrong, apologizing is the only right thing to do. Besides, it wasn’t their God, it was just a sacred symbol. Most Christians eat the body of Christ on a somewhat regular basis anyway.
Get it right, people!
@33: Tandoori is the type of cooking done in a tandoor oven, not an ethnic group.
@48: Hindi is the name of a language, not the PC version of ‘Hindus’.