Eat All About It

Absolutes almost always cause trouble in the food world, whether it’s “always eat organic” (but what if I can’t always afford it?) or “never eat carbs”. I’ve been glad to see some recent bookspromoting a more manageable middle ground, most recently, Almost Meatless by Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond. Today I’m joining a virtual potluck for the book, where food writers from around the country are making an Almost Meatless dish and sharing it online (look for a list of contributors at the end of this post).

The book champions several ways to eat healthier and improve the environment. We all know we need to eat less meat — but if you can’t go cold turkey (no pun intended), why not use just a few ounces of paper-thin rib roast for a homemade shabu-shabu, instead of grilling a whole steak? Or maybe spread a single chicken breast out over four servings for your buttermilk chicken salad, or, for the die-hard, at least cut the beef in your Philly Cheesesteak with malted portobellos? 

Compromise is involved, yes, but this is not wishy-washy dining. The authors state baldly that the majority of American beef and dairy cows “probably lived very unhappy lives,” and recommend ways to find animal products you can feel better about eating. With recipes for homemade mayonnaise and carbonaras, they also put numbers on a question that’s vexed me for some time, the odds of getting salmonella from a raw egg. (They put it at 1 in 20,000. “You are more likely to get in a car wreck or become the victim of a violent crime than you are to get sick from a bad egg. Really.”)  

For my potluck dish, I decided to move away from meat (there are also recipes using minimal amounts of lamb and pork and turkey), looking at parts of the book that dealt with eggs and fish. Representing the Northwest, I had to try the Roasted Salmon Citrus Salad. The recipe header lets readers know that salmon is a fine addition to the table — but to “take care in selecting our sources for the sake of sustaining the species.” If you grill the salmon outside instead of roasting it, it’s a great dish for our record-breaking heat wave, a tangy, crunchy, flavor-packed plate. And, remember that middle ground? I may have used wild-caught salmon, but it did cross my mind how few hardcore locavores would be on board with the dressing of limes and mangoes. I think that’s OK.  Here’s the recipe:

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