Nettie Cronish has been a steadfast vegetarian for over 40 years, but that didn’t stop her from co-authoring Everyday Flexitarian, a new cookbook for both meat eaters and vegetarians. The Toronto chef, teacher and author learned some lessons in flexibility when her kids turned to the carnivorous dark side. We caught up with her to talk about the conundrum of eating meat ethically, her new book and the benefits of having an “enlightened pantry.”
You’ve been a vegetarian for a while. What made you decide to partake in writing a book about flexitarianism?
Well, I’ve been a vegetarian for 40 years. I’ve got three kids and a husband, and my kids didn’t want to be vegetarian anymore. I didn’t want food to be too big of an issue — I didn’t want them sneaking around or lying to me. The idea was to be able to talk about these things without overreacting in a negative way. This book has been evolving for 15 years, and I had to find the right person to write it with. My co-author, Pat Crocker, is a culinary herbalist. She’s also very knowledgeable about vegetarianism. And we paired with Cynthia Beretta from Beretta Organic Farms to supply good quality, humanely-raised meat.
What would you say is the single most important factor in eating meat ethically?
How it was raised. Because we live in a wonderful city like Toronto, there are a lot of ethical butchers. And every food has a story. Go on the Internet and visit websites like Rowe Farms or Beretta. Find their story, and you can even visit the farms. I visited Beretta farms, I saw where the animals grazed, I watched how they were being raised.
Did seeing any of that make you question your vegetarianism?
No. It made me more determined to be a vegetarian.
Why is that?
I think that there’s so much food on the earth that we don’t need to eat animals. Having said that, I’m not going to force anyone else to eat what I eat. Dialogue comes from being open minded and tolerant. I wanted to call our book The Tolerant Kitchen. And I also think that people are so busy these days. I think it’s very adult, very grown up, planning what you’re going to eat, but people want to be spontaneous.
What do you think are some lessons that meat eaters can learn from vegetarians culinarily?
I think meat eaters have to expand the repertoire of ingredients that they use. They have to look beyond the barbecue. Look at the spices you have in your kitchen: who uses five spice powder? And what about curry leaves? And I love baking with green tea. What do you have in your pantry, and what’s a new way of cooking with it? Near the beginning of the book, we have a section called “The Enlightened Pantry.” And what we try to do is give people a lot of information about alternative ingredients, because let’s face it, agave nectar doesn’t have a marketing board.
Do you think people use meat as a shortcut sometimes?
I think some meat eaters know only one way to cook. When it comes to vegetarian cooking, everyone thinks it’s going to take two and a half hours, and it doesn’t have to. What people need to do is properly equip their kitchen — most people have crummy pots and pans — and then they have to sit down and read recipes. People need to change the way they cook. And you can buy ingredients that are already prepared — for instance, organic beans in a can. You can make my tortilla recipe in 20 minutes; you don’t have to make everything from scratch all the time.
Do you see flexitarianism as a stepping stone towards the ultimate goal of vegetarianism, or do you see it as a practical way for the masses to eat ethically?
I see it as a time-saving way to cook. I don’t think people are going to become vegetarian. Being vegetarian takes an ethical commitment, and it’s also time consuming. You have to read your labels and you have to do a lot more planning. And a lot of people either don’t want to or don’t think it’s important. And you can’t push moral values on other people. I’ve explained to my kids why I’m vegetarian — they’ve dutifully listened and chosen not to be vegetarian. So that’s why you have to be tolerant.