Vegans and Knife Handles

I haven't been able to get a consensus at work so I thought I'd bring it here.

Plenty of our knives are handled with animal materials. It is a big deal at my work designating whether or not a dish is vegetarian, pescetarian, vegan, paleo, ovo-lacto-veg, etc. We have separate tongs and spoons for meat and veg dishes.

Can food be considered vegan if it is made with a knife with a bone handle?

I am in the boat where I think people having an issue with this are taking it a bit too far, but some of my vegan buddies wont eat at my house unless they bring their own pans for me to cook in. Is this the same kind of deal?

Different pans/spoons are silly, but different. You aren't touching the food with the bone handle. I'm wearing an apron with leather straps, do I have to take that off?

You need new friends...

El Pescador said:

You need new friends...

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lus1:

stopbarking said:

I am in the boat where I think people having an issue with this are taking it a bit too far...

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+1

stopbarking said:

...but some of my vegan buddies wont eat at my house unless they bring their own pans for me to cook in. Is this the same kind of deal?

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This sounds nuts to me. You offer to cook dinner for your friends, and they tell you that your pans are not acceptable? How are your pans not "vegan" enough?

It cannot be vegan of the name of the cook is WOLFgang. Or the last name FISHer. Or the cook has a leathery skin from too much sun.

Stefan

I am a sometimes vegetarian and did a stint of about 6 months vegan. It was difficult to say the least, but I think your friends are being ridiculous. I quit being vegan because I like to eat out way too much--and I really missed pork:eyebrow:

apicius9 said:

It cannot be vegan of the name of the cook is WOLFgang. Or the last name FISHer. Or the cook has a leathery skin from too much sun.

Stefan

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This reply is extra funny because it is one of your handles in question Stefan. As a matter of fact I think I see it in your profile picture.

i was vegan for almost 4 years when i was in college and ive never heard of vegan pans! you have strange friends! i used to grill my veggie patties right next to hamburgers on the grill no problem.

labor of love said:

i was vegan for almost 4 years when i was in college and ive never heard of vegan pans! you have strange friends! i used to grill my veggie patties right next to hamburgers on the grill no problem.

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Another point of contention at my job. One can request their vegan burger or toasted bun be done in pans in the prep kitchen instead of on the grill and flat top of our open line. Real pain in the ass if you are busy and down a cook or two.

stopbarking said:

This reply is extra funny because it is one of your handles in question Stefan. As a matter of fact I think I see it in your profile picture.

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Uh oh... Well, while I am a bit cynical about it, I do understand the discussion. I have friends who live kosher or vegetarian for religious reasons (in India). Even if I am not religious at all, I have a much easier time follwing their rules than those of a person who just wants to be 'chique' and stand out. But should the reasons for peoples' decisions make a difference to the pros? Nice little ethics paper for students...

Stefan

apicius9 said:

Uh oh... Well, while I am a bit cynical about it, I do understand the discussion. I have friends who live kosher or vegetarian for religious reasons (in India). Even if I am not religious at all, I have a much easier time follwing their rules than those of a person who just wants to be 'chique' and stand out. But should the reasons for peoples' decisions make a difference to the pros? Nice little ethics paper for students...

Stefan

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Strangely enough the Indian vegans at work are the least vocal and the ones to whom I would say the entire staff makes a concerted effort to please and quietly accommodate. There's another ethics paper...

While I'm a meat lover these years, I was vegetarian from 14 to 24 and vegan for about half of that. The funny thing is that while I love meat these days, if you haven't eaten it for a long time, it begins to really feel gross. Even the smell of it stops being appealing. It never occurred to me to be upset of someone used a pan that had been used to cook meat, but cooking on a grill where meat is also being cooked did bother me at the time. It is a bit like the old days of sitting in a non-smoking section of a restaurant where the smoking section is 3 feet away and has a rope between. Those meat juices are all over the grill, so maybe there the vegans have a legitimate reason for requesting a vegi burger be cooked in a clean pan. These days, I'll grab the elk burger any day!

-daniel

danielomalley said:

Those meat juices are all over the grill, so maybe there the vegans have a legitimate reason for requesting a vegi burger be cooked in a clean pan.

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I can definitely see a vegan/vegetarian not wanting to eat something cooked on a grill used for hamburgers, but a clean pan at a friend's house?

Actually, I'm renovating an apartment right now (that was fairly well trashed when I bought it), and one of the things on my list is to replace the perfectly functioning toilet. I could have it scrubbed by a professional for hours on end and still want it replaced. So maybe I should be a little more understanding here!

is it just me or is the original question in hand completely absurd? i can respect people not wanting to eat meat, but i swear some of them are so freaking annoying. separate pans... FU!! is what i would say. kosher... now that's an even higher level of irritating.

panda said:

kosher... now that's an even higher level of irritating.

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I have been researching refrigerators (I need a new one), and came across a "feature" that I had to Google: "Sabbath mode."

No comment!

danielomalley said:

While I'm a meat lover these years, I was vegetarian from 14 to 24 and vegan for about half of that. The funny thing is that while I love meat these days, if you haven't eaten it for a long time, it begins to really feel gross. Even the smell of it stops being appealing. It never occurred to me to be upset of someone used a pan that had been used to cook meat, but cooking on a grill where meat is also being cooked did bother me at the time. It is a bit like the old days of sitting in a non-smoking section of a restaurant where the smoking section is 3 feet away and has a rope between. Those meat juices are all over the grill, so maybe there the vegans have a legitimate reason for requesting a vegi burger be cooked in a clean pan. These days, I'll grab the elk burger any day!

-daniel

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This, I think, is is one of their major problems. Even if the other side of the grill is being used for meat the fat drips down and smokes onto the other side of the grill, flavoring the veg burger. For some of the militant vegans this angers them and somewhat understandably. It's like ordering a pizza half cheese and half anchovies. The other half of the pizza is going to be "tainted." I believe the knife question is along this line. I suppose I'll just bring it up with the chef and he'll probably just choose to not mention it. On the other hand, if somebody asks me about my knife handle within earshot of someone who takes issue with this I'll have no choice but to continue to tell them how awesome this handle is. I've had it for one day and this has already happened in my open kitchen.

I was the Executive Chef at the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan. We had a Sabbath mode for our elevators, lights, computers, everything. The elevators would automatically stop at every floor and wait for the prescribed 2 minutes and then proceed to the next one. If you accidentally got into an up elevator and wanted to go down you would be trapped for 25 minutes in the elevator as it hit every floor up and every floor down. we were a dairy kitchen but, often times had Meat functions. we had to wrap the whole kitchen in aluminum foil and multiple layers of butcher paper and use the special certified Kosher Tape with the Rabbis seal on it. God help you if you had to have the ovens Koshered. You Payed for the Rabbi to sit in the middle of the kitchen with his special chair and table and eat and drink himself silly. Oh great times. Wait.... What was I saying?

stopbarking said:

This, I think, is is one of their major problems. Even if the other side of the grill is being used for meat the fat drips down and smokes onto the other side of the grill, flavoring the veg burger. For some of the militant vegans this angers them and somewhat understandably. It's like ordering a pizza half cheese and half anchovies. The other half of the pizza is going to be "tainted." I believe the knife question is along this line. I suppose I'll just bring it up with the chef and he'll probably just choose to not mention it. On the other hand, if somebody asks me about my knife handle within earshot of someone who takes issue with this I'll have no choice but to continue to tell them how awesome this handle is. I've had it for one day and this has already happened in my open kitchen.

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for me being vegan was about making a difference in terms of economics. i wasnt worried about some trivival flavoring from some meat in the neighborhood of my soy burger but rather the politics of buying meat and participating in the industry itself.

sachem allison said:

I was the Executive Chef at the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan. We had a Sabbath mode for our elevators, lights, computers, everything. The elevators would automatically stop at every floor and wait for the prescribed 2 minutes and then proceed to the next one. If you accidentally got into an up elevator and wanted to go down you would be trapped for 25 minutes in the elevator as it hit every floor up and every floor down. we were a dairy kitchen but, often times had Meat functions. we had to wrap the whole kitchen in aluminum foil and multiple layers of butcher paper and use the special certified Kosher Tape with the Rabbis seal on it. God help you if you had to have the ovens Koshered. You Payed for the Rabbi to sit in the middle of the kitchen with his special chair and table and eat and drink himself silly. Oh great times. Wait.... What was I saying?

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You couldnt pay me enough to deal with that.

I'm kind of refusing to taking off my leather clogs in order to cook a vegan dish for customers. Just ain't happenin

sabbath mode. ***, that makes me anti-religiously angry just reading about it.

stopbarking said:

.........Can food be considered vegan if it is made with a knife with a bone handle?
I am in the boat where I think people having an issue with this are taking it a bit too far, but some of my vegan buddies wont eat at my house unless they bring their own pans for me to cook in.....

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I'm curious how does your vegan/vegetarian friend taking medication when he has illness?? as far as I know, lots of medicine gelatin/capsules are made from/with animal's tissue/cell..... :eyebrow:

The OP is in Texas? What the hell has happened to Texas?

I think there are at 3 different things going on here, related but still separate.

The "Sabbath mode" appliances are the industry's response to a specific request. The community's religious rules aren't affecting anyone outside of their own circle. It's not hurting anyone or breaking any laws. Apparently there was enough demand for the products in question that the industry was willing to make them. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

The restaurant thing sounds like it's definitely going to affect the OP, but my question is: did you know it was like that when you first started working there? Or did the vegan tweaks happen after you'd already been employed there for a bit?

The friends who insist that you cook with the pans that they bring? Um...rude? If they are that picky, they can stop somewhere and get something to eat before they come to visit. They are coming to YOUR home. You are sooooooo not required to accommodate that tweak.

Johnny.B.Good said:

I have been researching refrigerators (I need a new one), and came across a "feature" that I had to Google: "Sabbath mode."

No comment!

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I had a fridge with this mode. No lie.

A Sabbath mode on a fridge isn't exactly a big deal. It just makes the program not respond to the user for a period of time. Not sure how this is offensive.

unkajonet said:

The "Sabbath mode" appliances are the industry's response to a specific request. The community's religious rules aren't affecting anyone outside of their own circle. It's not hurting anyone or breaking any laws. Apparently there was enough demand for the products in question that the industry was willing to make them. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

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I'm not complaining about the fact that they exist, I just find it amusing/interesting that there is enough of a demand for it in the year 2013.

Do the vegans think animals never die, and do not contain bones? If an animal with bone, tusk, etc. dies, why not preserve natural resources and repurpose the components that will not decay in the next 100 years? Do they really think it's okay a slay a denim tree in order to make blue jean micarta?

mzer said:

A Sabbath mode on a fridge isn't exactly a big deal. It just makes the program not respond to the user for a period of time. Not sure how this is offensive.

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I do not find it offensive at all. I was just pointing out that I owned a fridge with this feature.