What the fork!

How does a vegetarian married to a non-vegetarian deal with conflicting food habits? Divergent food habits can even break a relationship, especially when one partner is under pressure to conform to the preferences of the other.

Anita Punjabi is a closet non vegetarian. The 26-year-old fashion designer from Delhi has been one ever since she got married three years ago to Prashant Shah, a Gujarati and engineer, who’s vegetarian. “Eating vegetarian food was almost a crime in my maternal home,” recalls Punjabi. “But after marriage, my husband forced me stop preparing or ordering non-vegetarian food at home.” Initially, to get over her craving for meat, Punjabi would try to visit her parents often and eat at their place. But it was difficult for her to keep visiting her parents. So she came up with a devious plan. “I started cooking meat at home,” she reveals with a wicked smile.

Punjabi prepares painstakingly for her rendezvous with the “inner organs of beasts and fowls.” She goes to buy meat only when her husband is not around. She stocks the “contraband” in odd places — eggs in the loft, and canned meat in the refrigerator in the guest room. “I always wrap the meat in paper and carry it in designer jute bags. My husband never suspects anything as he knows how precious the bags are to me,” says Punjabi, who once had to hide the meat in her precious, pink Chanel bag, as she suddenly bumped into a potentially dangerous neighbour. Once she’s had her fill, Punjabi takes care to fill the house with sweet-smelling agarbattis and candles, so that the house is well-aired and smells like a holy shrine instead of a meat market.

Of course, not everyone can be as enterprising as Punjabi. Take the case of three-month pregnant Sejal Lobo, a non-vegetarian who married Hiral Jain, a Gujarati and a vegetarian. Lobo has been squeezing in time for counselling in her hectic schedule as she is on the verge of filing for divorce and wants to give her marriage another chance. Her problem is unusual: her husband, taking his vegetarianism a little too far, has prohibited her from visiting her maternal home during her pregnancy, as he fears the visits would harm the vegetarian tendencies of his unborn child. Says Sejal, a Goan whose first love is fish, “We had signed a pre-marital agreement which stated that I could continue eating non-veg food as long as our kid remains a vegetarian, but this is uncalled for.”

While Sejal still has the chance to save her marriage, Chanchal Bose has already crossed the point of no-return. Bose is a non-vegetarian Bengali who married another Bengali, Neil Mukherjee, a Buddhist. For four years, she watched her husband eat nothing but sprouts and vegetables. “Neil didn’t even eat cheese as he feared that the gods would be offended,” says Bose, who had an arranged marriage. Bose, who believed that the way to her man’s heart is through the stomach, hated that she couldn’t cook beef, chicken, pork, duck, turkey, lamb, shrimp, clams, or oyster for him. “I could eat what I wanted but not with him, on the same table,” says the hardcore non-vegetarian, who even tried forgoing her staple diet. “But I failed.” She adds that it was a terrible problem taking her husband for family get-togethers as he never found a separate vegetarian counter. “After every outing, we ended up fighting. I decided it is best we part ways.”

Conflicting food preferences causing a divorce might be an extreme case, but marriage counsellors aver that changing food habits is something that cannot be treated lightly. “Just like one’s basic value system, food is something imbibed from childhood. Having to change one’s choice of owing to partner’s food habits or religion could mean a loss of identity for people,” says Dr Minu Bhonsle, consulting psychiatrist and relationship counsellor. “It is therefore important that couples address this problem before they tie the knot.”

It is such foresight that has proved to be a boon for Mamta Shukla, a Gujarati Jain from Saurashtra and Prashant Patil, a Maharashtrian and a non-vegetarian. Despite Mamta’s steadfast refusal to eat garlic, potatoes and anything else grown under the ground, the two — married for six years — don’t recall ever having fought over food-related issues.
“Mamta was ready to adjust right from the start. And my family, for its part, reduced the frequency at which we ate non-vegetarian food,” says Patil. The couple lives with Patil’s parents and if non-vegetarian food is cooked at home, Mamta is informed well in advance. “I’d then go and meet friends or shop, as I respect their food habits and don’t want to be around when non-vegetarian food is cooked,” says Mamta. The couple also has a plan worked out for their kid. “He can have both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. Later, when he grows up, I’ll explain my religious and spiritual views to him. He can then decide what he wants to be,” says Mamta.

Kitchen politics? Sort it out 
Discuss your food issues, and your prospective childrens’ preferences, before you get married. If any restrictions are to be followed, it would give your partner a fair chance to walk out before any commitment is made.

Respect each other’s food choices

Be flexible when it comes to sharing the kitchen and utensils. If either partner has a problem, then there should be separate utensils.

The child should be given his/her preference. They should be exposed to the liking and food of both the parents, before he/she makes a choice.