Talking Meat with Kim O'Donnel

by Fran Brennan

Kim O’Donnel doesn’t mince words.

“I love a good pork shoulder,” she says. “I love a roast chicken.”

Innocuous statements, maybe, except when they’re uttered by one of the country’s most vocal proponents of Meatless Mondays. Not to mention one who just published a book titled, The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes Carnivores Will Devour (Da Capo Press/Lifelong Books).

“I’m not a vegetarian,” O’Donnel insists. “I’m not telling people what to do. I’m offering options.”

In fact, O’Donnel opted years ago to go meatless on Mondays, an idea introduced by the government during World War I and more recently revived by Johns Hopkins University. The program aims to get people eating less red meat, and it resonated with O’Donnel while she was writing for the Washington Post’s food section.

“I knew I had to do [meatless] with some consistency,” says the author, whose father died young from heart disease. “So I roped my readers into it. And my husband.”

O’Donnel, 44, now lives and eats in Seattle, and her work has most recently been found on True/Slant and Culinate, where she also hosts a weekly chat. FNJ got a chance to talk with her during a D.C. stop on her book tour. We chatted about the book, life with less meat, and the tofu-tempeh smackdown.

FNJ “Meatless” has become a real buzzword lately, but you’ve been pushing Meatless Monday for years. Did you ever expect it to take off the way it has?

KOD It’s crazy! When I was working on this book proposal just two years ago, I never would’ve imagined that meatless would become the zeitgeist it is right now. And there’s no sign of it ending.

It touches on the issue of where food comes from, how it’s grown, how we feed our families, small ag versus big ag. It’s like a roundabout in traffic: We’re going to be talking about meat for many years to come.

FNJ How did you get started on this book and sell the idea at a time when meatless wasn’t the hot topic it is now?

KOD It’s the first cookbook that directly gets to this issue – the conversation of eating less meat – and takes it to the kitchen. That’s the gap I noticed two years ago: Where’s the book that gets people from talking to chopping? Despite all the noise about, ‘We’re cooking more,’ there are still so many of us who aren’t.

And now, less meat IS the zeitgeist. Every week, it’s a new school district or a new university that’s adopting Meatless Monday. It’s not just on the coasts. It’s in all corners of the country because they’re talking about it on ABC News and on Jamie Oliver.

FNJ What has your relationship been to meat? Have you always eaten very little?

KOD No. But it had been bothering me, had been like an albatross. My father died at a young age, and his mother died two months later. All three of us kids were tested and had elevated cholesterol. I was only 16. They made us change our diet, but not cut out meat. Instead of salami or bologna, we were eating turkey. There was no real mindfulness.

When I went away to college, I felt like I got out of jail. I ate everything. Then I went to cooking school and didn’t think about it at all. While I was at the Post, I was eating all kinds of food, but nothing consistently. It wasn’t until I moved to Seattle that I realized I wasn’t eating enough of the good stuff.

Once I was, I noticed I wasn’t gravitating toward meat. Even now, I’ll have meat, but I can’t eat the whole thing. My body is telling me I’m done.

FNJ How did your commitment to Meatless Mondays evolve?

KOD The call to action came from [the United Nations climate chief] in 2008. He said, if there’s one thing you can do to help the planet, it’s not recycling. It’s taking a day off meat. I put it to my readers and said, ‘What do you think of this?’ They said, ‘Okay, but we don’t want philosophy. We want recipes.’ It was very popular right away.

My point of view is, let’s cook. Let’s see if we can commit to this.

FNJ How do you convince diehard carnivores, the people who say a life without meat isn’t worth living?

KOD It’s very much on a case-by-case basis. How can you take more baby steps? Meatless once a week is maybe too much for some people, so start serving vegetables that are very appealing to meat eaters. Roasted vegetables are almost impossible to resist. Plain, boiled vegetables? No wonder people run for the hills. But the gateway entrée in my book is the veggie pot pie with cheddar crust. Or sweet potato black bean chili. Stuff that looks like it might have meat in it.

FNJ One meatless day a week doesn’t seem like a death sentence. Do many people find it truly difficult to go meat-free one out of seven days?

KOD Some would argue it’s not enough, one day a week. But have you gone into the middle of this country lately or walked into a diner on a Wednesday? There are a lot of sausage links out there – meat is a staple in this country. It would be like cutting off someone’s arm to take that away.

FNJ We suspect hard-core meat lovers will be pleased to note there’s not a lot of tofu in your book.

KOD I had not traditionally been a fan of tofu – tempeh figures big in my diet. It has a better texture for meat eaters. But I thought, ‘How can you have a vegetarian cookbook without tofu?’ So I actually worked hard on it. There’s a pepita-crusted tofu, and a slow-cooked barbecue tofu, like brisket. That’s a weekend project, not a 30-minute meal. This is handmade.

FNJ What ingredient is essential in your less-meat lifestyle?

KOD Black beans I could eat every single day. And when they’re in season, I could eat a local apple everyday.

FNJ On the other hand, what could you absolutely live without?

KOD I have no interest in foie gras. Not because of ethics. I just don’t have that kind of appetite anymore. But I’ll have a burger. I just want to know where that meat is coming from. I think about this.