When I worked at the place selling oils and vinegars I’d sometimes get asked about food. I was, and remain, wildly unqualified to ask about food, but thankfully it was pretty rare. Usually our shoppers were fully aware they knew more than me and they were content to ignore me.
One day a woman in her fifties came in. She looked at the pretty amphora displays and the sample cups before she turned to me. “What would go well with steak?”
“Oh, some of the fruit vinegars would be a nice finisher,” I said, talking out my ass. Like, I’d eat that but whether it’s conventionally accepted to douse a steak in mango vinegar is up for debate.
“I’ve been a vegetarian for forty years, but my doctor suggested I might need more red meat. So I thought I’d get a steak tonight and I don’t know much about preparing it.”
I stared at this woman. This fully adult human woman. Who had just spoken to a doctor. And I said, “Do not buy a steak tonight.”
“You’ve been a vegetarian for forty years?”
“Then your body has no idea how to process meat. You will get so sick.” It was pure luck that I knew this. I had a few hardcore vegetarian friends who had been exposed to meat at potluck dishes and told me about the ensuing horrors as their gentle veggie gut biome was overrun with flesh. And how consequently their toilet overfloweth.
“Yes,” I said, emphatically. “If you want to try to incorporate meat I would start with a tiny portion of fish, and slowly work your way up, but your insides will not know what to do with steak.”
“Wow! I’m so glad I mentioned that to you.”
I was likewise glad, and ended up selling her a light vinegar that would go nicely with fish. I don’t know if she didn’t have any other vegetarian friends or if her doctor hadn’t said anything to prep her for a radical diet change but it still blows my mind that she didn’t know she couldn’t just cook up and enjoy a steak.
