None of us are close to our ancestry. I can't appeal to my grandmother because she is 92, is mostly deaf, and has dementia. As for college, they're planning on putting me on the meal plan.

If your parents are being a bit closed off to new menu items you could try approaching the problem from a different angle. You could approach your grandmother instead. I'm rashly assuming that your grandmother has no significant health issues that would make it difficult or impossible for her to change her diet. As your parents are pointing to your grandmother as the picky one ... perhaps it's time to engage with her. Find out if she'd be willing to try an exciting new dish?

Is there any type of cuisine that you think she might like to try? My grandmother was a surprise convert to mexican dishes (she was usually super traditional).

How close is she to her German/English ancestry (if very close try some veggie traditional foods - perhaps a veggie version of a shepherds pie could work? Or spaetzle in a cheese sauce?).

If you're going to college soon you can approach it from the view that you need to learn to cook widely depending on what is available so that you can budget effectively.

In the UK here, it's quite easy to make veggie meals that everyone will eat as we're pretty culturally amorphous food-wise, and have absorbed a lot of influences from veg-friendly cuisines such as Indian and Italian.

These are the kinds of dishes I began cooking when I first explored vegetarian food: pizza, lasagne, spaghetti with tomato sauce, macaroni cheese, cheese and potato pie, quiche, Spanish omelette, root vegetable casserole with dumplings, vegetable biriyani etc.

You could also introduce meat substitutes. One at a time so as not to scare them! Start with veggie mince from the freezer section and put it in a bolognaise sauce. Most people don't seem to mind veggie mince, especially if it's cooked up in a rich tasty sauce.

Yes, I know, it was a wordy answer. Just trying to address the parents' objections towards vegetarianism.

Learn to make rich vegetarian dishes that meat eaters would enjoy, like heavy casseroles, cheese lasagna or manicotti, omlettes with potatoes, with a salad or other vegetable on the side. People eat "vegetarian food" all of the time, especially if you're not vegan, I honestly think they're being ridiculous. I mean don't tell them that...but if you don't cook every night, why not your turn be Meat Free Monday or something?

Nope for ethnicity. I'm as white as can be, mostly British Isles and German ancestry. I live in New England, not the south. They expect me to do stuff for the family while I'm here. Until I go to college, I have to do my grandmother's laundry and cook some meals and do the dishes sometimes. Not a big deal, they want me to learn adult responsibilities, I just don't want to cook fish anymore.

With foods from my culture, I don't really have one to be quite honest. I grew up with steak as the most common meal. Corned beef and cabbage on Saint Patrick's day. That's about it.

Just drop the mic

What's your cultural ethnicity?? I could be wrong, but I'm assuming you're either from The South, are Latino, or possibly Greek or Italian with this expectations of devotion to family.

Beans and cornbread with greens, and/or tomatoes, is traditional in Appalachian culture, so I learned to make a vegetarian version of my grandparents dish made with pig fat.

Find dishes from your culture and make them vegetarian. Then grandma can enjoy. This should be fairly easy to do if you are lacto-ovo, or even just lacto.

I'm just curious why someone young, traveling to Europe, would be asked to cook for their family? Why fish in particular? Surely others cook, why not have you make something you would like to eat?

Depending on what your parents value, you could show them this information:


The following intellectually-successful persons are vegetarian (or were vegetarian, during their lifetimes)

C.V. Raman, 1930 Nobel Prize for Physics
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics
Albert Einstein, 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry
Linus Pauling, 1954 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1962 Nobel Prize for Peace
Albert Schweitzer, physician, 1952 Nobel Prize for Peace


The following athletically-successful people are vegetarian:

Jan Muller, World Champion Muay Thai Fighter
Bill Pearl, 4-Time Mr. Universe
Joel Kirkilis, Victoria, Australia Regional Bodybuilding Champion
Jake Shields, MMA Fighter: Elite XC Welterweight Champion, Shooto Middleweight Champion, Strikeforce Middleweight Champion
Mac Danzig, UFC Fighter


Statements from mainstream health organizations:

From the American Diabetes Association:

“A vegetarian diet is a healthy option, even if you have diabetes. Research supports that following this type of diet can help prevent and manage diabetes. In fact, research on vegan diets has found that carbohydrate and calorie restrictions were not necessary and still promoted weight loss and lowered participants' A1C”
Link to this statement: http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fit...r-vegetarians/


From Kaiser Permanente (one of the largest health insurance companies in the United States):

“Research shows that plant-based diets are cost-effective, low-risk interventions that may lower body mass index, blood pressure, HbA1C, and cholesterol levels. They may also reduce the number of medications needed to treat chronic diseases and lower ischemic heart disease mortality rates. Physicians should consider recommending a plant-based diet to all their patients, especially those with high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or obesity.”

: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/


From the American Heart Association:

“Many studies have shown that vegetarians seem to have a lower risk of obesity, coronary heart disease (which causes heart attack), high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and some forms of cancer.”
Link to this statement: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Gettin...2_Article.jsp#