Vegging out> Vegetarians are sprouting up all over and sharing the bounty at potluck suppers

If you’re a vegetarian, like I am, then you know what I know.

Bangor is a non-meat eater’s nightmare.

Because of this, I rarely eat out. And when I do, I often end up piecing together a meal with side dishes — microwaved potato, iceberg lettuce salad and over-cooked, canned vegetable of the day. With very few exceptions, the meals are inadequate and unsatisfactory, especially compared to the prettily designed mainstream meals everyone else is served.

But I had a meal last week that would knock your wooly socks off.

I had heard from local nutritionist Phyllis Havens that the Maine Vegetarian Resource Network was holding a potluck supper, so I whipped up a bowl of taboulleh, a Middle Eastern grain dish, packed my own plate, knife, spoon and fork into a bag, and headed to the Peace and Justice Center where the event was to be held.

Havens met me there and we began setting long lunch tables with plastic table cloths. We put her dish — a cold pasta salad with sun dried tomatoes and garlic — and the taboulleh on a serving table. She told me that the dinners are held every few months, and usually 15 of the two dozen local members show up. Tonight, she suspected, very few people would come because of snow.

But within 15 minutes, the room held a dozen people. One family brought spinach lasagne. They aren’t vegetarians, the mother explained, but they want to be, so were trying to meet other people with the same interest. When asked if she was a vegetarian, the 12-year-old daughter said, “No. I’ll eat anything just about.”

And she did, including some cabbage-raisin salad and some bran cookies.

A young married couple arrived. She kicked off her shoes and spent the evening in her stocking feet. He wore a big, colorful sweater. They set out their ceramic dishes, utensils and cloth napkins, and began talking with the family.

Havens was talking about texturized vegetable protein, known among users as TVP. “Does it look like dog food?” the questioner asked. “That’s it,” said Havens, and she went onto to explain how TVP, a powdered product that mixes with water, can quite nicely take the place of meat in a diet.

When Shari Greenfield, founder of the Maine network, arrived with her daughter, she set out hummus, a dip made from chick peas and sesame paste, and an almond soy-bean spread. Around these, she arranged tortilla chips and vegetables.

“I started this two and a half years ago in Belfast, but I intended to do the whole state of Maine,” she said as she munched on a cashew. “I wanted to find out what energy there was to make people feel connected around this.”

Since then, more than 200 people have joined the network which is affiliated with the North American Vegetarian Society. Potluck suppers take place several times a month, usually in the more populated areas such as Portland, where most of the group members live.

At the Peace and Justice Center, we sat around one table and ate together. There was no grace, no formal beginning, no music. We just dug in.

“What exactly is this?” one man asked holding up a mound of food with his fork.

“That’s part of the fun of being vegetarian,” a woman answered. “You don’t really know what it is.”

Across the table, Havens gave a mini lecture on growth hormones given to cows and the effect she believes it has on humans. “Cows are manipulated by the dairy industry to be lactational machines,” she was saying.

Everyone had seconds. Some, like me, had thirds. And there was plenty left over. People began cleaning up, washing dishes, putting food away so that everyone could watch the hour-long film “Diet for a New America.”

The film was hosted by John Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune, trained psychologist and author of several books the relationship between diet, health and the environment. Years ago, Robbins left his family’s Hollywood home with a ice-cream-cone shaped swimming pool and eventually established Earthsave Foundation, an educational organization for animal rights, the environment and vegetarianism.

In all of history, he said, humans have never consumed so much fat and sugar. The vegetarian diet, he assured, is a move toward helping to save not only oneself but also the earth.

Bearing those food politics in mind, I was glad to be so full on such a good meal in the company of people who like to eat the same way I do.

“Vegetarians are sprouting up all over,” I heard one person say as I was leaving with my dishes and leftover taboulleh. I was sure glad to hear that.

To contact the Maine Vegetarian Resource Network, write RFD 2, Box 194, Belfast, Maine 04915, or call 338-