Although you won’t eat the Thanksgiving turkey, does the smell of it roasting in the oven turn you off? Do burgers grilling make you nauseous?
Just curious. I don’t know any vegetarians to ask them myself.
Thanks.
I think this depends on why a person is a vegetarian. I had one friend who was a vegetarian because he felt it was the healthier way to eat…but he still loved the smell of cooking meat. I had a girlfriend, on the other hand, who was a vegetarian for morality reasons, and the smell of cooking meat literally made her ill to her stomach.
So I guess its either way. 
I’m veg because I don’t like meat. Most of the time I smell it, I just don’t really care. It doesn’t really register as food for me. Sometimes (BBQ, etc.) it smells really good, but not in an “I’d like to eat that” way.
If you are a vegetarian, and you come to my house for dinner, I will happily make sure that we have something that you can eat. Possibly, this will be what the rest of us are having, or possibly it will be an extra just for you. You are after all, a friend, and we enjoy having you around.
But, if you are the type of vegetarian who insists that we not serve meat to anyone else while you are there… Well, it won’t be a problem, actually, because you won’t be there.
I became a vegetarian as I was finishing up the fifth grade. It’s been just about nine years. Initially it was for moral reasons, but George Carlin convinced me of the error of my environmentalist platitudes. Now it’s for my health, and even when it wasn’t I enjoyed the smell of food cooking, meat or otherwise.
Personally I think those moral-based vegetarians who cannot separate the physical sensation of a smelling a roasting turkey from the abstract idea that killing the turkey is wrong are just being silly.
I had a vegetarian roommate that still loved the smell of cooking meat and cooked for me on several occasions. He made some kickass porkchops.
I don’t mind the smell of cooking meat at all. In fact, the smell of a bbq reminds me of summer, which always conjures fun memories. I’m a vegetarian because I never really liked meat though. I know this girl who made her bf stop eating meat, and she wouldn’t sit near anyone who ate it. It seems kind of ridiculous.
This is pretty much my experience. I cook meat for people on a regular basis, including my omnivorous husband, and I can appreciate the smell but it doesn’t necessarily get my mouth watering or my stomach turning. If I smell something in the scent that I do like (BBQ, other spices, etc.), I enjoy it more.
Not really a vegetarian here, but while working as a cook I got a serious case of the can’t-stand-it-itus about steak, ham/bacon, and chicken. (I’d still eat fish and shellfish.) I became a sort-of vegetarian at the time, then later reverted to more Neandertal modes of eating. These days, most meat, 'specially barbeque just smells…vaguely burnt. I’ll still eat it–once in a while I get a real craving for a good gyro, which seems to be unattainable in LA–but I don’t generally get super excited about it (though I did have a fan-farking-tastic roast beef sandwich at an all-night place in Los Feliz on Monday morning.) I do like a good, freshly ground cannibal sandwich, which is about as anti-veg as you can get, but on occasion cooking meat really turns my stomach.
Stranger
I often think cooking meat smells wonderful. My former roommate is an omnivore and she’d make meaty dishes that smelled heavenly. Didn’t make me want to eat it, but certainly didn’t gross me out or anything.
I imagine it can’t be much different that smelling something yummy in the air when a food you don’t like is being prepared.
I’m a vegetarian and I can’t stand the smell of pork or eggs cooking, although I don’t mind the smell of chicken. I’m not particularly fond of the smell of beef cooking but I can deal with it. My parents are sometimes thoughtful about this–my mother will avoid cooking hot dogs or bacon when I’m in the kitchen, because she knows that the smell bothers me. When my roommates cook pork I usually open the windows and make sure that my bedroom door stays closed so that I can avoid the smell a little bit.
I think it depends on how accustomed you are to it. If you live with non-vegetarians and smell cooking meat regularly, I’d think you’d have a different reaction to someone who might only smell it once every few months.
To me (someone who’s been a vegetarian for years and years and isn’t surrounded by meat), most meat smells offensive. Beef is the most foul-smelling meat imaginable when cooking, and doesn’t get much better when it’s done, and the smell lingers for hours and sticks to everything. It’s really sickening. Some meats aren’t so bad. They don’t smell at all like food, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say they smell good, but they’re not retched. Pork doesn’t smell bad. Turkey has a rather more pungent odor that isn’t altogether pleasant, but isn’t too awful.
Would a roasting turkey turn me off? It’s not something I have to deal with often, but I’d say no. Would grilling burgers? Yes. Very much so. I can suffer through a chicken cooking, the smell of which is strong but tends to dissipate quickly; or a fish, which isn’t that bad; but beef is just nauseating, literally. I would have to leave–although I probably wouldn’t have been there to begin with.
I’ve been a vegetarian for 13 years, and I gotta say, I love the smell of bacon.
And, BrotherCadfael, it’s OK to have me over for dinner (apart from the fact that you don’t know me). I’m cool with whatever other people want to eat. I do, however, get a little fidgety if you grill me up something where a burger was just recently grilled, without cleaning in between. Would that be a problem? If it is, I would still accept the hypothetical invitation, but I’d refuse the veggie kabob.
I’m a semi-vegetarian. I don’t eat beef or pork because of morality reasons. I try to stay away from chicken and turkey but I actually do eat chicken quite often.
Anyway, the smell of beef cooking doesn’t bother me in the least bit. However sitting there and watching it cook, standing right over it, does make me feel somewhat nauseous and reinforces my feelings of “I will never eat beef or pork again”. I will cook with chicken, but I’m kind of OCD about washing my hands after touching it. I probably wash my hands 7 or 8 times during/after the cooking process.
I don’t get that nauseous feeling with chicken or turkey, although I never really thought the smell of turkey cooking was that great to begin with, even at Thanksgiving.
I’ve been a vegetarian for nine years, and I’m only 26, so eating meat isn’t something I really can recall. The smell can bother me, depending on the situation. That Pepperidge Farm “Beef Stick” is terrible – a roommate got some for Christmas last year, and it stunk up the whole apartment for hours upon each serving. Bleh. However, some dishes don’t bother me and smell kind of good, sometimes – for example barbeque, but I suppose you’re mostly smelling the sauce. Very intense meat smells, especially beef, make me a little queasy, but I don’t usually mention it unless asked. I’m sure my curry/paneer/whatever smells sometimes bother my less ethnic-food adventurous friends and co-workers, too.
13-months meat-free here.
(still eat fish, but I’m a vCJ vegetarian so, eh…)
Most of the time it doesn’t bother me, though I still feel like I could sit down and grab a hamburger and pick up where I left off so maybe my brain doesn’t realize I’ve stopped 
.
Once in a great while the smell of a sizzling hamburger or chicken fajitas will make my mouth water…
…I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
Although I’m not that type of vegetarian, rest assured that I would never choose to eat in the house of someone who decided to become defensive and make threats related to my dietary habits for no reason. :rolleyes:
At any rate, I’m a vegetarian, and I have been since I was a kid. Some cooking meat smells pretty good to me, and there’s actually a few kinds of meat that smell absolutely delicious when they cook. Frying sausages smell delicious, and when I’ve eaten them (in Spain, since I wanted to try the local food, and a lot of it was sausage) I just loved them. But most of it doesn’t affect me much either way. I agree with even sven in that a lot of it just doesn’t really smell like food to me. Turkeys in the oven don’t smell good (though they don’t bother me either), probably because the times I’ve tried turkey, I find it bland and unpleasant. There’s a few things, though, that make me feel faintly sick. Hamburgers being grilled or fried are one of them; I’m not sure why, but the smell is just absolutely nauseating to me, so I avoid the kitchen while they’re being cooked.
My one true love is a vegatarian (but eats eggs). But she will cook any meats I desire and usually says she really enjoys the smell. Especially turkey.
I’m MARRIED to a vegetarian, for Chrissake, so we know how to cook both in a reasonable way. Love to have you in if you’re in the neighborhood.
Excalibre, I’m not sure what to make of your post. Who’s being defensive? All I said was, if you are the kind of veggie who doesn’t mind that we eat what we eat while you eat what you eat, we’d love to have you. If you are the kind of asshole who insists that we not eat anything that YOU don’t like, we’d just as soon not have you around. And if you are the kind of person who finds that statement of fact objectionable, well, we’d just as soon not have you around, either.
So, :rolleyes: yourself.