Eating Beef

I have started eating beef. Yes, I finally did it. I have yet to explore the juicy stakes but nonetheless I am eating hot dogs and mind you I am loving them. Generally, people choose to go towards vegetarianism but I might be among the few who are heading towards "maukaterianism" (great phase I heard, meaning- eating anything you get at that moment). After being in US for almost 7 years, I strictly adhered to my preference of not eating beef. Nothing about religion per se, but since I am born and brought up in India, cows were holy to me. (When I told this to an American friend, he said only Indian cows are holy. American cows are tasty :-)) Jokes apart. But since a while I have been thinking about my eating habits and wondering why I had this mental block about beef and will it mean something if I eat it?

My family is not a vegetarian family. I ate meat since I was born. But of course, being in India meat was fish and chicken and occasionally mutton. I remember eating pork dogs once though. My mother started eating meat after she got married. She has a great attitude about it. She always says "I will try everything and if I don't like it, I won't eat it." I think this definitely influenced me when it came to trying different meats in US. But still I was particular about not eating beef. I had mistakenly had beef in chili since I had no clue what chili was. But knowingly I never ate it.

After thinking about it for a long time, I realized that I am unnecessarily restricting myself thinking that eating beef is bad. (It could be for health reasons, but my dilemma has been a moral one.) I eat pork and love then why not beef? It has nothing to do with God. I know that God doesn't care about what I eat. But still the cultural impact was so strong that at times I would urge V not to eat it. Now, I find that hilarious.

Even after enjoying pork and beef sausages I won't be eating it all the time. My diet still contains vegetables, fruits and white meat. But I want to expand my choices. Since I saw Julie and Julia, I wanted to eat Beef Bourguigno , Julia Child's Beef Bourguigno! Perhaps this prompted me to rethink about my "not eating beef mentality". As a food lover, I feel I should be open to all cuisines and foods to make my life richer and interesting.

So now since all you know about my new adventure, any suggestions for great first stake?