My first year out of high school was also my first vegetarian year (and only, since I became a vegan after a year of vegetarianism). I hated high school, and I thought college would be more of the same, so I didn’t apply for any. I changed my mind after my mom threatened to charge me rent, but all the application deadlines for major universities had passed, so off to a local community college I went.

Just as I would later do for most of my semesters at the university, for my year in community college I took a bunch of random classes that had nothing to do with me eventually graduating. One of the classes was a multicultural awareness class.

It was a good class. The teacher was part Japanese, part Native American, part white and pure earnestness. We watched classic movies that delved into cultural issues, and had discussions about our own varied backgrounds. Luckily, the class had a good mixture, so these discussions actually were illuminating.

I most distinctly remember the last day (not surprisingly, since that happened the most recently). Instead of going to the classroom, we met at the teacher’s house for a potluck of foods from all of our cultures.

I don’t remember what I brought. But I do remember that an African American woman in the class brought greens with ham hocks. It was mainly greens, but the little specks of meat were enough to make the dish unacceptable for vegetarian me. I tried to slip away without taking any, but the proud cook saw that I neglected her dish. She asked me to try it. I explained that I was a vegetarian and that I didn’t eat meat, not even little bits of it.

Somehow that failed to persuade her. She wanted me to try her dish so badly that she insisted, almost to the point of begging: would I please just try even a little of it? It apparently meant a lot to her that I try this food that she had grown up with and that she considered an important part of her culture. Yet I again adamantly refused. Vegetarian. Can’t.

“Your culture isn’t good enough for me,” in other words.

Did I learn anything from that damn class? Well, yes, I learned that I loved the movie Little Big Man (still do). But when I had the chance to respect the culture of one of my classmates, my rigid principles turned me into an elitist asshole.

Not all vegetarians or vegans would have made the same decision I did. Some might have taken greens without pieces of ham on them. (Though since bacon grease permeated the entire thing, few vegetarians would have made such a compromise.) But to the extent that a vegetarian would be flexible and try the dish, they would be deviating from orthodox vegetarianism. My refusal was the right thing to do from the veg perspective. Which means that, in this case at least, the veg perspective was wrong.

To be fair, from the Halal, Hindu, Jain or Kosher perspectives, this dish also would have been verboten. But I think she would have understood it in those cases. Forcing her swine-infused dish on Jews, Jains or Muslims would have been disrespectful of their cultures. But since vegetarianism wasn’t my culture, my refusal just seemed rude.

Some vegans might argue that to give in and try her hammy dish because it was her culture would have represented a dangerous cultural relativism that could justify trying human flesh if you happen to be hanging out with a head-hunting tribe and don’t want to offend them.

But then, if you resort to comparing lovers of soul food to cannibals, you will only look rude as hell.