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The Vegetarian Carnivore

But does Yotam Ottolenghi eat pork?

by
Marc Tracy
April 27, 2011
Yotam Ottolenghi.(NYT)
Yotam Ottolenghi.(NYT)

When you read that there exists a chef “who is famous for making it chic to eat your vegetables” but whose own personal carnivorous habits “discredit him in the eyes of the most devout abstainers,” something in you—or in me, anyway—naturally assumes he is a Jew.

But naturally, Yotam Ottolenghi is a half-German, half-Italian, Jerusalem-born IDF vet who used to work at Haaretz and whose business partner is a Palestinian who is also from Jerusalem. “One pasta unites his grandmother’s Passover specialty, fried and pickled zucchini, with edamame.” Yotam Ottolenghi, 1; the rest of humanity, 0.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.