Avery Yale Kamila in the King Gallery at the Maine Historical Society Museum in Portland, where she has co-curated an exhibit about the state’s history of vegetarianism. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer While you may be seeing more and more vegetarian and vegan restaurants or dishes on menus around the state these days, Portland-based journalist and community organizer Avery Yale Kamila wants you to realize that plant-based diets are nothing new here. In fact, vegetarians have been in Maine for centuries, even predating the word “vegetarian.
” WHAT: Maine’s Untold Vegetarian History WHERE: The King Gallery of the Maine Historical Society, 489 Congress St., Portland, mainehistory.org WHEN: Showing now through May 17 COST: Free for museum member adults and children; $10 for non-member adults and $5 for non-member children.
Tickets are available online or at the door, and provide access to all of the museum’s gallery exhibits. A companion booklet of Maine vegetarian history essays by Avery Yale Kamila accompanies the exhibition and is on sale in the museum store. Kamila knows a thing or two about plant-based eating.
A vegan since 1991, she writes the Vegan Kitchen column for the Maine Sunday Telegram and has been the Press Herald’s plant-based food columnist for 15 years . In 2020, she created the Maine Vegetarian History Project. This month, the Maine Historical Society Museum debuted “Maine’s Untold Vegetarian History,” an exhibit that Kamila co-curated with Joh.
