12-08-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Why Is Martha's Vineyard Going Vegan? It's All About Tick Bites.
On Martha's Vineyard, this was supposed to be the summer of the shark. Instead, it's the time of the tick.
The Massachusetts island is throwing a monthslong party for the 50th birthday of 'Jaws,' with tours of locations where the movie was filmed, a museum show, grinning-shark cashmere sweaters and a commemorative kale salad featuring turnips carved in the shape of sharks' teeth.
As the season has gone on, though, great white sharks have been replaced as the Vineyard's scariest animal. When islanders get together these days, they talk about their fears of an eight-legged creature the size of a grape seed.
On the porch of the Chilmark General Store and at sunset-watching parties on Menemsha Beach, conversations circle ineluctably to the lone star tick, which after a single bite can leave people with a life-threatening allergy to most meat and dairy.
Known as alpha-gal syndrome, the condition is changing the way many people shop, cook and eat in a place long known as a food-lover's retreat for its thriving independent farms and restaurants. These new habits may prove to be lasting, as some islanders who initially avoided beef and cheese temporarily, out of necessity, later give them up for good out of preference.
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