My name is Val...& I want to be a vegetarian
I am telling my neighbour, Ted, about a close family member – I shall call her Mrs C to avoid the possibility of litigation – who laughingly insists that chicken is a vegetable substitute. And a very tasty one it is, when Mrs C cooks it. In the past I’ve been inclined to not bother with the real vegetables at all.
I hand Ted a mug of coffee and take a sip from my glass of freshly pressed fruit juice.
‘Delicious! Apple, pear and kiwi fruit.’
Ted pulls a face. ‘You can’t survive on that.’
‘I don’t intend to. I shall have a meat-free stew for dinner with vegetarian dumplings. How about you?’
‘Oh, I’ve taken a couple of pigs’ trotters out of the freezer,’ he replies with relish.
Ted is the uncomplicated, Hannibal Lecter of the meat-eating world. He revels in scoffing all that makes me queasy: ox tongue, heart, livers, kidneys…
‘Didn’t you have pigs’ trotters yesterday?’
‘They come in packs of four.’
‘Doesn’t the thought of a dear little piggy trotting about in those very trotters, put you off?’
Sternly, he looks at me over the top of his genuine tortoiseshell, circa 1967, spectacles. ‘I grew up during the war. We had to eat what we could get.’
‘But nowadays you can eat what you want.’
‘I want to eat pigs’ trotters.’
Sitting across the table from Ted, I am inclined to ‘trot’ out research, that if a man avoids red meat (no mention of women in this research), it improves the sex appeal of his... errm… body odour.
However, I know for a fact that this nugget of information would butter no parsnips with Ted. He has told me in strictest confidence that he only ever immerses himself fully in warm water when sunlight through the landing window strikes his bath at a particular angle.
I am, at the moment, perched on the horns of a dilemma – not over Ted and his bath – but because I’m trying once again to become a vegetarian. My last serious attempt was scuppered. It was Easter, 2005. I had gone down to visit my aunt in Worthing with the intention of proclaiming, ‘No meat for me, Aunty. I’ve been a vegetarian since the first of January!’
But there stood Aunty, carving a crisp-to-burnt chicken. Drooping from her mouth hung a cigarette with an inch of ash on the end. I turned away to gather courage from a schooner of cream sherry – and turned back to find that Aunt’s inch of ash had disappeared and the chicken breast was sprinkled with – pale grey pepper?
I was appalled. I looked from chicken to Aunty, sawing away at the bird with her blunt Kitchen Devil and emanating good humour to be sharing lunch with her niece.
I couldn’t do it. In one sentence I would spoil her Easter and how many Easters did she have left? (Quite a few, actually!)
Of course, I have a right to my views, but this is the problem: how to assert them with carnivore friends and family? I want to please every one but invariably end up behaving like a wishy-washy ineffectual – if there is such a noun.
It reminds me of childhood, when I couldn’t bear to beat my brother at Monopoly. Our games went on interminably, as I sat on a five-hundredpound note and a Community Chest card offering me ten pounds for winning second prize in a beauty contest, while pretending I couldn’t afford to buy a house on Mayfair.
I want to be a vegetarian, but a) I don’t want to spoil meat-eating for the meat-eaters, and b) as a woman who continues to like bacon and sausages as much as she likes Dolly Mixtures and Battenberg fingers, which is very much indeed – I easily succumb to temptation.
My vegetarian friends don’t make my life any easier. And why should they? (I’m covering myself here for fear of a veggie-friend backlash.) If only they didn’t so vocally appear to have right on their side.
Oldest friend, Deirdre, insists loudly, ‘Honestly Val, anyone can have a perfectly healthy diet without eating something that has once been alive and kicking.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.
’ ‘Eating meat leads to all manner of health problems.’
‘You’re not wrong.’
‘You wouldn’t eat one of your cats, would you?’
‘Not unless I was very peckish.’ D
eirdre refuses to smile back at me. ‘If you’re going to turn something serious into a joke…’
‘Deirdre, turning serious subjects into a joke is what I do!’
Ted taps his coffee mug twice on the table, which is a sign he’d like a re-fill.
I comply.
‘I give it a fortnight,’ he says. ‘Your conversion.’
Which as far as I’m concerned, as I shovel sugar into Ted’s coffee, is a red rag to a bull (I see myself as a fine-looking, Aberdeen Angus).
‘Game on, Ted,’ I say, which surprises him. This is not a phrase I’ve ever used before.
From now on I intend to emulate Diane Keaton, Emmylou Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer: strong, vegetarian women. I try to recall some male vegetarian celebrities who might impress Ted. Dismiss Paul McCartney and Prince. Ted doesn’t like anyone who has become famous within the last 50 years.
‘Ted, did you know that Leonardo da Vinci was a vegetarian?’
Ted is unimpressed. ‘Not surprised at all. He was rubbish in Titanic. Kate Winslet could have eaten him for breakfast!’
Always You, Edina by VG Lee (Ward Wood Publishing, £9.99).
I hand Ted a mug of coffee and take a sip from my glass of freshly pressed fruit juice.
‘Delicious! Apple, pear and kiwi fruit.’
Ted pulls a face. ‘You can’t survive on that.’
‘I don’t intend to. I shall have a meat-free stew for dinner with vegetarian dumplings. How about you?’
‘Oh, I’ve taken a couple of pigs’ trotters out of the freezer,’ he replies with relish.
Ted is the uncomplicated, Hannibal Lecter of the meat-eating world. He revels in scoffing all that makes me queasy: ox tongue, heart, livers, kidneys…
‘Didn’t you have pigs’ trotters yesterday?’
‘They come in packs of four.’
‘Doesn’t the thought of a dear little piggy trotting about in those very trotters, put you off?’
Sternly, he looks at me over the top of his genuine tortoiseshell, circa 1967, spectacles. ‘I grew up during the war. We had to eat what we could get.’
‘But nowadays you can eat what you want.’
‘I want to eat pigs’ trotters.’
Sitting across the table from Ted, I am inclined to ‘trot’ out research, that if a man avoids red meat (no mention of women in this research), it improves the sex appeal of his... errm… body odour.
However, I know for a fact that this nugget of information would butter no parsnips with Ted. He has told me in strictest confidence that he only ever immerses himself fully in warm water when sunlight through the landing window strikes his bath at a particular angle.
I am, at the moment, perched on the horns of a dilemma – not over Ted and his bath – but because I’m trying once again to become a vegetarian. My last serious attempt was scuppered. It was Easter, 2005. I had gone down to visit my aunt in Worthing with the intention of proclaiming, ‘No meat for me, Aunty. I’ve been a vegetarian since the first of January!’
But there stood Aunty, carving a crisp-to-burnt chicken. Drooping from her mouth hung a cigarette with an inch of ash on the end. I turned away to gather courage from a schooner of cream sherry – and turned back to find that Aunt’s inch of ash had disappeared and the chicken breast was sprinkled with – pale grey pepper?
I was appalled. I looked from chicken to Aunty, sawing away at the bird with her blunt Kitchen Devil and emanating good humour to be sharing lunch with her niece.
I couldn’t do it. In one sentence I would spoil her Easter and how many Easters did she have left? (Quite a few, actually!)
Of course, I have a right to my views, but this is the problem: how to assert them with carnivore friends and family? I want to please every one but invariably end up behaving like a wishy-washy ineffectual – if there is such a noun.
It reminds me of childhood, when I couldn’t bear to beat my brother at Monopoly. Our games went on interminably, as I sat on a five-hundredpound note and a Community Chest card offering me ten pounds for winning second prize in a beauty contest, while pretending I couldn’t afford to buy a house on Mayfair.
I want to be a vegetarian, but a) I don’t want to spoil meat-eating for the meat-eaters, and b) as a woman who continues to like bacon and sausages as much as she likes Dolly Mixtures and Battenberg fingers, which is very much indeed – I easily succumb to temptation.
My vegetarian friends don’t make my life any easier. And why should they? (I’m covering myself here for fear of a veggie-friend backlash.) If only they didn’t so vocally appear to have right on their side.
Oldest friend, Deirdre, insists loudly, ‘Honestly Val, anyone can have a perfectly healthy diet without eating something that has once been alive and kicking.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.
’ ‘Eating meat leads to all manner of health problems.’
‘You’re not wrong.’
‘You wouldn’t eat one of your cats, would you?’
‘Not unless I was very peckish.’ D
eirdre refuses to smile back at me. ‘If you’re going to turn something serious into a joke…’
‘Deirdre, turning serious subjects into a joke is what I do!’
Ted taps his coffee mug twice on the table, which is a sign he’d like a re-fill.
I comply.
‘I give it a fortnight,’ he says. ‘Your conversion.’
Which as far as I’m concerned, as I shovel sugar into Ted’s coffee, is a red rag to a bull (I see myself as a fine-looking, Aberdeen Angus).
‘Game on, Ted,’ I say, which surprises him. This is not a phrase I’ve ever used before.
From now on I intend to emulate Diane Keaton, Emmylou Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer: strong, vegetarian women. I try to recall some male vegetarian celebrities who might impress Ted. Dismiss Paul McCartney and Prince. Ted doesn’t like anyone who has become famous within the last 50 years.
‘Ted, did you know that Leonardo da Vinci was a vegetarian?’
Ted is unimpressed. ‘Not surprised at all. He was rubbish in Titanic. Kate Winslet could have eaten him for breakfast!’
Always You, Edina by VG Lee (Ward Wood Publishing, £9.99).