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Thoughts on veggie food, work, play and life in general

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Flyer to Nowhere

Flyer restaruant menu

A flyer for a new menu at a local pub dropped thought my door.  I have never had the opportunity to go to this place before, even though I drive past it quite frequently, so I was curious to see what they offered.

Flyer restaruant menu

The menu started off well with two starters marked as suitable for vegetarians and so my hopes were raised.  And that is where it ended.  I looked and looked again.  Burgers, Mains, Specials, Desserts – not a vegetarian offering in sight,

In the small print at the bottom were the words ”Please discuss any dietary requirements with us”.  So a glimmer of hope that they could muster up a vegetarian/vegan option if you rang them (and asked nicely).

I fail to understand why you would indicate vegetarian friendly starters and then provide no mains.  The onus is now on me to phone and have THAT conversation, and then feel easily identifiable an slightly awkward when I turn up to eat.

From a marketing perspective is this not a fail from the outset?  A flyer is meant to entice people to spend their money with you.  It is also an expensive form of marketing.  With more people turning to a meat free diet every day, by not advertising meat free options you are excluding 2% of the population.

As teenagers make up the highest proportion of vegetarians you are now excluding/making it difficult for the family trade, which is also a lucrative part of the market.

So a plea to menu planners: double check where your meatless offering starts and stops.  Are you happy with it? And who will you be stopping visiting your establishment?  Can you afford to do this?

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Happy Cheesemas

Its that time of year when the Christmas party is being organised.  Desks fill with seemingly endless piles of menus.

My meat eating colleagues coo over the different options available to them – the traditional turkey course appearing to take second place to duck, beef or fish options.  I on the other hand sit there looking at endless cheese based courses, desperately wondering what happened to all the other glorious options out there.

My hear briefly rose at the vista of a nut roast, but quickly sank when it is finished with a stilton sauce.  Not so bad?  Well maybe if the two starter options weren’t mushrooms stuffed with goats cheese, or parsnip and stilton soup. Oh yes the choice of the same cheese for both courses, how imaginative.  So imaginative that it is repeated in countless menus throughout the land.

I don’t understand how the people who put these menus together can even start to pretend to know anything about food.  Are they scared to cook with different ingredients or spices?  Do they know other ingredients exist?

I would love to see something like a spinach and mushroom roulade, a chickpea wellington, cashew nut and red pepper roast or spicy butternut squash with chickpeas.  All these go well (in my opinion) with the traditional Christmas veg.

Alas the world of variety of food for vegetarians at Christmas is one that passes the vast majority of caterers by.  And leaves me planning what to eat before I go, and how to survive the evening.

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So You’re Vegetarian Part 2

Once the initial ‘So you’re vegetarian? – you don’t look like a vegetarian’ comments are done I can guarantee that in 98% of cases the next sentence is ‘I don’t each much meat these days’.

To be honest, I don’t care.  I am not here to make  judgement on your eating habits, unless they are causing you health problems. I’m much more interested in you – who you are, what you do and your interests.  Remarks like these make me feel that the person is trying to justify their diet choice.

Mention of meat consumption always comes before any mention of animal cruelty, or the understanding of where food comes from.  The journey from farm to shelf seems to be completely overlooked.  I do not wade in there and check their understanding of this process, and that they are at peace with their choice.

Blinkered Businessman

It’s the remaining 2% of ‘I could never give up eating meat’ respondents who I sometimes have fun with. This often happens at a buffet where they are enjoying eating the veggie options before the meat ones.  Most of the time I just say ‘fair enough’. This flummoxes them as I think they are expecting a fight.  It is their choice. I understand that – as much a being vegetarian is my choice.

It’s the people who quiz me further, then reveal that they don’t want to know where their food comes from who make me angry.  Its as though as long as it tastes good and is packaged nicely they will eat anything. Which to me is wrong.

Whatever your diet choice you should always be fully aware of what you are putting into your body – where it has come from, how it is processed and what, if anything, is added to it. Are you happy with every element of this process? Just don’t feel you need me to justify it for you.

 

 

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So You’re Vegetarian? Part 1

‘So you’re vegetarian? I’d never have guessed’ is the line I hear 99% of the time when I  confess to being the only vegetarian in room/party/course etc.

It always makes me worry that I don’t look like a vegetarian. But then I don’t know what a vegetarian looks like. In my social circle I know very few other true vegetarians. And those I do know I tend to refer to by their name, or what they do, or what they are like. Not what diet they follow. These lovely people are all active people leading normal lives, and dressing, well, normally.

Is there something I am not aware of that I should be wearing to make it obvious that I am vegetarian? Can someone point me (and my friends) to the vegetarian dress code? Does it need to be obvious that I am vegetarian?

Some people say I look too well to be a vegetarian (especially the French!). I know an awful lot of unwell/unwell looking meat eaters but I don’t mention it. Whatever diet you follow, if you don’t follow it well you too could look unwell.

For me being vegetarian is a lifestyle choice I made over 30 years ago. I love fast food, I don’t exercise enough and I don’t drink enough water, but I am happy with who I am and how I look.

I now find it hard not to smile when people say I look too well or don’t look like a vegetarian. I am considering starting to reply that I am part of an elite network of people whose sole objective is to keep carnivores from the evils of vegetarian food. It’s a sacrifice, but I’m up for it.

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Salad – Veggie Heaven, Right?

Salad is defined as ‘a cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat fish or other ingredients.

As a vegetarian eating out ‘sometimes accompanied’ needs to be changed to ‘uusally accompanied by meat or fish’. A large number of establishments do not offer a vegetarian salad. Now is it just me or does this sound a bit bizarre? A traditionally vegetable based dish that vegetarians can’t eat.

My theory is thqt it is the fear of producing a dish without an obvvious protein element – prefectly acceptable for a side saladh, but not for a main.
Of course the easiest default here is cheese, but even that doesn’t happen that often (sigh of relief) Why is it that other ingredients are overlooked? Mixed beans, nuts (ooh pine nuts), quinoa, egg- all these seem to be overlooked.
I’m not the best cook in the world but I don’t understand why creating a salad around non meant or fish ingredients is so difficult.

The most annoying part is asking for a meat free version and being told it can’t be done. A restaurant I visited recenlty told me I couldn’t have the avocado and bacon salad without the bacon as it was pre mixed. This being the case Im not sure how they cannback up their boast of everything being freshly made, and thus may take longer to serve. What a waste of avocado. By pre-mixing they have just made their menu less flexible and reduced the choice available, with little extra effort.

Some of the bigger chains do offer some gorgeous vege friendly salads and are, in my experience, more able to be flexible and take out elements you may not want to eat. It is ususally the independent restaurants and pubs – the ones we need to be supporting – that seem to be missing a trick here.

So next time you are eating out, check out the salad section. How many immediatley vegetarian freindly options are there? And does the menu indicate that you are welcome to ask for changes.

 

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The Joy of Being Veggie

I became veggie in my early teens on a whim – I wanted to see what it was like. I was aware of animal cruelty in the food chain, animal testing, the fur trade etc, and I found it wrong that people would eat something prepared by someone else, but went all squeamish at the thought of having to kill their food for themselves.

My Mother had brought us up to eat vegetables with every meal and pulses were already a frequent item in our meals. It must have been daunting for her – there were 5 of us to feed and now I was asking to eat differently to the others. Even so my Mother was very encouraging. She bought me a cookbook, showed me how to prepare pulses from scratch and shared the food I prepared. I still have that first cookbook and clearly remember the joy of reading that plain chocolate was a store cupboard essential because of its iron content.

In the 30 years since, although my cooking has improved and the range of ingredients available has increased, eating out still fills me with dread. Chinese and Indian are great to eat out at, Thai not so much because of the fish sauce, however eating at pubs and mainstream restaurants can be so boring. The reason for this? The mainstream chef’s love affair with cheese. Its as though they panic when being asked to have a veggie option on the menu & thonk lets do something with cheese.

Perfectly good mushroom burgers have to have a slab of halloumi on them, beautiful salads are smothered in feta, hot dishes have to have a cheese topping. If the chef is realy going for it both the veggie starter and main will be cheese filled. If I wanted to eat the same thing at each course I would eat at home. Eating out should be filled with variety. I love discussing food, and have no problems with eating with meat eaters and asking them about their food and the mix of flavours. As a veggie you just get the same cheese flavour with a different base. Boring.

Don’t get me wrong, I do eat (vegetarian) cheese, however strong cheeses can trigger migraines and I don’t like the taste of halloumi, feta, strong cheddars and parmesean (lets not start on the parmesean issue just yet). With so many other ingredients out there it baffles me why chefs think that all we eat is cheese.

So for me eating out can be stressful and disappointing. I don’t enjoy asking for a cheese free version of something. I’d like to have a cheese free choice in the first place. Even something as simple as Pasta Neopolitan or Penne Arrabiata,so we can go all Death Star canteen, would be a welcome change.

So if any chefs are reading this please think of something other than cheese – other forms of protein are avaialble.

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