Vegetarianism: a trivial pursuit?
Now here's a post I - a committed and unrepentant carnivore - never thought I'd be writing...
Having been a vegetarian for several years in the past, Jen has recently made the decision to go back to it on ethical and environmental grounds. Who would have thought it would have been so difficult? Over the course of the festive period, we've eaten out a lot and I've been appalled at the sort of thing she's had to put up with. A quick survey:
* When she pointed out in a Bury pub that there were no vegetarian main courses, she was first offered fish (!) and then, reluctantly, a mushroom omelette. Not liking eggs, she ended up having to settle for a jacket potato with cheese and beans, the only vegetarian dish on the bar snack menu.
* At a Chinese restaurant in Northumberland her "vegetarian" hot and sour soup initially came with bits of pork floating in it, and then, while we enjoyed an enormous banquet, the best they could do for her was a bowl of vegetable noodles from the side dishes. Chinese restaurants are notoriously bad in this respect, true, but if Cafe Soya can manage it, surely other oriental restaurants can too?
* Back in Bury a takeaway calzone, supposedly vegetarian, arrived stuffed full of ham and pepperoni. Having waited an hour for the delivery, this was more than a little annoying.
* At the new second home of one of our favourite local restaurants in Oxford, Jen was puzzled by the lack of V symbols on the menu but was assured that the pizza that caught her eye was vegetarian - only for us to discover that the untranslated term refers to anchovies...
And, to add insult to the injury of being continually let down, lied to and treated like a second-class diner, we were playing Trivial Pursuit the other night and one question declared that vegetarians form a "faddish" 7% of the UK population...
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
It's certainly a lot easier to get good vegetarian food in Canada, especially in Guelph... hell, there's a popular Toronto-based burger chain that has a veggie burger so good that I (another committed and unrepentant carnivore) have never tried their beef version.
I hope Jen finds some good places though, I can only imagine how maddening this must be.
Tin Tin in Birmingham has speech marks around the word on their menu...
'Suitable for "vegetarians".'
... as if to say 'These so-called "vegetarians".'
Always makes me chuckle, but then I'm not on the wrong end of it.
That's really interesting, actually. When I was a veggie (a few years back) I used to have the same problem - "fish" appears to be classed as a veggie option (!).
I spent most of my time in restaurants eating mushroom stroganoff, which appeared to be the de rigeur veggie option of choice. Sad to see that nothing much seems to have changed....
Ian: One of our favourite places in Cardiff is veggie-only, and there's also a great pub here in Oxford that only serves veggie (they do a burger too, but I've only ever had the roasted pepper and chilli calzone because it's so good!). The specialist sausage and mash restaurant here also has a good selection of veggie sausages. So, there are some places where vegetarians are made to feel welcome, at least...
RussL: Perhaps they're saying 'Suitable for what we define as "vegetarians" i.e. people who don't mind the odd bit of ham'?
Lord B: It doesn't help, of course, that an annoying amount of people consider themselves to be vegetarian and yet happily eat fish - there are a couple on my team at work. And yes, mushroom stroganoff - together with some kind of omelette - seems to be a definite default option.
Having dated a number of veges over the years, it can be a nightmare. London is usually fine, simply because it has to be.
It's the Gordon Ramsey attitude that really irritates me. I just want to punch him in his stupid face.
Post a Comment