Vegetarian

Aged twelve, I was invited to Sunday lunch by a school friend. It was a more formal affair than at home. My friend had three younger brothers and they sat solemnly around the table, hands clasped in laps, while their father, a vicar, incanted grace. I had read about prayers before meals in Jane Austen novels but, coming from a rabidly atheist family, bracketed the custom with ancient rites like head shrinking. Encountering it in twentieth century suburbia was as much of a surprise as stumbling on bear baiting in the local Wetherspoons. My friend’s mother, the plump, capable woman you’d expect of a vicar’s wife, hefted a serving platter bearing a leg of lamb from the sideboard and placed it before the head of the household. As it steamed in the chilly protestant air, the parson apportioned the joint, impaling each piece with a fork as it unpeeled and depositing it on a plate proffered by his wife. She gave it to the nearest child from whence it was passed around the table by human conveyor belt. It was not until I had a full complement of vegetables on my plate that the second surprise registered. Having attended to the needs of his family and their guest, this man of the cloth had helped himself to a portion of meat and was tucking in like a trencherman. My father didn’t eat meat and would have had no notion how to carve a joint; subconsciously I had attributed these unorthodox characteristics to all adult men.

My father was a strict vegetarian, eschewed fish and was obliged to subsist on a diet whose only source of protein was eggs and cheese, mostly, in those days, cheddar or Edam. During family holidays in France, restaurateurs would be bemused by his demurral over bacon in an omelette.

In thrall to the message of the influential Limits to Growth and other prescient works of the 1970s, I became a vegetarian in early adulthood. Public perception of vegetarianism had scarcely altered since Oscar Wilde remarked, ‘I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.’ So even in London, acquiring basic ingredients such as blackeye peas necessitated journeying to obscure parts of the capital and patronising establishments hardly less sleazy than Soho porn shops.

I was a convert but not a zealot. In search of like-minded people during the summer holiday after my second year at university, I joined the London vegetarian society. After a meal at one of the then rare, veggie restaurants, we repaired to Hampstead Heath and lounged on the grass. Cheque cards and credit cards were still a novelty and we fell to comparing the contents of our wallets. Thinking it a trump card, I produced, with some pride, my identity card for the National Institute for Medical Research where I had won a summer internship. Immediately the group recoiled and I was cold-shouldered for the rest of the evening.

My ten year penance ended with a dietary rebellion marking the termination of my first marriage. During the following decades, I would jocularly refer to my status as a ‘reformed vegetarian’, occasionally meeting people of a similar age who had travelled the same path, most notably my friend Andy.

A generation later, and influenced by a three month sojourn in meat-dominated Italy, my daughter Hermione announced she was adopting vegetarianism. While continuing to eat fish, she was renouncing meat on the same grounds I had done thirty years earlier. Environmental concerns around the inefficiency of feeding cereals to animals were now supplemented by even more cogent and worrisome arguments about the impact of ruminants’ methane emissions on climate change, lucidly and compellingly articulated by advocates such as the Guardian’s George Monbiot.

Over nearly two decades of living by myself, I have eaten less and less meat at home. Eventually it reduced to lunchtime precooked chicken, more for convenience than in an attempt to titillate my degraded taste buds. Even when presented with a restaurant menu, I would often opt for the non-meat option. Recently, having selected a goat’s cheese and roasted vegetable wrap from a pub menu dominated by the usual meaty fare, a new acquaintance asked whether I was a vegetarian. Surprised by the question, I said no, sensing that justification was expected for my choice if it was not dictated by conviction.

These behavioural nudges triggered a cautious exploration of the unfamiliar aisles of the supermarket. With what would I substitute dull chicken if I wanted to transition from eating minimal meat at home to none, without resorting to eggs or spending hours boiling grains? I discovered a cornucopia! A burgeoning population of vegetarians and pescatarians; the invention of meat-less Monday; a market for ethic ingredients by immigrants have all conspired to generate an expanded demand for vegetarian options. The infinitely malleable Quorn and similar products facilitated much of the solution. Now, the challenge is what to buy from the mesmerising choice available.

This time, I will not label myself a vegetarian, nor will I demand special treatment at dinner parties, my aversion to beetroot excepted. Instead, without fanfare, I will effect a small shift in my preferences to align myself more closely with the culinary and environmental zeitgeist.