on vegetarian menus and a lack of sunshine
I’m sick of unimaginative chefs confusing vegetarianism with health food. Most people who don’t eat meat, don’t eat meat because they know it’s unjust to force a sentient being to live a life of suffering just to fill our stomachs with nutrients that could easily come from pain-free avenues. So when I go out to eat with my omnivore friends, I don’t want to see them eating a side of sweet potato chips and big chunks of filling bread with their dead animals, while I nibble on a variety of calorie-free lettuce leaves with a selection of steamed vegetables. I want just as much access to fried foods and I want a big portion of filling and nutritious beans, lentils or tofu to go with it. And I don’t want stinky goat’s cheese. Enough of the stinky goat’s cheese.
It’s spring. We haven’t seen the sun here in Edinburgh for close to a week. It’s been either foggy, dull-cloudy or drizzly for at least 7 days, maybe 70, feels like 700. And it’s been 20 degrees and sunny in London, while complete gloom with a high of 7 degrees has been bestowed on us. We’re only four hours away by train, so clearly this is not a natural phenomenon, but the work of the British government trying to sway the independence vote in September. Flexing their weather-control muscles to make us all miserable will not work!
Shame on the chefs and shame on the weather!
Ah yes, few suspect it, and even fewer know it, but the BBC *weatherman* is in fact the long arm of MI5, bending peoples moods in accord to whatever sinister new game has been dreamed up in the well-appointed smoking rooms of 16 St James’s Square, London.
LikeLike
Why are they being so nice to Brazil??
LikeLike
They haven’t. We had a bastard hot summer with no rain for 8 straight weeks. It was ghastly.
LikeLike
Liar. You told me it rained only yesterday. And, oh, poor you, seeing blue sky every day instead of
GLOOM
and
COLD
DRIZZLE.
LikeLike
Yes, it rained *yesterday* (and today), but it *didn’t rain* for 8 weeks a while ago. I’m surprised i didn’t whine to you about it. I think i whinged to just about everyone else.
LikeLike
If you did, I would have put my fingers in my ears and gone “la la la” while samba-ing round my gloomy living room. Like I’m doing now.
LikeLike
I find that very hard to believe… Particularly after that wailing, downtrodden, woe-is-me song you thought everyone should hear yesterday 😉
LikeLike
Duh, well obviously, I spend my days weeping in my porridge. 🙂
LikeLike
I just asked Tom about your comment in moderation.
LikeLike
Annnnd…….
LikeLike
“I generally approve all comments, except for the profane or the nonsensical, but sometimes I get behind reading them when I get busy, as I have been in recent weeks. I’ll try to review his and other comments tonight. Thanks for the heads up.”
LikeLike
Oh, terrific!
LikeLike
Pop over here and comment, you’re his best friend and know him most intimately:
LikeLike
Wow! Who’s Rayan? SOM’s getting famous 🙂
LikeLike
With the god God on your side, your light will surely shine. 🙂
LikeLike
Ramen, Sistah! I think we should stick close to SOM ship… That boy is going places 🙂
LikeLike
No meat- that certainly explains your temperament 🙂 If I didn’t eat meat I’d always be ready to slap the next person to cross my path!
I’m furthering my investigation into something, could you give me the IP’s you’ve got for tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber, as you said they don’t match the one I’ve got? I want to figure out what exactly is going on.
During the anti-gay campaign when Spain was passing gay marriage in 2005, we discovered American (Evangelical) groups were hired to flood the internet with propaganda. It came out of different states, but anyway, it was all the same groups. And as they always mention the French Manif stuff, I’m wondering if there isn’t a connection… The anti-gay groups in France have already been exposed as having done similar things, creating fake internet personas and even fake organizations etc.
LikeLike
Oooh, I love a good conspiracy! Hewho seems to have disappeared, maybe he’s setting up his own blog.
LikeLike
Ever been to Boston? It is not far north of London, but many degrees colder. It has been the same since George III, who could not get back at the replica so attacked the original.
LikeLike
I’ve never heard of it, and I had to google your historical reference. I’m confused – is that relevant to lack of sunshine or vegetarian meals? Honestly, my brain’s ground to a halt in a gloom.
LikeLike
It was the weather I meant, the Government smiting Scotland. I had not heard of Boston until I went there- initially passing through on my way to the Norfolk Broads, and then for a job interview: but had they offered it, the cold would have been a disincentive.
LikeLike
I don’t think Pink has heard of peaceful lentil-loving hippies. Prob before his time. And yours.
It’s a good point about health/veg food. It’s also an excuse to charge a premium price for very little.
I had a real spat at one restaurant. The menu said quite clearly that all main courses included chips/rice/salad/veg/whatever. To the customer’s choice, one was included, any extra was charged for. That’s fair enough. I can’t remember what we ordered, say a rice dish? Mushroom stroganoff or something? Well, we’ll have a salad with that, and whatever he ordered we’d have chips with, so we could share.
So there we were with main courses as described on the menu plus one extra each included in the price. Oh no. We had to pay extra for ours because we’d already got a chips or a rice or whatever with the main course as the menu stated.
I told them to take it back if they were charging. Then they brought something else and it appeared on the bill. It was strange and getting quite nasty. I mistakenly backed off (rare) although didn’t pay the extra on the bill, checked the menu later, and discovered I’d been right. I’ve never been back.
The point of that boring anecdote is not only do people think vegetarians exist on lettuce leaves (about which I have written copiously) but they seem to think they don’t need anything with their main course. No chips, no rice, no veg, no salad, because the main meal is vegetables of some type and that’s all they eat. Ignorant, I tell you. When will they teach people about vegetarian cookery at catering colleges? They haven’t done in the last 30 years I can tell you.
Goats cheese and mushroom risotto are the new veg lasagna. Even worse, butternut squash. I can wax lyrical about this. The above restaurant used to do a veg wellington which was very good (no problems with the extras either) but the chef changed. Their options went to veg curry, veg stir-fry and veg lasagna.
I applaud your comments on Bigot’s re obesity/gluttony and something else, forget what, I’ve only remembered the food one. I thought they were valid, but there again, I’m not campaigning against gay marriage.
We’ve had rain here. So refreshing. Endless sunshine is so boring.
LikeLike
“We’ve had rain here. So refreshing. Endless sunshine is so boring.” Oh, how you people like to taunt! To be honest I’m a total malcontent, I find something to moan about regardless of where I am. In Argentina, we had two to three months of close to 40 degrees in the afternoon, and while that’s fine if you can nap through it, it was intolerable with a baby. And I just got bored with predictable sunshine in California, which I’d run to in order to escape a Scottish winter. Some people just like moaning. 😉
Anyway, I’m glad someone else can give a good rant about the treatment of vegetarian options in restaurants. I love butternut squash, but it really does NOT make a satisfying main course.
LikeLike
Well, it pissisted down with rain yesterday and we are heading into autumn so before long I shall have to wear long sleeves. But I shall probably still have to keep my sunglasses close at hand, winter or not.
On vegesauruses or whatever they are called.
While I in no way condone the offhand manner vegetarians are often treated in restaurants designed for carnivores why not find a few decent restaurants that cater exclusively for vegetarians and entice your carnivorous buddies to join you?
My folks have been vegetarian for years and never seem to have any problems dining out and my kids are now turning out savory stuff as well as cakes and some of their vegetarian offerings are superb.
Being a vegeasur doesn’t automatically mean you have to rant liker an irate bull with the carrot up its bum.
😉
LikeLike
Dear Ark
When it gets cold, please fly to sunny Gibraltar and take me to a vegetarian restaurant. Should you be able to find one, I will pay for the meal. Although not the flight.
Love
Roughseasinthevegetariandessert (actually I don’t eat dessert but it entertained me to write that)
LikeLike
Dear R.S.M
There’s a business opportunity for you then?
Love Ark
LikeLike
Where’s your blog gone???? I just went to post this comment right back at you … and there’s nothing there. Have you deleted your bloody blog or am I having a weird glitch?
“Being a vegeasur doesn’t automatically mean you have to rant liker an irate bull with the carrot up its bum.”
Indeed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am taking a break.
If you want to drop me a line …
attaleuntold@gmail.com
or
pearce.douglas@gmail.com
LikeLike