Why the time has come for vegetables to moo-ve over!
It's time to get your whittling tools from the garden shed and start carving yourself a broccoli … from a lump of corned beef. Vegetarians may not like meat, but they’ve built an industry on making vegetables look like animal products. Supermarket shelves are groaning with veggie burgers, meat-free sausages and even rashers of plant-only bacon.
Given we’re in the midst of a fruit and vegetable ‘crisis’ maybe it’s time for meat to follow suit. Vegetarians are happy to have veg stuff shaped like meat. They even want it to taste like meat. Which is odd. I often think that if those plant-based bacon rashers were secretly replaced by real bacon rashers, vegetarians would be annoyed when they found out but not that disappointed. ‘I wondered why they tasted so good.’
The pig-friendly rashers may be morally superior to the real streaky stuff but that’s where it ends. Animal-free… but also taste-free.
Supermarkets have started rationing customers fruit and veg. I read that Lidl was limiting the number of cucumbers customers could buy. Really? How many cucumbers do people buy? I don’t think I’ve ever bought more than one before. Where possible, I buy a half cucumber. I don’t know, maybe they’re limiting customers to a maximum of 40 cucumbers per adult (a sales double bluff to try and get rid of the blighters).
Tory minister Theresa Coffey weighed into the debate this week by suggesting that we should forget tomatoes and lettuce and instead ‘cherish’ the, erm, turnip. Hmm, maybe. Think I’d prefer to cherish a family pack of Snickers instead, thanks.
Maybe the future is veggiefree vegetables. Be creative with your meat and food colouring. Fold a thin slice of gammon into an intricate lettuce leaf, add a few ‘cherry tomato’ lamb kidneys, topped off with a large helping of cucumber slices fashioned from a calf ’s liver.
Hey voila, the perfect Carnivore Caesar Salad. If you’re feeling really imaginative, use diced cow tongue as croutons with a goose fat dressing. I could become the reverse Linda McCartney. Adding meat to everything.
Even desserts. Vegetable crisis solved!
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