Vegans bite back at languid foodie
THERE was a time when it was considered impolite to make a fuss about food. You were told – usually by your parents – that there were poor people in India or somewhere who would be more than grateful to eat your leftovers. Being picky was bad manners. It was showing off. If something was absolutely beastly you pushed it around the plate for a while or surreptitiously stowed it in your pocket to be disposed of later. You never made a fuss.
People who didn’t eat things for religious reasons were quietly accommodated. It would be rude to draw attention to their dietary requirements. After all they couldn’t help it.
Vegetarians were generally tolerated too though jokes were made about muesli and nut cutlets. But old-school vegetarians didn’t grumble when they ate out, happy to have “just vegetables” that came with the roast beef that everyone else had.
IF you – a callous omnivore – wanted to show willing you’d offer to make a vegetarian “an omelette”, hoping they’d refuse and say “just vegetables would be fine”. Vegetarians had their uses though. It didn’t take long for airline passengers to work out that the “vegetarian option” is usually nicer than anything else and you are often served before anyone else too.
Little by little we – the callous omnivores again – started to get used to “dietary requirements”. Your friends suddenly announced that they wouldn’t eat dairy or wheat or sugar or anything with a face. Being picky became acceptable. And whereas allergies were practically unknown 30 years ago (someone who claimed to have an allergy was suspected of being precious) we came to realise how serious they really were.
Everyone had heard tell of vegans, the exotic extremist wing of vegetarianism, the tofu Taliban, the wholegrain Angry Brigade. It sounded a very perverse way to feed yourself. And worst of all they couldn’t eat cheese. Unless it was vegan cheese – and what was that about?
Whereas vegetarians had tiptoed apologetically into our consciousness with their non-leather shoes in their hands, vegans were militant, superior and couldn’t take a joke. They were going to save the planet while we all went to hell stuffed with steak-and-ale pie.
That’s no doubt why William Sitwell, former editor of Waitrose Food magazine and an occasional MasterChef judge, reacted with such withering sarcasm when he received a pitch from a freelance journalist offering a feature on vegan meals. “How about a series on killing vegans one by one?” he replied in his languid, foodie, Old Etonian way.
The writer, Selene Nelson, affected to believe he was serious about slaughtering vegans, and Sitwell stood down after Nelson outed him on social media.
Sitwell’s fate seems extreme but there was no need for him to be as rude as that. Freelancers have to pitch ideas to make a crust (even a vegan one with non-dairy spread) and a simple “no thanks” would have sufficed.
But vegans are now playing the identity politics card big time. Be nice to them or they’ll eat
you alive.