Restaurants
The Harrow Inn, Steep, Hampshire Smokestak, Shoreditch, London E1
With the possible exception of the marketing manager of Corona beer in the light of the eponymous epidemic, my daughter, Honor, was in January the unhappiest girl in the world.
She had mistakenly taken the pledge of Veganuary, thereby eschewing the consumption of not only things with faces, but also their issue. No milk. No honey. In solidarity, my wife, Josephine, and I went to stay with Lucy Og, the former Oldie tour leader, who has since made a lifelong commitment to veganism and, as a protest against Bake Off, has become gluten-free. Her Damascene conversion was a major cause for celebration for the local wildlife: squirrels and rabbits gambol happily in the knowledge that Lucy’s shotgun has been decommissioned and their livers will never again be served up as canapés.
All her gastronomic brilliance is now devoted to her stepchildren. Umpteen gallon jars of home-made sauerkraut stand sentinel on the kitchen table, plopping their euphonic way through the various stages of fermentation. This multicoloured orchestra of bubbling pops and wheezes resonated throughout dinner, rather like the laboratory soundtrack from The Man in the White Suit.
Although she’s a huge loss to omnivorous cooking, Lucy’s vegan cottage pie (and vegan sausages for breakfast) were delicious and easier on the eye and stomach than the vegan ready meals that dominated our home fridge until, mercifully, on 23rd January, Honor cracked. As I write, the icy family hearth resembles a medieval abattoir, complete with half a defrosting pig. Like her dad, she’s a little too ‘all or nothing’.
Unlike many vegans who delight in their doctrinaire, holier-than-thou diet, Lucy insisted on taking us to her local pub, the Harrow Inn, at Steep. The landlady, Claire Mccutcheon, is the fifth member of her family to hold court in this child-free time warp. There can be only a dozen such pubs left in the country: beer straight from the barrel; two small rooms with stuffed extras from Beatrix Potter; no indoor loo, but Claire is wholly welcoming – we are all her ‘darlings’. Post-it notes announce the bill of fayre: ham or cheese ploughman’s (£7.60) or Scotch eggs. The portions of hand-cut ham were so huge I was able to spare my beef tomato for uncomplaining Lucy to accompany her crisps.
Faced with his wan and pale sibling, my carnivorous son, Leo, was in desperate need of meat before returning to student life in January. We needed to get some distance between us and Bean World, as the family home was renamed during the 23-Day Siege.
Contrarily, we headed to Shoreditch, bound one day to declare itself Britain’s first meat-free borough. Bypassing the Fauxmagerie (‘Anyone for cashew-nut brie?’) and the Vurger Co, we landed at Smokestak, which is practically the last redoubt of meat in Shoreditch, and well worth the trip from anywhere in the southeast. Leo was like a beast released: he had a bone-marrow flatbread, with a chaser of crispy ox cheek, before tearing his way through the barbecued brisket and beef rib. He barely remembered to drink the £27 bottle of Rhone. Funny how he had no such amnesia with our best wine on Christmas Day, when he and our dear neighbours laid waste to our little cellar.
Smokestak, 35 Sclater St, London E1 6LB; www.smokestak.co.uk; tel: 020 3873 1733; main courses £12-£17; whole beef brisket for all the children/grandchildren £150 (order the day before)
The Harrow Inn, Steep, Petersfield GU32 2DA; no cards; cash or cheque only