Forum Topic

It's Veganuary

I'm not a fan of processed food but it is interesting all the different efforts that are being made to help and allow us to move towards less of a meat and fish based diet.It's easier and easiest to increase the number of vegetarian dishes you eat first and in other countries' cuisines these are far more common than in the traditional British one.  In fact you wouldn't even be thinking of separating food into those different categories if you were eating a lot of Italian, Indian and Mediterranean food - you could automatically be eating a diet with less meat but still plenty of protein.https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/food-drink/vegan-new-food-drink-products-b2260234.htmlThere are lots more Vegan cookery books and it is becoming easier to find more meat and fish-free food when you are eating out and about even if it is asking for double portions of the starters - which are often more interesting than the mains!

Philippa Bond ● 467d57 Comments

I am now reminded of the time many years ago when I was (unwittingly to me) served with donkey cock as part of a mezze, on the island of Hydra. Our host, Vangelis, an ex-colonel of a Greek Army tank regiment, revealed the truth when I told him it was a bit too chewy for my liking. A stray cat enjoyed it, though.

Roger Talbot ● 451d

Lol that was brave!  My father grew just about all of our vegetables and also washed the lettuce before it went onbthe table.  I used to wash it afterwards to wash off what he always maintained was extra protein (usually just the odd missed aphid as he'd got the slugs off).  I also used to inspect every raspberry.  The sad thing is we tend to rely on insecticides to do this now without considering the cost to our health, the health of workers and other eildlife such as bees, butterflies and birds.

Philippa Bond ● 452d

I went camping for the night once in the middle of nowhere near Armidale in NSW with my nephew and some of the workers on a farm where he lived.One of the blokes found a cpiple of big,juicy grubs and showed them to me saying words to the effect that being a POM I would never eat them.Quick as a flash, and not wanting to been seen as a cissy POM,I snatched them out of his hand and ate them,washing them down straight away with a mouthful of lager.They were disgusting,but the bloke was quite impressed as he said he was going to cook them up later that evening and had never eaten them raw.

Keith Iddon ● 452d

There is a much simpler solution for hardcore carnivores. 

Rob Reynolds ● 452d

https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/50th-anniversary-of-oxford-streets-protein-man-25841/

Marlene Plimley ● 453d

*Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's place is called River Cottage.  I keep confusing it with another...I really recommend The Hairy Bikers Go Local where they look at what local chefs are cooking and find them more and interesting local producers of produce.  It's not all meat!  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001gqs8/the-hairy-bikers-go-localI do like of the idea of having a better idea of where all your food comes from.

Philippa Bond ● 453d

Crickets and mealworms are eaten in other countries as a natural source of protein.  Insects are also eaten by chickens  which meat eater here happily eat.  There used to be quite a few insect farms in the UK including Six Legs Farm which used to have a stall at Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Farm and another one in Ealing but like a lot of other small businesses they disappeared with or after Brexit.  I believe they are now thriving in the EU. https://news.sky.com/story/edible-insect-industry-in-limbo-due-to-confusion-over-post-brexit-trade-law-12576597 They are useful for feeding to chickens because it means that chicken feed does not have to be imported or use up land to be grown.You used to be able to buy snacks made out of cooked insects here in the UK.  I haven't looked recently.  When I was a  child in Africa the cook used to catch locusts to cook. They were considered a delicacy. The big problem is if people have been spraying dangerous and poisonous insecticides which may poison them.  They were all part of the food chain which man poisoned.

Philippa Bond ● 453d

"hate cookery programmes" To many and not all good. Who in reality is a cook and not a chef

Julian Pavey ● 453d

Do you remember a while back a chap ate a garden slug, it made him ill and think he did die.  Any raw meat just makes me feel sick to look at, hatecookery programmes.

Janice Evans ● 453d

To be honest,il eat anything if it tastes okWhen i was about 19 we did a eat for charity where the food had to be a bit outrageous. I was given a plate of raw pigs liver.To be honest,it was ok but i prefered the soho pub run for charity. Wonder if they still do it. The place is not the same as i remember it. The characters have gone.I always remember the road sweeper who on derby day put on his top hat and tails and set up his B&W tv on a beer crate on the pavement in poland street using the wood yard for electricity and people would gather around to watch the racing.

Julian Pavey ● 453d

EU approved yellow mealworms and migrating locusts fit food for humanswould you knowingly eat them.

Janice Evans ● 453d

Yes indeed, but there are similarities. It was given to the people with the claim that it was healthy and nutritious and was processed to buggery.

Keith Iddon ● 454d

Spoiler Alert! I thought Soylent Green turned out to be far from vegan!

Peter Evans ● 454d

Soylent Green, here we come.

Keith Iddon ● 454d

I read about this cultivated meat.  If it works out in terms of taste, texture, economics etc it could be a great solution for hardcore carnivores.  When can we expect to find it on supermarket shelves I wonder.  Or Macken’s?

Alastair Banton ● 454d

Scientists can now harvest a small sample of cells from a living animal and cultivate the sample to grow outside of the animal's body, shaping the fully formed sample into cuts of meat so animals are not harmed or killedAny vegans wishing to go back to meat in the future

Julian Pavey ● 454d

I object to the unprincipled vegan hijacking of specific words, such as 'vegan sausages' and 'vegan bacon', and the rest, when we all know that a sausage is 'a cylindrical length of minced MEAT encased in a skin', bacon is 'cured MEAT from the back or sides of a PIG', cheese is 'a food made from the pressed curds of MILK', and milk is 'an opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female MAMMALS'.  If vegans want to reject some of our food on principle, they should at least come up with their own words for them and not misappropriate ours!  I notice that most proprietary 'oat milk' is labelled as 'oat drink', so maybe I'm not alone in my obsession!  Having said that, I see an EU vote in 2020 accepted the broader use of meaty expressions for non-meat imitations, but I thought with Brexit, we'd taken back control!

Peter Evans ● 454d

Courtesy of Mrs Beeton:

Robert Fish ● 454d

The peregrine falcons that nest on our hospitals like the parakeets.

Philippa Bond ● 454d

With you on that one, Adrian.There's enough of those awful green squawkers around Brentford to fill my freezer twice over.

Keith Iddon ● 454d

I am encouraging my friends and family to help the environment and restore natural order of things to have roast parakeet for Sunday Lunch.What's not like, it's a win win.Egyptian Geese had better watch out as well as I have, like the green hoards, noticed their numbers are increasing exponentially. Don't get me started on Canada Geese either.Chips with everything of course.

Adrian Irving ● 454d

Yes, it does depend on how far you want to take this move away from eating meat and two veg British style to a more continental flexitarian, vegetarian or pollotarian or pescatarian or pollotarian or even strict vegan diet.  Many don't even seem to eat the UK's prescribed five-a-day fruit and veg which actually varies from country to country with one country wanting you to eat 10!

Philippa Bond ● 454d

I am not sure that many of the foodstuffs advertised as vegan have been cultivated without any animal fertiliser,as it should be in order to be labelled as such.I think much of it is vegetarian,I was a pescatarian myself for 9 years so have lived without meat.

Keith Iddon ● 455d

https://actforealing.org/2023/01/20/what-is-veganuary-everything-you-need-to-know/.There used to be seasonal recipes on the ChiswickW4.com  website.

Philippa Bond ● 455d

Really Vanessa?  I went out for lunch the other day and had a really nice hot spinach and feta quiche together with some salad and a very refreshing and zingy green smoothie which had kale and ginger amongst its ingredients.  Although it may not have been a vegan quiche these definitely do exist.  Try embracing something new!I was watching the Hairy Bikers the other day and they were cooking with tofu having watched it being made.  The beans can be grown in the UK and I know there are tofu making companies in both Yorkshire and Norfolk.  There are some good recipes.  It is very sad though that their wonderful series finding and matching new producers of ingredients and restauranteurs has been so short (and it was definitely not all vegetarian or vegan)! 

Philippa Bond ● 462d

What with Veganuary and Dry January and the horrible grey weather - it seems to me added to everything else currently affecting people it might not make for helping anyone's mood. I do not overstuff and I am not a drinker either - but the prospect of both of those things makes me feel really brassed off.

Vanessa Smith ● 464d

No, wouldn't bother me anyhow me being a veggie, it's personal choice.

Janice Evans ● 465d

Not many nowadays, Basil. Since I sold my racehorses a few years  ago, I am now left with only two polo ponies in Rutland and because I'm a member of a foxhunt in County Meath in Ireland (where you can still chase after foxes) I keep a hunter with a local farmer who has the brute ready to go for me whenever I feel like popping over there for a bit of fun and exercise.

Roger Talbot ● 465d

I agree, but I am not sure there is much mocking going on in this thread.

Keith Iddon ● 465d

I am a carnivore, though I eat less red meat, and more fish and vegetables etc than previously.However, I don't see why my fellow meat eaters should mock vegetarians and vegans (esp), since I actually admire their principled stance, even if I don't follow it myself.While they aren't doing anyone else any harm, so fair play to them.

Richard Cathcart ● 465d

Are you sure? Chicken is almost vegetarian after all. 

Rob Reynolds ● 465d

Teresa, boiled eggs are neither vegan nor vegetarian.

Keith Iddon ● 466d

Your guts get used to change - and because cows create a lot of gas they are now having seaweed in particular added to their diet - but there are other solutions:https://www.foodconfidence.com/2017/03/30/reduce-gas-and-bloating/

Philippa Bond ● 466d

How many racehorses do you hang around with?

Basil Finnis ● 466d

Tell him it’s FebBrewery - a compensation for Dry January.  That should calm him down.

Alastair Banton ● 466d

My bad tempered old uncle thinks it’s all virtue signalling, and wants to know what next month is called, is it Recyclruaby he asks?Please let me know, so I can keep him chillaxed.

Russell Pearson ● 466d

Most people probably eat lots of vegan and vegetarian meals during a week, beans on toast, boiled eggs, etc.,I don't think it helps making too big a deal out of this, when I cook for vegan friends it's often not been much different from what I might have cooked anyway.Full disclosure - I was a veggie for years, largely because I was hard up and I don't much like meat. School dinners made me loathe the gristle on offer. Now I eat meat and fish but probably not that often.Turning it into another binary steak vs tofu argument is a bit idiotic, so I guess it has the opportunity to do well here !

Tessa Russell ● 466d

I tend only to use the beans, and throw away the can...

Brian Coyle ● 466d

I went into that Cranks vegetarian joint in Soho about the time you mention, Julian, and just about everyone eating there were farting like racehorses. I never went back.

Roger Talbot ● 466d

Thank you for the information Philippa.The more choice the merrier.

Basil Finnis ● 466d

Have you checked?

Brian Coyle ● 466d

I've never noticed.

Philippa Bond ● 466d

Sausages tend to have a lot of nose and tail in them......

Rob Reynolds ● 466d

Have you tried nose to tail eating?

Philippa Bond ● 466d

Have you tried nose to tail eating?

Philippa Bond ● 467d

To quote the serving ladies from the very old and famous Simpson Tavern in the city 'Would you like a sausage on top of that?' Brilliant.  My new year's resolution is to try and buy much more meat at the butchers vs the supermarket. We just lost a really good local butcher and I'm guilty as charged for not using him anywhere near enough. Let's try and support the other 2. 

Rob Reynolds ● 467d

I remember Cranks in Marshall Street next to the Baths and ate there several times when I worked around the corner. Everybody sat on long benches at long tables.  Homity pie was my favourite and there was a choice of a whole lot of salads. (So unusual then and so nice not to have to make them!)  British salad at the time otherwise was always more of a garnish with a lettuce leaf, slice or two of cucumber and a slice or two of unripe anaemic looking tomato). I must look out the recipe book although the Hairy Bikers have an interesting version.  The Dartington Cranks was still running long after the Marshall Street one had closed.  They were forerunners.  There are plenty more health food shops nowadays which sell ready made vegetarian and vegan food - and so do the supermarkets.  There are also companies which deliver recipe boxes with with all the ingredients ready for you to cook. And who hasn't eaten baked beans on toast, hummus and pitta bread, vegetable samosas, tomato and mozzarella salad or chickpea tagine pie?  I haven't given up meat but hardly miss it.  So many meat meals are now overshadowed by the vegetables when they are not overcooked. And that's how I prefer it - more vegetables and much less meat.  I'm also unhappy with the way many animals and birds raised for the table are kept. It's no longer like in children's  picture books with lovely green fields with buttercups and daisies.This month is a great time to learn or try a new meat-free recipe.  Oh and btw shepherd's pie is even better with a can of baked beans added. 

Philippa Bond ● 467d

AhaDont know much except when they opened the first resturantBut i do now know McDonalds is a real estate Co and not a fast food franchise when it comes down to its finances

Julian Pavey ● 467d

Cranks went bust a long time ago, had about 5 of 6 sites at the death from memory. Funnily enough they were owned by Capricorn Ventures who decided there was a lot more to be made rolling out Nandos!

Mark Talbot ● 467d

What was that sayingOk to have a Linda McCartney sausage,just make sure it wrapped in plenty of bacon to taste ok

Julian Pavey ● 467d

When i lived around the corner from marshall street in soho with my father, a place opened up called cranks,the first in a chain of wholefood vegetarian restaurants. A whole new concept.I visited when it first opened and had this soup. It was F*C*ing allfull,but gave the place another try. It was even worse.No idea if it still operates and much has changed over the years,but one thing is for sure. Give me a big medium rare stealk with chips where i can dip the chips in the blood for flavour and im happy. Sorry but i love my meat

Julian Pavey ● 467d

Ritz crackers ? Shreddies? Twiglets?

Stewart Jones ● 467d

Why?

Stewart Jones ● 467d

Me too. If I see anything with the word 'vegan' in it, I beat a very hasty and permanent retreat. I can think of nothing worse.

Brian Coyle ● 467d

I will stick to meat! Yum

Elle Jones ● 467d

Not sure if you made the Veganuary thing up. But January is actually National Meat Month. More details and delicious recipes here:  https://nationaltoday.com/national-meat-month/
World bicycle day is June 3rd btw, so please stay off them until then!! (Joke)

Rob Reynolds ● 467d

Each to their own,but I think there is a large grey area around vegan food.It seems everywhere you go there is a vegan alternative,which is fine but I think it is missold much of the time.It is vegetarian food sold with a mark up imo.For food to be vegan,it cannot have been grown using any manure or any other animal related product,a stipulation which I doubt is adhered to nowadays.

Keith Iddon ● 467d