139. What a Palaver

Question: How do you know if someone is a vegan?

Answer:  They tell you.

As I’ve said before (click to see), I never complain or moan.  What I do, occasionally, is to make an observation and if someone happens to disagree with me on what I have observed, they might take my observation to be a moan or a complaint but that is a problem for them, not me.

It is important that you remember that because when you read what follows, you must understand that is merely an observation on certain people’s weird and some might say ridiculous, dietary requirements or demands, and certainly not a manifestation of disapproval or a moan.

I was faced with a problem just before Christmas. On Saturday afternoon, we all went to see the matinée of “Cinderella”.  I needed to have food prepared that could be cooked or reheated quickly so that we could have an early evening meal back at our house after the show.  I had to cook a meal for 12 family members - 8 adults and 4 children - effectively a meal for 10.

The obvious thing to make was something like a shepherd’s pie because it could be made the day before and then reheated in about 30 minutes when we had returned from the theatre.

I have to be careful when cooking food for my younger daughter because she suffers from coeliac disease, diagnosed when she was four years old.  She is allergic to the gluten that is found in all products containing wheat, rye, barley and oats.  Throughout her childhood, I never used wheat flour and would, for example, thicken gravy, sauces and soups with cornflour.  Her condition has never caused a problem for me.  Shepherd’s pie is OK for her.

Unfortunately, my daughter’s husband is now a vegan.  I say ‘now a vegan’ because, two years ago when they came here for Christmas, he was on a zero-carb diet and his Christmas dinner plate only had turkey on it and no vegetables at all.  But, now that he is a vegetarian, he couldn’t eat shepherd’s pie that is 90% meat.

But that wasn’t all.  A coeliac and a vegan are difficult enough to cater for but one of the children has a severe nut allergy while another is lactose intolerant.

I went to Google and entered, “dairy free, gluten free, nut free, vegan, main course recipes”.  Nothing came up.  I removed “main course” and tried again.  I found some but not many and those I did find hardly appealed.  Lots of salads but not much else and something like a ‘blueberry kale salad’ is not something I would be looking forward to after a visit to the theatre.

Finally, I decided on a Borscht Risotto.  I had never had it before and it looked interesting.  Only 25 - 35 minutes to cook but an awful lot of preparation to be done first.  I started preparing the day before, on Friday afternoon.

Have you any idea how long it takes to peel and grate nearly 5 pounds of small beetroot and finely chop 200 grams of mushrooms and 500 grams of shallots?  The signs at the greengrocer said nothing about these being especially juicy beetroot but on completion, both the kitchen and I were covered in the stuff.  It looked like the aftermath of a battlefield. 

The pantomime was very good.  Some of the panto jokes were extremely rude and some were even quite crude.  I hoped they went over the heads of the children.  However, I began to doubt that they did after the way my 9 year-old grandson laughed loudly at hearing Buttons say that having being kissed on the arm while on holiday in Guam and kissed on the neck while visiting Quebec, he was looking forward to going to Niagara Falls next year.

We were all back at home by 5:30 pm and I immediately began to cook.  I knew that when cooking 900 grams of rice it would expand to fill more than one pan and so I began with three. 

You may disagree with me about the technique of making risotto but I try to add the hot stock gradually and stir often but not constantly.  This wasn’t too much of a problem with three pans.  It was rather like keeping three spinning plates on their sticks.

Ideally, the vegetables (grated beetroot and the finely chopped mushrooms) should be cooked before adding to the al dente rice and shallots but sacrificing taste for efficiency, I decided to add them raw about four minutes before I would have liked to.

It was just about ready and I was feeling quite pleased with myself.  Considering the restraints, I thought that I had done fairly well.

I had tipped the beetroot into the three pans, stirred them and was about to add the mushrooms when one of the adults came into the kitchen, probably looking for another bottle of prosecco. 

“Are those mushrooms?” he asked, pointing at the bowl I had hovering over the first pan.  I nodded.

“I can’t eat mushrooms,” he said.

I kept very calm.  Without saying a word, I opened a cupboard and took out a fourth pan in order that he could have his own, specially prepared, vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free, mushroom-free risotto.  (I was hoping it might choke him.)

The risotto seemed to be appreciated.  I didn’t like it very much but I never enjoy anything I’ve cooked. 

It is just about possible that as they are all family, they could all come for Christmas one year and I would have to cook Christmas Dinner for them.  What could I cook?  Please let me know if you have any ideas.

In “The Times” last Saturday, Giles Coren, the restaurant critic, wrote an excoriating article on the attitudes and behaviour of some vegans.  He asserts that being a vegan is not a human right, it’s a menu choice.  In the online comments section, I told of the problems that I had recently encountered.  These are two of the responses:

1. You should have done mushroom soup, roast chicken with walnut cheese sauce main course and crème brûlée for dessert.

2. I would not have had those people to dinner even if they were family.  They are on the wrong side of species survival.

That last response is a little harsh but I get the point.