Veggie Tales

Vicky Revell-Higgins

When you have been a vegetarian since birth it is hard to understand why anyone insists on eating meat and fish or any foods that rely on animal or fish derived ingredients.
As a child I was horrified when I found out what gelatine was made from... and to discover that most of the sweets on sale contained it and that I had been unknowingly eating them at friends’ houses. When I went along to friends’ birthday parties I can remember being offered things like sausage rolls and being told that it wasn’t real meat - but it was! Then everyone had this obsession with MacDonalds but there was nothing at all I could eat on their menus - it was hard back then but these days I’d sooner starve than go near one of their places. Luckily though my Mum who became vegetarian back in the 1960s was always inventive with food because she had to be. She would come up with all sorts of concoctions that were really good to eat. She’d track down what were then hard to find soya products as well as cheese that only contained vegetable derived rennet. We’d eat lots of fruit and vegetables as well as nuts and pulses. She remembers teachers trying to force her to eat meat when she was at school and trying to dismiss the notion that any child wouldn’t eat what was put in front of them. My mum was also in the firing line at her grammar school for refusing to dissect frogs or to get involved in any experiment involving animals, fish or insects. She stuck to her principles though and remains completely averse to the notion of eating meat, fish or seafood.
When we ate out years ago it was invariably at a favourite family run Italian restaurant in Eton where they’d bend over backwards to make us lovely food... or at Pizza Express in Notting Hill Gate , or Cranks in Covent Garden/Soho where there were great things on the menu. There were a couple of places in the Portobello Road too that were brilliant for salads piled high with fruit and seeds and we never left the market without bagfulls of fruit and vegetables - the prices then are just as they are today... unbelievably low for fantastic British grown produce. Closer to Connect territory, there was a crazy bistro type place up in Mortehoe called The Buttery - sadly long since gone - which my Mum even considered buying rather than see it close. That takes me right back to my childhood between 1988-1994, when we had begun to think seriously about the practicalities of moving to North Devon and when my Mum would load her car with four or five of my friends and bring us down for long weekends or whole weeks when she could manage to leave her business for that long... at all times of the year. We probably ate at The Buttery more times a year than any locals and always rushed to book our table the moment we arrived in the area.
At The Buttery the service was often chaotic in the nicest and most entertaining way. The massive garlic mushrooms, the huge inventive salads, the cauliflower cheese (when it was on), and the scrumptious jacket potatoes, spinach and fresh corn on the cob would fill us all. None of my friends were veggies but they certainly weren’t complaining during our holidays together. We could only manage to get to the desserts if we skipped the main course - it was that good! We’d literally waddle back to the camp site afterwards shrieking with laughter as six to eleven year olds are prone to do - ducking the daddy long legs in the camp site toilet blocks. We’d stay at North Morte Farm whenever we could get in - a place I’d seriously recommend to anyone who likes to camp with lots of space around them and some of the most stunning views down to the sea you’d fi nd anywhere. No better place on earth I think... and the walk down to Rockham Bay beach made for a real secret seven adventure with lashings of home made ginger beer to drink and bags of fresh locally grown tomatoes to eat...
Being a veggie now is very easy but it is important to ensure that you get a good balance of foods. Supplements are helpful but an awful lot of them come in gelatine capsules which is completely ridiculous in this day and age. I learned a great deal more about nutrition during my time as manager of The Healthy Way from our customers as well as from the various books and magazines we read - and I have learned to cook some tasty and nutritious dishes using very simple ingredients with good quality herbs and spices. I suppose my main gripe these days is that too many pubs and cafes claim to offer a vegetarian menu when all it comprises are pre-packaged frozen meals of questionable quality - usually over-spiced to mask the inferior ingredients! What does it take to prepare good salads or plates of fresh steamed or grilled vegetables... or to prepare couscous or a good tofu & vegetable stir fry? But that is a whole other story. My Mum developed a tea room here in Ilfracombe into a great little veggie restaurant called SeaV’s - the compromise was that to make it sustainable as a commercial business it had also to offer fish and seafood dishes. Ilfracombe simply wasn’t ready for it and after a couple of years of great feedback but not enough actual customers, it had to go. Shame really as we are now left, once again, with nowhere to eat the food we like in the Ilfracombe area - unless someone knows differently!! It is less of a problem for me as I now live near London where there is much more choice and a greater population to keep small independent restaurants, and health food stores, for that matter, in business.
Like many other veggies and certainly most vegans, you seriously have to trust what goes on in the kitchens of restaurants that also serve meat and fish as the risk of cross-contamination is a constant worry. I worked in a couple of kitchens in North Devon as a general hand while I was still at school and, trust me, you would not want to know what I witnessed. It put me off eating out for years. Food hygiene is so important that I am incredulous when I see dogs (other than guide dogs) running in and out of food shops, sloppy handling of fresh perishables and slipshod cleaning routines. That is one of the reasons why the supermarkets have decimated local high streets... they look clean and, for the most part, they are kept clean. For these reasons I think that most of us tend to gravitate towards and stay with the shops we know we can trust to supply good food that has been properly handled and stored. There is a great deal of choice now even when you want a simple fast vegan ready meal or quick to cook cous-cous with the seasonings already added, or tempeh, or tofu seacakes. However I empathise with vegans as there are so few good easy meat and fish free options that do not contain eggs and dairy products and most smaller health food stores simply haven’t the space to stock what is available.
When my Mum and I visited the Natural Products Show at Olympia in April the number of stands offering food products had at least doubled over 2006. Hats off to companies like Meridian and Suma, Granose and Just Wholefoods, RealEat and Frys, and all the new suppliers taking part to secure distribution by the larger wholesalers... It is a pity that we cannot always get timely deliveries in smaller volumes in areas like North Devon without incurring high delivery charges. Our delivered wholesale suppliers are great but when you have to use three of them every week just to keep on top of the requirements for chilled and frozen, bulk nuts, seeds, pulses and fruits, and another for the bulk of the ambient products in cans, jackets and jars as well as your local organic dairy, cheese supplier, organic vegetable & fruit supplier, and the vits and mins people... it is madness. Most of the time you have to order even the most obscure products in quite large quantities which is both an administrative and a commercial nightmare. The message though is loud and clear, if you want choice in your local area you have to support your local health/speciality food stores. Most will bend over backwards to source what you need and will truly value your custom, letting you know about new products being launched and getting special orders in for you. That is not the kind of service you’ll fi nd in any supermarket... most of which, incidentally, are often selling specialist foods at higher prices than you’d pay in your local store. Now that is serious food for thought.
I am seeing my Mum later this month in London where we’ll be visiting the (finally open) Wholefoods Superstore in Kensington High Street... for those that know Kensington it was formerly the Barkers Department Store. Can you imagine an organic store that large? It is going to make us both very envious indeed that we haven’t the space or the footfall in Ilfracombe to be able to offer and find customers for all that this US giant stocks!