Having long been a man whose spirits wilted if meat was not the centre of his meal, I have become almost vegetarian. It’s routinely predictable for age to lead us astray from our youthful socialism, but I find my dietary change more difficult to explain. My younger self would view my politics with horror and my diet with incredulity.
I remain partial to eating flesh, but the conviction that any plate without it must be a side dish has evaporated. For most of my life, meat and two veg was my credo – and if the two vegetables were ketchup and mustard, then all the better. But these days I often cook without remembering to include anything that once had blood – and am bemused to find myself content.
The vegetable delivery company Natoora bears some of the blame. I initially envisioned their produce as accompaniments but quickly their fruit and veg commanded attention as the main event. Rural Britain can be so far in the culinary past that we eat in black and white, yet this week my doorstep yielded a burst of colour: Sicilian winter tomatoes, Italian artichokes, French white asparagus, and red giant mustard greens.
The mustard greens – entirely new to me – hail from Sussex, and are irresistible. They seduce me from thoughts of Easter lamb. I harbour good intentions towards that aged sirloin in my freezer and voracious plans for the sausages, but both stay undefrosted. The flavours of vegetables are now so vivid to me that even a hint of meat overshadows their charms. A bit of fish is enough to distract from fine fresh courgettes drenched in herbs and oil. Only anchovies remain a welcome and frequent addition, and even bacon – bacon! – has become an infrequent friend.
‘Doth not the appetite alter?’ asked Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. ‘A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.’ He was pondering the delights of conjugal life with Beatrice, but for my part I dwell on the allure of good avocados. Deep in middle age, I’ve abandoned political radicalism and embraced the radish. Health concerns play no role, nor puritan fantasies like Kellogg’s, who believed Corn Flakes could curb libido by curbing cooked breakfasts.
Other than avoiding octopus – my faith in their intelligence is uninformed but devout – nothing in this is based on morals. I hold an imperiously Victorian view of our fellow creatures: if they’re neither pets nor poisonous, then possibly they’re dinner. A relative in Kenya would take me on safari, and each day we would gaze with respectful awe at some magnificent bird or antelope, then eat it that evening. Once I helped slaughter a friend’s pig, reckoning that if I was unable to help, I had no right to pork. Feeding that happy animal a pumpkin the night before – its favourite – I worried my carnivorous days were over. But the pig died painlessly and the black pudding was delicious.
To this day, crackling remains a joy, and the glistening fat of belly chops makes me slaver. But lately, when dusk signals the time has come to inspect the fridge, my appetite gravitates to the vegetable drawer. Bottles of red wine grow dusty from neglect, while my stock of white requires constant replenishment.
Blood oranges will soon vanish, but not before English asparagus arrives in full abundance, creating the annual window for a sauce maltaise – hollandaise brightened with that scarlet citrus. Skip the oft-repeated and unhelpful advice to slowly whisk in cold butter to prevent splitting; instead, add a splash of cream to your wine, vinegar and shallot reduction. This ensures your sauce remains stable, meaning an added block of butter will gently emulsify itself. Courgette flowers have begun, chervil is here, and the lovage in my garden will rise again for Easter. A freshly filled squeezy bottle of lovage oil will soon sit in my fridge next to the winter’s expiring one of bay, each offering a drizzle of vibrant green.
If they’re neither pets nor poisonous, then possibly they’re dinner.
The food writer Jeffrey Steingarten, the brilliantly opinionated author of Salad: The Silent Killer, somewhere defines how many times men can sit down to plates of leaves before being named as salad fetishists. (Once a week in winter, I recall, and three in summer.) Auberon Waugh thought a vegetarian diet was what gave rabbits their diminutive genitals. Male disdain for eating plants is a tradition I always thought I shared.
My chauvinism is intact, yet I have come to love my veg. The time of year when I may sit down to a huge bowl of boiled and buttered wild garlic will soon end. But the broad beans and peas will continue and St George’s Day is around the corner. Where once it conjured thoughts of his dragon, now it brings to mind his namesake mushrooms.
‘The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20,’ said Muhammad Ali, ‘has wasted 30 years of his life.’ Letting go of old certainties is not easy. We betray our youthful values when we grow up, but we fail to live when we don’t. Orwell’s vision of effective socialism pictured a society eating joylessly in communal kitchens, dining on what they needed rather than what they loved. No rush to thaw that ham, I muse, as I pour the Provençal rosé the free market has so efficiently brought me – not while those artichokes demand to be savoured.
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