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 Vegetarian food
amounts to much more than mung beans and lentils, says S.M. King.
Back in the hazy bong cloud of the 1990s, I lived with a
vegetarian. Or, to be more exact, about seventeen of the buggers.
Of the sarong-covered milk crate hell that was an
inner-urban vegetarian share house, I remember little. Save for the fact that I
often scampered off to eat animals away from our bloodless kitchen.
I also recall that these bindi-plastered persons were always
banging on about the health benefits of the herbivorous life. And, actually,
they were right.
Studies from Oxford
University to the rather
less reliable Seventh Day Adventist medical auxiliary have found that a diet
rich in plant matter tends to allay disease.
However, and as I would have pointed out at the time had I not been
completely blunted: a daily menu of instant noodles, coffee grounds and strong
Californian acid is hardly going to please the Surgeon General. Is it?
These vegetarians have grown up, I suspect. And even if they
haven’t, their peers have certainly matured. The naïve and bean-curd-rich
gastronomy of previous decades has made way for a far more tempting cuisine. And
one, very often, that doesn’t have me sneaking off for covert slabs of prime
rib.
These days, vegetarians are everywhere. (Not that there’s
anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends are vegetarian.)
Naturally, the needs of happy herbivores are now reflected
in our better kitchens. At Pearl,
Geoff Lindsay has devised a ripper vegetarian degustation. Ezard, Vue de Monde,
Circa, and Jacques Reymond are a few of the other posh nosheries that cook well
beyond the realm of flavourless, meat-free mush. In fact, there are few finer
places to blow the equivalent of a week’s rent on vegetables rendered with
love.
Often the dishes at these places are so good, carnivores
will feel they’re the ones missing out. And, of course, it’s true. When a great
chef is forced out of their comfort zone and into meat-free freefall, the
results can be spectacular. I remember sulking all night when my partner
ordered the veggie degustation at Daylesford’s Lakehouse restaurant. Who’d have
thunk you could do that with a
beetroot?
Of course, and as any veggo will readily affirm, it wasn’t
always so. Traditionally, chefs had little patience for those who don’t bow
before the altar of fat, bone, and flesh. This old-school attitude is still
surprisingly prevalent, and jokes about our herbivore friends abound (my
favourite being: how many vegans does it take to change a light bulb? Three.
One to change the damn thing and two to check for animal products.).
Daring chefs, however, rise to the challenge of undoing
their trad French roots. And, similarly, the plucky home cook can now see a
meal in the terms of its plant matter.
We carnivores need to shift our thinking. As many dieticians
have it, meat should only be taken in small portions every other day. And, as many environmentalists have it, meat
production is simply not sustainable.
Yet, popular thinking has it that meat is the mover and
shaker of a meal. Ask me what I had for dinner last night, and I’d tell you
lamb chops. I wouldn’t say: grilled zucchini, tsatsiki dressing with chickpea
and tomato salad with lamb.
The top end places across town are making concessions
without blowing their haute image or flavour.
We can do it too.
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