Vegetarian Christmas
Yes, I may not be the first to say it, but I’m certainly the latest. Christmas is coming.
Sorry to get all festive on your arse (ooh, can you imagine?) but that’s how thoughts are turning and you’d link less of me (ok, even more less) if I didn’t reflect a least some of the more disjoined ones.
This Christmas, spare a thought for those people who go without. These are people who can’t join in with the rest because they believe in something else. I’m talking, of course, of Muslims.
I mean vegetarians. Vegetarians, sorry. Although now that it’s out there and neither my backspace, cursor buttons or mouse work (bizarrely), I’ll just have to keep typing. Although, I’m not sure which group is more dangerous when angered. Probably the veggies.
I’m one myself. A veggie, that is – not a Muslim. I’m a Buddhist, mostly. I’d probably be a “vegetarian, mostly” if I could, but I looked into it and apparently you can’t.
So Christmas is always a kerfuffle in my house, where those who eat meat outnumber those who don’t. There’s a vegetarian option for me, but every year I wonder why I have a dish at all. Because when you think about it, a meat-free meal is just vegetables already. You might throw in some fancy cheese and pastry, but basically it’s vegetables.
The dish has been prepared or bought by you or your loved ones (and I make that assumption in the hope that they are) but it sits there on the table surrounded by other vegetables. So the only difference is the shape.
Not eating meat doesn’t spoil my enjoyment of Christmas, but I am red-green colourblind, and I understand that might be a pisser. Those colours just look like grey to me.
So Santa Claus to me is a guy with a beard in a big grey coat, and looks a lot like General Lee, only he’s asking children if they’ve been good instead of marching them towards the Union line and their deaths. But I’ve been colourblind my whole life, so I don’t really know the difference, whereas I consciously gave up eating meat.
I have no beef (See? Genius.) with vegetarian meals, but usually they are some kind of pasta, rice or pastry/dough thing. That doesn’t scream out Christmas to me, and none of them have much place among the potatoes, parsnips, swede, sprouts, yorkshire puddings, yams, carrots, peas, beans and whatever else.
I promise you, if you’re hosting a meal for a vegetarian this year, forget their special dish. They are not going to think: “Hang on. Where’s my actual food here?”
And you don’t have to spend ages talking about not eating meat, either. You don’t need to. We’ll help ourselves. We’re fine.
Pass the gravy.
No – the other gravy.
12 comments
Funny and informative. Who could ask for more?
And, ooooo, thankyou.
Reminds me of the time some years ago that we had Christmas lunch at a local hotel. I had asked ahead of time if I could have some vegetarian gravy.
On the day the restaurant manager presented me with my own little jug of gravy. After the meal he came up to me and said “Emom” – well ok he didn’t say that but he asked me if I had enjoyed my meal. “I got chef to make the gravy especially for you, I remembered you were a vegetarian so instead of beef gravy he made you a nice turkey one”
Thanks Wendy. Oooooo.
And Emom – you know you can actually sue for that. Not that you would help us slide into the dark recesses of a litigious society, but I’m just saying you could have the fuckers if you wanted to.
I must admit I thought it tasted a bit fowl
You should have asked for your clucking money back.
Oh wait, that’s chickens.
Hmmm. Did you gobble the gravy anyway?
Holiday meals mean stuffing and gravy for me, wit mashed potatoes and sweet potatos (yams) and green beans and stuffing and dinner rolls and stuffing and all of it is buried under stuffing and soaked in gravy. Now, if there’s room on the plate I might have a little urkey or ham but for me it’s the fixins that make the meal.
I am not vegetarian because I don’t have the required discipline ad/or moral conviction. But lately I’m just not eating much meat anyway.
Now, having said that, I have no idea why I did. And now I’m hungry. Dammit.
Wendy, I should have told him to go pluck himself
Ed, I’m with you, it’s the fixins that make the meal, you didn’t mention brussel sprouts but there has to be brussel sprouts, I don’t suppose you know about Yorkshire puddings?
Cliff, can you really sue?
Manual Trackback: This post is a nominee for a 2008 Blogisattva Award in the category of Best Achievement with Humor in a Blog Post.
Ooo, congratulations on the nomation.
Oooo, well done on being nomined, Cliff!
WINNEEEEEEER.
Sorry. But I bask in your reflected glory. But wait, that is not very Buddhist is it? Bugger. Oh HELL that wasn’t very Buddhist either. And nor was that. Anyway. Congratulations.
Thanks for the great giggle. We are switching to a veg. diet and continue to seek out new recipes for important holidays:-)
Leave a comment. Play nice. I will turn this blog around.