jim wrote:
But your guests seem to reflect a lot of the "political/lifestyle" veggies I've encountered. They're just not INTERESTED in real food. I'm not knocking committed vegetarian/vegans for whom I have a lot of respect, and there are plenty on this site. But I've known "lifestyle/political" veggies who just eat the vegan equivalent of factory produced junk food, which can't be doing them any good as would fresh veg, beans, grains etc. REAL food made from fresh (preferably organic, local or home grown produce) properly prepared is a joy almost equivalent to the Karma Sutra. Artificially flavoured fryits and sossmix ..... have as much resemblance to food as their packaging.
I quite agree Jim, even having been one of Those veggies myself. At age 15 I started complaining that I didn't like this meat, or that meat, etc., etc. Feeling that I would be missing a part of the meal if I didn't have meat, my mother replaced the meat with a substitute. Back in those days, most vegetarian food was vegetables compressed into different shapes. It was all the same stuff, but in a burger, dalesteak or sausage shape. Occasionally we had sosmix, but it was a bit too much messing about for my mother when there were ready-made things available to buy.
When I grew up and left home, I didn't even think about it, just continued the menus. It was a bit boring, I must admit, but I really felt I didn't like the taste, texture, smell, look, sight or thought of meat. In my early adulthood, I had hardly enough money to buy food, and couldn't afford to buy the equipment to make it, not even baking trays! I didn't have the knowledge, had had the confidence drummed out of my as a child, and it rarely and barely crossed my mind to make my own. Then when I left uni in my early 30s, I got a job which took up far more of my time than I was paid for and I simply didn't have the time to spend thinking about food. What a lot has changed since then. Events forced us to consider our financial options and we decided to go down the Ish route. I've now given up vegetarianism (having realised I had never tasted meat cooked by me - and I'm quite impressed even if I do say so myself) and eat plenty of vegetables and very little stuff that's not home-made. I've never felt healthier in my life*.
Back to the subject of soup, though. The other day at 11:30am my nearly-3-year-old suddenly announced, "I want some tomato soup". Not chocolate, not crisps - soup! Yay!
*Edited to add that I put this down as much to giving up processed vegetarian food as to eating more veg and home-made food, plus the excercise I get growing it and the satisfaction I get from working hard to quite literally put food on the table.
