Retrograde thinking make a strong link between meat and manliness. Hasn't this attitude reached its expiry date? Is there anything macho about flouncing down the meat aisle and plucking out a chicken kiev? You're hardly bringing down a wild boar.
Cereal Killah, naturally, has a stake in this debate. As regular readers will know, I am an agnostic vegetarian. When I report this dietary stance to my more traditional friends, they look at me as though expecting a series of follow-on revelations: “I'm giving my house a 'makeover'”... “I think Steps were underrated” et cetera.
How very queer, think my fellow diners. And with a wan smile they turn to their menus. They give it a contemptuous perusal before ordering the steak – “rare”. It has to be rare, of course. Real men always take their steak rare (except in Argentina, where they like it well-done, but that's another story).
There are some occasions when it's particularly difficult to command respect as a vegetarian:
1.
One is when faced with a boorish carnivore who has read Simone de Beauoir's feminist-Marxist classic, The Second Sex. She argues that once homo sapiens understood the secrets of agriculture, women had no need for men. Their 'spear-now-ask-questions-later' mentality belonged to the unstable past of hunter-gathering. In shunning my greatest grandfather, Mammoth Killah, women started an evolutionary trend that led to Zac Efron being considered a sex symbol.
Small groups of unreformed hunter-gatherers broke away, refusing to put the seat down in their newly-decorated caves' shithouse. They returned to their old ways, presumably accompanied by a harem of bints who preferred “real cavemen”. In the remarkable words of de Beauvoir, the higher protein intake of hunter-gathering males led, over generations, to their growing “larger penises than their agricultural brothers”.
The feminist reports that agricultural womenfolk found this 'irresistible'. Homo tofumunchus was cast out, a cuckold in his own cave. Meatheads were back in the game.
This interesting anthropological theory presents few problems in reality. Rare is the meathead who has bottomed out feminist literature.
Besides, your own diet would not affect the dimensions of the marital limb. The size of my old fella, fittingly enough, would owe exclusively to the diet of my forefathers. And those boys must have been eating steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner – BOO-YAH!
2.
The second challenge owes to a far more recent cultural trend – the Sunday roast.
During the industrial revolution, families in Yorkshire found that if they left a joint of meat in the oven en route to the church, it'd be cooked through by the time they delivered the final, numbing verse of Kumbaya. Bakers couldn't make bread on a Sunday, so they happily offered their ovens for the purpose.
A British tradition was born.
And thus, dearly beloved, we head to the pub of a Sunday; we eat meat, drink beer and desperately try to rekindle camaraderie with old acquaintances.
Or some of us do. Following a chorus of 'roast beefs' from his buddies, no vegetarian enjoys singing out a “nut roast” solo. It's humiliating. I am ashamed to say that when, last week, a waiter took my nut roast order without laughing out loud, I actually gave silent thanks for living in such a tolerant country.
The fact is, o veggie converts, there's no real way to get over your loss come Sunday lunch. All you can do is make some rock-and-roll trimmings. My cheesy-roast parsnips are something to behold.
3.
The vegetable muncher faces but one social challenge meatier than a winter roast, and that is a summer barbecue.
This primal union of fire and flesh brings out absurd bravado across the world. And carnivores from BA to Baghdad would all argue the same point on quality: good meat is at its best off a barbecue. In short, one feels a little inadequate reaching over the flames to stretch out a couple of Linda McCartney veggie bangers.
Well this summer I conquered once and for all the grillside angst of an agnostic vegetarian.
Here's how:
Ingredients:
(serves two or three.)An aubergine. If you live near a proper Turkish grocery, their native patlican is brilliant.
A lemon
A bag of halloumi. Have a second to hand just in case.
Some Lebanese flatbreads. Pittas will do.
'Chopped salad'. A bunch of tomatoes, peppers and onions diced in 3:2:1 proportions. I could call this ezme salatis, but then we'd have a whole 'nother recipe to look at.
Aubergine
Force your way through the meatheads standing round the barbecue like moths drawn to a flame.
He who equates meat to manliness will make sure that he has his face pretty much on the grill. You see ladies, only a man's interest in a barbecue can prove his passion for meat, his capacity to provide for his family, his ability to put up a shed etc
With a polite cough, lay your aubergine on the grill. I prefer to lay the little fella down across the bars rather than along them. But we're not eating the skin, so it's just an aesthetic thing. The idea is to barbecue the flesh within its skin, giving it a smoky juiciness.
Note the Neanderthals' smirks. They won't be smiling when their uncooked, bile-coated bangers come spurting back out of their mouth later tonight. It's physically impossible to smile when you're puking. Fact.
It is worth pricking the aubergine with a fork beforehand. Otherwise you risk the embarrassment of your vegetable exploding on the grill. To Nuts readers, this would be a 'hilarious' example of effeminate incompetence with matters of technology or fire – the kind of thing these morons send into lad mags as evidence of women's stupidity.
Anyway, the aubergine is half of our cooking – it takes about twenty minutes to half an hour on the grill.
Right, you'll know that the aubergine is done when it has the crumpled, devastated structure of a particularly well-abused X-Factor contestant.
Give it a slight prod. Done? Now get it off and let that bad boy cool down.
We're acting macho here, yeah? Well then don't try and peel the skin of this aubergine while it's still hot. It's not cool to recoil shrieking from a vegetable with burnt fingers.
Once you've stripped the skin off, you could lay the flesh in a colander in the sink. Let the excess moisture drain off.
Chop the aubergine as you fancy. There is latitude for taste here. Some like their barbie-gine coarse and chunky; others like it chopped fine.
To be honest, this is a minimalist take. You could mix through a crushed garlic clove; stud it with raisins; or even lace the puree with fines herbes. For now just toss some salt in.
It's ready. Put it to one side. It'll be better for every degree it drops. Swirl in some virgin olive oil just before serving, when it's cold. Good oil and heat don't go.
Halloumi
Ok, let's start on the halloumi. First slice it into discs about 2cm thick. Now lay it on a semi-hot part of the barbie. If you've never cooked halloumi before, the next ten minutes will be a serious test of your character.
Barbecuing halloumi is like bringing up a child. There is a constant urge to run and see if your halloumi is ok every few minutes. Turn your back for a minute and it'll be creamed Dairylea, right? Wrong. This cheese is made of sterner stuff.
As when browning meat, you need to leave your slices of halloumi in uninterrupted contact with the elements. This allows them to seal, to crisp, to develop. If you keep checking they're ok every thirty seconds, nothing will happen. Whether grilling halloumi or bringing up children, such mollycoddling delivers the same end result: a big pathetic lump.
Three minutes on each side and they're done. They should come away easily from the grill bars, their fatty exterior vulcanized. It's as good as meat, I kid you not.
Assembly
Right, toss your flatbreads on the barbecue. You're not crisping them; you're just heating them through. I also find that a little heat makes the bread more supple. For similar reasons, Julian Dicks – a West Ham legend famous for his shattered knee joints – used to wait in a hot bath whenever named as a substitute. Only then could he come on with a supple set of legs.
Don't flip the flatbreads - heat on one side only.
Flatbreads out. Aubergine on. Chopped salad over. Halloumi on top.
Eat.
Done.
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