KEY POINTS:
Glass in hand, I'm burning last summer's leftovers - beef, chicken, pork, assorted and unidentifiable sausages (duck and porcini, possibly) - from the barbie when the phone rings.
It's The Lady Editor: "Can you write in defence of meat-eaters for our vegetarian issue?"
TLE and I share, as
readers may have gathered over the issues, many things. A certain sense of style. Fondness for the odd cocktail and the more classic champagne. Fondness for the Viva Visa card.
But as readers will also have discerned, we differ over food. For TLE is the president of the Titirangi Tofu Fanciers Network, or TTFN, and I have no intention of giving up meat for lentils.
I poured another shiraz and harrumphed. Meat-fanciers have nothing to defend. We, the Carnivores, were here first, and if we hadn't survived, the Vegetarians wouldn't be around to have the opportunity - or privilege - of indulging their cult.
For it is a cult. Yep, we kill things and eat them. But as the greatest scientist and rational mind of this or any other generation said: "In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death - even vegetarians." Quite right, Mr Spock, and if any vego wants to argue with you, I'm happy to buy 'em a one-way ticket to Vulcan.
Oh, that "holier-than-moi" attitude. Go out to eat with one of the Green Taleban and you'll understand why easy-going chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Simon Gault feel held to ransom by protein-terrorists. A decade sweating for a Michelin star and some tosser bleats that his insalata caprese wasn't made from soy-mozzarella.
As the sainted Clarissa sweetly suggested, "do we feel the need to go into a vegetarian restaurant and demand the meat option?"
Which is worse, eating farmed animals or denuding the world of vegetation? Given the fuss over a good T-bone's contribution to global warming via methane, aren't we cleaning up the environment? If vegetarian food is so great, why do the Saladista crave tofu steaks and lentil burgers? Because they secretly need to eat real food.
Yes, I've set out to get the Broccolists steaming. For they are positively - no, negatively - evangelical. You have only to Google "defend: meat" to find thousands of rabid (oh dear, inadvertent carnivore reference) histrionics. Most have the intellectual rigour of their brethren, the early-morning TV faith-healers.
By now most of my protein- and iron-deficient opponents will have written me off as a tool of Big Meat. Nonsense. Meat-eaters have the reasoned approach of great philosophers. They know they are right and are content to let the lunatic fringe flail about, wittering some shrill eco-feminist view that we're extending male patriarchal domination by espousing the Ribeye Dogma.
Or they write thousand-word emotional emails, as the Lentillati will when this is printed. They should have a nice steak to calm them down. After all, carnivores don't feel the need to defend their position with every fibre of their being.
By now you will realise this is tongue-in-cheek (speaking of offal, there are some really nice things you can do with tongue and cheek). But at least I can joke about my diet. I've never met a funny vegetarian.
And there are some superlative vego dishes. You can't beat a great ratatouille with a steak on the side.
Besides, some of my best friends are vegetarian. Like TLE. After reading about recent foie-gras ecstasies she believes I'll come back as a goose. Some threat. Not after what I've done to my liver in this life.
GREAT CARNIVORES HAVE DECLARED:
I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.
Oscar Wilde
I didn't claw my way up the food chain so I could eat vegetables.
Anonymous
Vegetarians taste better.
Author unknown
Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?
Author unknown
If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?
Author unknown
Vegetarian. That's an old Indian word meaning lousy hunter.
Andy Rooney
I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight.
Rita Rudner
Vegetarian: a person who eats only side dishes.
Gerald Lieberman
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
Author unknown
All normal people love meat. If I went to a barbecue and there was no meat, I would say, "Yo Goober! Where's the meat? I'm trying to impress people here, Lisa. You don't win friends with salad."
Homer Simpson