I woke up this morning worrying about our dwindling cod stocks and the fact that the Belgians are nicking all our fish. I'm not sure this is normal; I'm sure there are lots more things I could be worrying about, but it was a full moon last night and that tends to have a strange effect on me.

Anyhow, today I want to talk about fibre. We are always being told that we should eat more of it. Some people go farther, and suggest that meat is really bad for you and that the only way to live a long and happy life is to be a vegetarian. Well, let me put this question to you: How you ever met a really healthy-looking and more important, happy looking vegetarian? Well, I haven't. I'm not saying they don't exist, but what I do know it that they don't exist in the vegetarian restaurant in Dartington.

I went there recently with my friend Julie. We'd spent the morning looking around Totnes, which is a local market town famed for attracting scores of people interested in pursuing an alternative lifestyle. The streets throng with men wearing trouserings that even Mahatma Gandhi would find too restrictive, and women wearing shawls knitted out of their own body hair. On market day you often see a busker playing a sitar, accompanied by small worried-looking dog, who probably follows his master around because he smells just like his favourite blanket.

After we'd finished shopping, we called in to the Cider Press Centre at the nearby village of Dartington, to see if we could nab any bargains in the January sales. Bargains were hard to come by that day, so we took our girls to the veggie coffee shop for a hot chocolate and a flapjack. There was a long queue of elderly people in beige, interspersed with a few affluent ladies in cashmere cardigans and Laura Ashley skirts. The counter was stocked with all manner of delicious-looking meat-free dishes, and an impressive array of cakes. Now, I'm all for a healthy lifestyle, but it's not much good buying a lentil loaf and mixed-leaf salad, if the shock of finding out how much it's going to set you back is going to bring on a coronary. When did vegetables get so expensive? And why do the people who serve these delicious wallet-denting delicacies always look clinically depressed and in need of a quick blood transfusion?

I have never seen a more glum-looking bunch of girls. They stood behind the counter in an insipid, insouciant line, with barely the strength or the willpower to lift the spinach quiche that cost as much as a smallholding on the Outer Hebrides. I didn't want to eat quiche, but if I had done, the very act of trying to rouse one of the miserable maids behind the counter into action would have proved way too much effort. They all moved in super-slow motion; I could have grown my lunch quicker than they took to serve it, but it was nothing that a shot of vitamin B complex and a quick jab from a cattle prod wouldn't have put right.

Julie eventually came back with our weak coffee, and her daughter began tucking into a wholesome, fruity flapjack. The flapjack was placed back on the plate and then began the process of trying to chew the small mouthful of oaty apricotty deliciousness. Only it turns out that it was neither oaty nor apricotty. Julie and I both had a bite and decided that it had been made by a seriously pre-menstrual spinster, from the crepe sole of the shoe that she'd pulled off her blind date as he struggled to escape from her Morris Minor after being asked to perform an unnatural sex act in the car park outside Asda.

I told Julie that she should ask for her money back, which involved a trip back to the 'Don't look at me. I'm so depressed I'm going to self-harm with the cake slice' counter. The girl at the till didn't bat an eyelid when Julie asked for a refund, mainly due to the fact that she was too weak to summon up that much energy. When she did eventually look at Julie, it was as if to say, 'How dare you have the temerity to return one of our delicious, wholesome morsels? You're not happy? I'm not happy. I had lentil roast last night and I'm suppressing so much trapped wind that if I were to laugh I could easily propel myself right over to the non-smoking section of this restaurant.'

So she didn't laugh - in fact, she didn't even smile. Julie did eventually get her money back, but if the staff are an advert for the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle I think I'll stick to meat.

I bought a piece of beef last Saturday, which had been hung for three weeks. It came out of the cold room looking black and sweet and mouth-watering, and when Christine, the butcher's wife, showed it to me, she said, 'Charlie would have loved this piece of beef.' And she was right, because Charlie loved his visits to Wilkinson's, and he loved to buy a good piece of beef and cook it for our Sunday lunch. He may have died young, but, by God, he ate well. And now I'm passing on the benefits of eating a good, wholesome, balanced diet to my girls. So they had roast beef on Sunday, with lots of Yorkshire puddings and gravy. And on Monday we all had cold roast beef, jacket potato and Caesar salad, which, in my humble opinion is one of the finest meals imaginable. And I know my girls will grow up loving food as I do, and as their father did, and not worrying about calories and carbs and all the stuff that makes you miserable and pale.

So here's to the joy of meat, and here's to all the British farmers and butchers who supply it. Long may we continue to enjoy the rare pleasure of beef, and if you need an example of why you should eat it, just take a trip to Dartington and ask for a flapjack.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.