Never in all our years together have I felt such a sense of betrayal resulting from the actions of my spouse.
No, she didn’t cheat on me. No, she didn’t spend our savings on something extravagant for herself. No she hasn’t been saying awful things about me behind my back to her friends and family. She hasn’t even stopped me ordering this months shipment of Transformers.
The near-unspeakable act she committed was…. wait for it…. telling our son we could have at least one vegetarian dinner a week!
I know – pretty shameful behaviour right?
We are a decision sharing household and whilst both my wife and I have autonomy to make decisions, we usually do so safe in the knowledge that the other would agree with our actions.
But the other night when we were eating dinner, my son asked what vegetarianism is, as he has encountered the concept since starting Primary School. So we explained to him what it was. He then asked if we could have a vegetarian dinner. Without batting an eyelid, without looking to me to see if I was on board, she replied “Yeah we can have a vegetarian dinner. In fact we can have one every week”.
My jaw hit the dinner table, and not simply because I was stuffing rissoles into it. Did she just say what I thought she said?! Did she just make a unilateral decision regarding our family’s dietary requirements without consulting with me?
“Um… dear…” I said is a very guarded tone.
She looked at me, subtle amusement clear on her face, then repeated herself to our son that “yes, lets have vegetarian once a week”.
I was shocked! I was flabbergasted. And I tell you one thing…. this will not stand!
Now, let me say something from the outset – I have nothing against vegetarians. My entire adult life I have had vegetarian friends and sometimes eaten at their houses. Even went to a vegetarian restaurant in Melbourne for one of their birthdays once. The tofu tasted like bloody awful warmed-up gelatin but I still ate it.
From a sustainability viewpoint I think vegetarianism has a lot going for it, given you can generate a lot more food per acre from growing crops than from grazing livestock. You are going to feed the starving masses around the world a lot easier with rice than you are with lamb.
Plus I’ve always looked at Vegetarians the same way when young I looked at Gay Guys. Every two guys that decided to get together meant that there was two more women available for me to pursue. And like that, every person that decides to become a vegetarian means one less person competing for that prime steak in the butchers shop. Homosexuality, Vegetarianism – not lifestyles I subscribe to but of which I heartily approve.
But this is my dinnertable. And by gawd in this household at dinnertime we eat MEAT!
For those of you thinking I am being draconian in my viewpoint, consider the following:
Breakfast
We technically have vegetarian for breakfast 6 days a week. My son and wife have porridge, my daughter has toast and I have fruit. It’s only on a Sunday when I cook a big breakfast for the family that meat enters the realm of breakfast in our household.
Lunch
At lunchtime my kids have hardly any meat. My daughter has one slice of shaved ham in her ham-and-cheese sandwich. My son has two slices. Besides that it’s all cheese, bread, fruit, crackers and my wife’s home-baked goods like banana bread. In fact, sometimes we make the kids organic free-range duck egg sandwiches which cuts out that bit of meat all together!
My wife packs salads for her lunch so she usually eats vegetarian, unless she puts some lean chicken in or something.
I usually take a frozen meal to work, as since I am so rushed making my kids lunches for Preschool & Primary School in the morning, I don’t have time to make any for myself. And anyone that has eaten those frozen meals know the companies are extremely frugal regarding how much meat they include.
So that is a tiny bit of meat for the family at lunchtime, vastly overshadowed by a plethora of non-meat products.
So, given that even if you combine the first two meals of the day, the meat intake of my family is miniscule, why the hell should we be eating vegetarian for our third meal as well?!
Well, I can tell ya right now – we won’t be! I never cook an all meat meal, why should I cook an all vegetarian meal? Is that fair? Is that just? Is that a balanced diet? No, no it is not!
Every meal I cook has non-meat products in it. If I cook Indian there is rice, coriander, naan bread and pappadums. If I cook Thai there are Asian vegetables and noodles. If I cook Italian there is pasta sauce, wholemeal pasta and garlic bread. If I cook your average Aussie Meat & 3 Veg, there is indeed 3 Veg. In fact I usually put in four of five!
And yes there is meat. And yes there is usually a lot of meat. And on my plate in particular there is admittedly a LOT of meat! But it’s not all there is. Again, as tempting as it is I never cook an all-meat meal (for a really great all-meat meal though, check out this recipe!).
So I’m putting my foot down. There will be no vegetarian meals at dinnertime in our household. None, zip, zippo, nada, naught! There will always be meat. Lamb, Pork, Venison, Chicken, Beef, Seafood – whatever. It will be there on the plate for all to enjoy. Someone doesn’t like it, they can push it to the side of their plate. Good luck with that since my daughter is a little carnivore and my son, the one who asked about having vegetarian meals in the first place, complains almost every night about having to finish his veggies. I can’t see them pushing all that meaty goodness to one side so as to have more room for broccoli.
My wife cooks about once a month. I, as the househusband (who now also works 4 days a week AND looks after the farm) am the primary chef and it will be a cold day in hades before I start cooking meals of a night that don’t have a big slab of animal flesh included! We are carnivores, our eyes are in front in order to judge the distance to our prey – eating meat is natural and healthy and it is how humanity evolved. I firmly believe we developed an opposable thumb so we could go out and club mammoths in order to have Flintstone-sized steaks back in the cave. Humanity would not have survived as a species if our ancestors had said ‘Oh I think I’ll just have a light salad’. I treat my gut like Noah’s Ark, it is my fervent hope that by the end of my life it will contain at least two of every animal. And making one 7th of my weekly dinners vegetarian may well ruin that dream. Surely my wife can’t want to destroy my dreams can she? Doesn’t she love me the way I love her?
As far as I’m concerned my wife can cook vegetarian when it’s her turn to cook. I’ll just require adequate notice so that I can have a bunch of bacon on hand to add to mine.
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