Naked model is painted with fruit and veg to promote vegetarianism
As National Vegetarian Week draws to a close, Becky Paskin wonders whether vegetarians have managed to attract the attention from the restaurant industry they so desperately sought.
Vegetarians are so eager to get their cuisine recognised seriously that this National Vegetarian Week they resorted to sticking a naked lady in the window of Tibits on Heddon Street as a desperate plea for attention.
Granted, she was strategically painted with fruit and vegetables, but the message this week remains that vegetarians still feel invisible to chefs, despite having the widest range of meat-free food they’ve ever known.
On Thursday this point was illustrated in a competition at the same venue to find the best veggie sausage from five of the country’s leading brands. The fact that we even have five different options of sausage is something vegetarians could only dream of 10 years ago, when finding a meat-free dish on a menu would have been like finding Heather Mills chomping down on a BigMac.
But even with so many more ingredients available to chefs, the general vegetarian opinion is why do they still seem totally inadequate at putting a simple meat-free dish together?
“When will chefs learn that it’s unacceptable to serve a vegetable dish with a side of vegetables?” says Yvonne Bishop-Weston, founder of Foods for Life and a passionate vegetarian. “Vegetarians and vegans need more variety and more nutrition than that.”
There has been a general call from the veggie camp this week for chefs to provide more imaginative and creative dishes for them to choose from, instead of plonking a risotto or pasta option on as an afterthought.
“We need to recognise that the industry has responded to the increase in vegetarianism,” says Annette Pinner, chief executive of the Vegetarian Society. “But they still have a long way to go. We would encourage chefs to be more creative, adventurous, and to produce healthy food that isn’t always laden with cheese and cream.”
But despite vegetarians’ frustration at the limited and repetitive menu options available to them, there are a handful of chefs proving that Britain’s culinary talent does have what it takes to prepare a satisfying meat-free dish, without complaint.
Barry Tonkinson from The Lanesborough and Eddie Shepherd from Mono in Glasgow were this week named the first Cordon Vert Vegetarian Chefs of the Future; Jean-Claude Novelli announced the launch of a specialist summer vegetarian cookery course; The Saki Bar & Food Emporium at Smithfields has been featuring London’s first seven course vegetarian Japanese tasting menu; and Compass chefs have been using Quorn and tofu in dishes at 300 staff canteens around the country.
It’s unclear as yet whether the vegetarian community’s message will get across to the restaurant industry, but if the progress made both recently and over the last 10 years is anything to go by there is hope for improved standards of vegetarian cuisine, and not just that eaten off a naked chick in the window.
What do you think? Are vegetarians complaining about nothing or do you think there is still much more the industry can do to cater for them? Tell us your thoughts by clicking the add a comment button below.
Tags: Chefs, Restaurants, Vegetarian
