What Do You Eat?

August 1, 2016 by Ray Morgan

What do you eat?

On Saturday night, I sat on the beach watching the sunset, taking my own advice from last week's blog. It had been an overcast day; warm, but cloudy, which never brings out the best in a view. In fact, while packing up a picnic at home, it started to rain, and I wondered if we'd been too optimistic to plan an al fresco dinner here in the UK.

But as I mixed a cocktail (which always makes me feel impossibly Mad Men), the clouds rolled away and by the time me, my partner Jo and a dear friend had walked to the beach, it had turned into a beautiful evening.

We sat on blankets and watched the millpond-like estuary - a late high tide and still as a mirror, the only movement caused by a lone swimmer. The sky played a great show: all thundering pinks, golds, peaches and mauves. We sat and talked for hours, slapping away gnats (I'm furiously itching my knee as I type this). And we ate a totally boss picnic, if I may say so.

All vegetarians, and two who don't eat dairy, we had what was basically, bar one item, a vegan picnic. It makes me laugh when people say "You don't eat meat? And you don't eat cheese? What do you eat?" - I've talked about this before because there are still lots of people who don't understand vegetarianism or veganism. I always say well I have exactly what you eat, but without the meat or dairy. This is sometimes met with blank looks, I must say.

But here's the thing: we ate bloody well at that picnic! We had local sourdough bread, pre-sliced. We had hummus, chutneys, oven-roasted radishes. We had runner beans from my parents' allotment, par-boiled and then griddled before being lovingly packed up in the picnic basket, so they had a lovely, smokey, barbecued flavour. We had posh crisps, wasabi peas, and Quorn Scotch eggs (which aren't vegan but are meat free). It was delicious. The kind of food that you can just pick and pick at while chatting and having a drink and then suddenly realise you're incredibly full.

We strolled back home before we became three giant walking gnat-bites, and continued our evening at home, possibly busting out another giant bag of crisps WHOOPS!

It wasn't particularly healthy, but it also wasn't super unhealthy; freshly picked vegetables, cooked nicely, alongside naughty things like crisps. Simple, tasty food. And apart from the egg in the Quorn Scotch egg (also known as Picnic Eggs - it would be rude not to) no animal products whatsoever. I'm not going to get preachy about my journey to almost being vegan. I have my own reasons and I don't think it's fair for me to push them on you, but it did make me think that meat-eaters don't have to load up on sausages, cheeses and pork pies all the time. It makes a difference to have a few veggie meals from time to time.

Shout out also to the amazing geeks who run the Accidentally Vegan instagram account, because they show you all the fun junk food from supermarkets that you might not realise is actually vegan, if you fancy giving it a try.

The Sand Bar do a great Meat Free Monday menu in Leigh which is worth doing if you start to cut down on meat and you still want to go out and have a treat. And next time you're packing up a picnic, think outside the box and ditch the meat for some different veggie treats instead. Griddled runner beans might not sound like a replacement for chipolatas, but blimmin' heck, they're tasty!

To read all of Ray's previous fabulous blogs please click the link https://www.leigh-on-sea.com/blog/tag/ray-morgan.html