Nearly Vegetarian

As posted previously, I am trying to fit in one fish and two vegetarian main courses into our week's eating. Or nearly vegetarian. Like tonight's offering, which will be mushroom risotto, maybe with some peas to give a contrast of textures and some more vegetable matter (yes, I watch QI too, fungi are closer to animals than vegetables, but for culinary purposes let's forget the DNA analysis). Except I have some ham stock to use in making the dish, and am probably going to use up the last little bit of a packet of 'recipe' bacon too.

So the definition is broadening to mainly vegetarian. True moral veggies would be horrified by this. I am not a vegetarian at all, certainly not by belief. I just know that too much meat is not good for us. And is weight-for-weight far more expensive than mushrooms or vegetables other than those wastefully (and given their loss of freshness pointlessly) flown in from Peru, Egypt etc.

The inclusion of bacon as above reminds me of a couple of incidents long past. In my Sixties and Seventies childhood one of our neighbours was a vegetarian. When she came over for a party my parents gave my mother cooked her a vegetarian dish - a pie - specially. Except she later admitted to having included "A little bacon, for flavour." And holidaying in Brittany with another couple who were vegetarians I carefully explained to a waiter in a little restaurant that our friends didn't eat meat. He suggested a salad, which duly came with lardons. When challenged about this he said: "But it is only a small amount."