A personal Christmas best (or worst, if you like) was the frozen vegetarian lasagne, still glacial in the middle, dumped on the plate alongside an edited selection of festive trimmings – sprouts, red cabbage, but no roast potatoes (cooked with the turkey) or gravy (made with the turkey juices).
Would this be OK? I was asked.
Absolutely – yum?
It’s some time in the 1990s, spending Christmas at someone else’s house, and, as a longstanding vegetarian and a lazy idiot who couldn’t cook and couldn’t be bothered to soak lentils, I was in no position to complain, or even comment. After all, I was vegetarian, AKA “being awkward”. (I became one as a teenager, after coming across William Kotzwinkle’s 1976 novel Dr Rat). At Christmas, my job was to stick on a paper hat, eat whatever I was given, and just be grateful that I hadn’t been served the dreaded nut roast – or, as I often thought of it, the solidified protein-rich ectoplasm of Satan.
Over the years, many amazing (in all senses of the word) things have been fed to me as turkey substitutes, most of which were perfectly nice in their own way, just a bit surprising to encounter at Christmas dinner. Ratatouille. Pizza. Goat’s cheese tart. Microwave risotto. Tinned macaroni cheese with carrots sticking up out of it in the manner of a veg-themed Stonehenge. I like to think that a bit of love and thought went into that last one. In all the years, the only thing that I didn’t manage to eat was an “apricot, fig, walnut and jasmine bake”, which someone very thoughtfully procured for me from the local delicatessen, that tasted akin to scented gravel after a night marinating in an equine urine sample. That defeated me.
Eventually, I got a festive formula going – shop-bought vegetarian sausages (Linda McCartney, Cauldron, or Quorn), vegetable gravy, slightly salty but still nice, made from granules, and whatever everybody else was having, which, after all, mainly comprised delicious vegetables. As my palate became a finely honed thing of beauty (translation: I stopped existing mainly on peanut butter sandwiches and crisps), kind, skilled Christmas cooks would sort me out with separate roasting tins for potatoes, carrots, parsnips and vegetarian stuffing, and make gorgeous gravy from vegetable water and stock. I’d never had any interest in Christmas pudding – too much like gnawing on a slab of peat – but suet-free mince pies became available fairly early on. My vegetarian Christmas was sorted.
The important thing was to stick to the formula, and fend off the well-meaning offers of “something special”, though always with grovelling thanks and apologies. (“Something special” is where trouble and indigestion starts.) That’s old-school vegetarians for you, pathetically grateful for anything we’re given, and cowed into submission by decades of scorn, incredulity and the distinct impression that we and our stupid dietary requirements are casting a major festive-buzzkill shadow over the most anticipated meal of the year. In the nicest possible way, it’s been shut up, put up, and try not to throw up.
Not only is it now a lot easier and tastier to be vegetarian or even vegan, increasingly, it’s become a lucrative annexe of the mainstream. In 2016, 542,000 people identified as vegan, a 350% rise in a decade. Now, according to a report from Waitrose, one in eight Britons are vegetarian or vegan, with 60% of vegans and 40% of the vegetarians switching in the last five years. All of which means that a third of British people have either significantly reduced their meat intake or given it up entirely.
No wonder that there’s been a massively increased interest in vegan food in the past 12 months, and that supermarkets have responded by expanding their own vegetarian and vegan ranges. Reasons for the boom include everything from animal cruelty, environmental factors and health awareness to the growing popularity of initiatives such as Veganuary and World Vegan Month (throughout November), polemical documentaries exposing the meat and dairy industries and social media helping to familiarise the public with leftfield lifestyles. Then there are the festivals nationwide making food of all varieties, from halloumi fish and chips to more exotic street food, not only available, but also preferable. Moreover according to the Waitrose report, 21% of Britons now identify as flexitarian (eating predominantly, but not strictly, vegetarian). I used to roll my eyes at flexitarians (have your (fish)cake and eat it, why don’t you?), until I realised, with a jolt, that, in a way, I was one too. Just as some omnivores frequently eat vegetarian food, so do vegetarians like myself frequently eat vegan.
To a meat-free fogey like myself, all this has been akin to stepping off a spaceship into a more evolved, aware society that just happens to know its way around a punnet of jackfruit dal. Am I embittered and jealous that all this variety and deliciousness wasn’t around when I was young and hungry? Perhaps a little – spare a thought for those of us who lived through early attempts at fake bacon – but I’m delighted and impressed by the upbeat confident attitude. The cowed vegetarian seems to be fast becoming an anachronism and, with the vastly improved selection of easily obtained food, it’s never seemed more obvious than this Christmas.
I’d have thought that Christmas dinner was one of the occasions where going non-traditional was more about being a certain personality type, more adventurous with food and life generally, than being specifically vegetarian or vegan. Certainly, I’ve always preferred to “go trad”, sometimes moving from my trusty veg sausages to the wild abandon of, say, a mushroom wellington, with no raging desire to start pulling crackers over quesadillas or rice noodles.
In part, this attitude may have sprung from my inbuilt paranoia – that if I didn’t stick with my “Safe Vegetarian Christmas” formula, I’d risk dire consequences. However, I’ve been perusing the newly “woke” vegetarian and vegan supermarket ranges: Festive Stuffing Wreath with Pomegranate Glaze (Co-op); Festive Jewelled Squash and Pistachio Pilaf (Sainsbury’s); and Vegan Stuffed Butternut Squash (Tesco). There are even some decent sounding nut roasts: Extra Special Mushroom and Chestnut Nut-Roast with Cranberry Star (Vegan) Butter (Asda) and Vegan Butternut Almond and Pecan Nut-Roast (Marks & Spencer). And more – much more.
It’s still not perfect – Sainsbury’s have slapped bacon on their otherwise intriguing Brussels Sprout Gratin (why, Sainsbury’s, why?) – but it’s still a world away from my frozen lasagne Christmas dinner. Before Veganuary 2019 even kicks in, there’s a whole new vegetarian and vegan Christmassy world out there – and quite a few of us are going to be busy eating it.
OFM’s vegetarian Christmas choices
Marks & Spencer Vegan Butternut, Almond & Pecan Nut Roast
440g, £7.50, marksandspencer.com
People have been slagging off nut roast for years, and often for good reason. This version is what you always imagined nut roast could be. Almonds, pecans and cranberries are combined with pumpkin and cannellini beans for a delightfully crunchy, stuffing-like texture. The plummy, Marmitey gravy doesn’t disappoint.
Pret a Manger Veggie Christmas Lunch Sandwich
£3.50, pret.co.uk
Unrivalled in the realm of high-street veggie Christmas sandwiches. Sadly, a lot of festive sandwiches err on the side of too sweet, with too much cranberry and pickled veg. What sets Pret’s interpretation above the rest is its ‘Christmas pesto’ (chestnuts, cheese etc) and the addition of mayo, because what is a sandwich without mayo?
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Truffled Cauliflower Cheese En-Croûte
750g, £9, sainsburys.co.uk
Who doesn’t like cauliflower cheese? Put cheesy bechamel in an all-butter puff and you have a winner. Sainsbury’s has been a bit of a Scrooge with the truffle flavour here but, ultimately, this ingenious idea makes a quick and satisfying addition to any Christmas feast.
