Fish Eaters

“Would you like a cigarette?”

“No thanks. I don’t smoke.”

“Oh, fine. How about a cigar then?”

“No. I’m a non-smoker.”

“Yes. I understand. My grandfather was a non-smoker all his life. Only ever smoked a pipe. What about a beer?”

“Sorry. I’m teetotal.”

“No problem. There’s plenty of wine.”

Given that I have managed to live to fifty nine without having heard the above conversation, why do I so often have to have a similar dialogue based on the inability of my interlocutor to comprehend that vegetarians do not eat fish?

I have had the conversation with mortified hostesses, who, in spite of having been given warning that I was vegetarian, have trusted in Fate and salmon, only to be finally forced to conclude, “Don’t worry. It’s not a problem. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll make you a lovely green salad.”

I have had the conversation with outraged restaurateurs who have insisted that only the previous weekend Linda McCartney, Gandhi and George Bernard Shaw had all been sitting at that very table tucking into Scampi à la Maison.

There is of course a word for those who eat fish but not the flesh of cow, pig, horse or gibbon. It is not Vegetarian. It is not Pesco-vegetarian. It is not Semi-vegetarian. It is Non-vegetarian. Any other terminology queers the pitch for us genuine vegetarians, who find the progress we were making in pushing restaurants to have at least the delights of the ubiquitous Vegetable Lasagna or the trendier Goat’s Cheese Something on offer, has gone into reverse, as we are told, “But all our other vegetarians eat fish!”

The truth is that we vegetarians have become victims of our own success. Everyone wants a slice of the Veggie action - but without the inconvenience of actually giving up food they like.

Apparently the King who had set before him the pie containing two dozen blackbirds now claims to be a Pollo-vegetarian; my only comfort is that the blackbird who took revenge by pecking off the nose of one of his servants is describing itself as a Maido-vegetarian.

Between the wars the film critic Ivor Montagu, was invited to dinner by the Shaws. Assuming that the food would be vegetarian, he did not bother to tell them that he too was a vegetarian. He arrived to find that they had bought and cooked for him a large steak. Too embarrassed to explain, he ate it. All might still have been well had Shaw not started to rehearse on him the arguments for vegetarianism. Montagu, in order not to look stupid, began to make up arguments against. It had, of course, no effect on Shaw; but he convinced himself and went back to eating meat. Can this possibly have made him the first Carno-vegetarian?