The solar panel fitter was eating his fried breakfast when the talkative vegans came into the kitchen. They surveyed his plate of bacon, eggs, sausage and black pudding with a look of disgust before helping themselves to cereal, which they doused in the soya milk they had gone to the supermarket to buy, because I refuse to stock milk alternatives.
What people eat is now a political issue hotter than the Middle East. It would be easier and safer for me to ask a B&B guest’s views on a two-state solution than say: ‘What would you like for breakfast?’
When I ask a guest what they want for breakfast, the vast majority tense up, flush red and begin listing what they will and will not eat, with their myriad complicated reasons. There is no cohesion or commonality, and each vegan misunderstands how difficult it would be to predict their niche preference, because the last one had a different idea.
One vegan wants oat milk, the next wants almond, the next wants soya. And they all think their choice is the most correct, and never the twain shall meet between the oat milkers and the soyas. They detest each other. They wouldn’t share a life raft if their peace flotilla was sinking and they were about to drown.
A folk singer sat down gloomily at my table the other day – they’re either gloomy when they’re meat-free or else totally manic, in my experience. Morbidly slowly and depressively, he refused the bacon and eggs I offered and asked for porridge with hot water and a lemon, because he had a cold. And as he squeezed his lemon into the mug he mumbled something about a coconut.
‘A coconut you say?’ I said, fascinated. ‘I’ve never heard that one before. So you put the coconut in with the cold remedy, do you? And what’s the thinking behind that? I’m really into natural cold remedies. I use crushed garlic, an old Italian recipe my mother always swore by…’
And I rattled on until he said: ‘Coconut milk! I want coconut milk with my tea.’
As so often since starting this B&B business, I felt the spirit of Basil Fawlty move within me. ‘Coconut… coconut…,’ I said, making as though to search the larder cupboard. Then I looked out the patio window towards the garden as if wondering whether we had some coconut trees I had never noticed, before announcing: ‘We’re just out of coconuts I’m afraid.’ He didn’t get the humour, but he wouldn’t. Would you, if you were eating porridge with water and a lemon when you knew there was a pile of sausages for frying on the counter?
Often these vegan dietary requirements are extremely philosophically confused. A lot of people ask for eggs but no meat. Or meat but no eggs. Or eggs and meat but no milk. And always as though their combination was the most obvious. Either that or they eat what they call ‘some’ dairy.
‘I’m trying to cut down on dairy,’ said the folk singer, before announcing: ‘I’m also gluten-free.’
‘Good for you. Would you like a medal? Maybe we could arrange for it to be presented to you at the UN by the child of Ben Affleck wearing an enormous Covid safety mask?’ This is what I wanted to say but didn’t.
These people are doing what they feel is the right thing, but I’m not sure why they feel it’s right. It seems to have no basis in either science or ethics. Eating ‘some’ dairy is never going to become a brave new lifestyle choice that will change the world.
By the way, I’m not talking about genuine coeliacs who can’t eat bread, or people who are lactose intolerant. I’m talking about people for whom gluten-free and dairy-free is a political statement. That’s why they get so angry about it.
As they survey my breakfast bar with its platter of lovely local yoghurts from cows grazing in rolling fields, they make a face and harrumph like I’ve decorated the breakfast bar in Israeli flags, which I might do one day to annoy these lefties.
The two vegan girls ate their cereal and soya milk while making faces at the smell of the bacon and eggs being eaten by a working man. And what struck me as ironic about that little vignette was the role of meat in environmental posturing.
The solar panel fitter was staying with me for two weeks while fitting 50 panels to the house of a leftie, of whose purely ideological solar power attempt in an almost sunless country the vegans would doubtless approve. But without a big strong man eating bacon and eggs in the kitchen of a right-winger prepared to cook them, those solar panels wouldn’t get fitted.
All things are connected, and lefties couldn’t survive without right-wingers. They wouldn’t even get started.
These two vegans weren’t the worst, because they didn’t complain about going to get their pretend milk. But they did lay a lot of sarcasm on me. ‘Using animals for food just doesn’t seem to bother some people does it?’ the louder of the two said to me, eyeing me up and down.
‘Nope. Doesn’t bother me,’ I said cheerily. ‘Funny thing is a lot of the cows here have been exported to Algeria this year, where they will be expanding milk production. They’re also basing much more beef production in Africa and South America.’
‘That’s terrible!’ she shouted, taking the bait. ‘Yes, it is,’ I said, ‘It’s called the law of unintended consequences. Ungrateful westerners campaign for less meat and dairy, and buy soya milk, because it’s fashionable, and the result eventually is good farmers with high welfare standards go out of business in Europe and the whole thing moves to Africa.’
She brooded for a few moments before looking at me defiantly: ‘Why can’t all the farmers in Ireland just grow soya?’
‘Why can’t all you vegans just do yourselves a favour and have a bacon sandwich and a pint of milk?’ is what I wanted to say. But I didn’t, because in order to maintain my five-star rating, I have to pretend crazy stuff is normal.
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