Why paul mccartney won't touch a big mac (part 3)

1 servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
I remember we had Steve Martin, the comedian to our house and I
Was barbecuing these bangers and burgers made of Textured Vegetable
Protein.

Directions

So I opened it up and said "There you go Steve". And a look of horror came on his face as he said "Oh, I'm afraid I won't be able to eat any of that". Of course, when I expiained it was all vegetarian, he had about four of 'em stuffed in his face. Linda says if you can take the truck driver, the guy who picks up a quick burger because he's in a hurry and wants something nutritious; if you can slip him a vege-burger and he eats it and is happy with the taste, then you're really getting somewhere. I find it exciting because we're finding more and more vegetarian products that are so realistic - so much so that some of our vegetarian friends won't eat them because they think they taste too much like meat. You see these signs in America saying "real meat for real people" but I think that's just funny. I notice those sort of campaigns and I notice it implies that people like us are wimps - which I pretty much know I'm not. I rememberJames Garner did a series of commercials saying "real men eat real meat", doing the "rabbit food" joke. And a while after that campaign ended he had a heart attack. But to give him the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure he didn't know what he was doing. I find it a little bit amusing that I'm sure people don't understand what is going on. Because what happens, like me and like Linda and like most of us, you grow up with your Mum and Dad saying "Eat your meat it's good for you" and, secondly, it's our tradition to do so. We're British and British people eat meat steeped in our traditions, and that is a very important thing in people's consciousness. The other great thing is that our tradition is changing. You would never have seen wine on the table when we were kids. Now even ordinary British people can have a bottle of wine with their meals. It's like you would never have seen us eating curries when I was a kid, but we all do now. So along with all that I think it's perfectly feasible for people to change. The other thing, talking about this transition thing we're going through, is that I don't think people realise that when they're eating meat they don't want to think that this animal you're eating has had its throat slit, or that it's died in pain that it's been hung upside down and bled. When people start talking about that at meal-times you say, "oh come on, leave it out". You want your chicken pre-packed and clean; women do not want to stuff their hands up into a chicken and pull out the giblets. People try to hide the fact that they are actually eating something that had a face and a heart, something that had a soul. And that's another tradition; in most of the books you read it holds that animals don't have souls - that's something I don't agree with. I think it's so pompous of mankind to pronounce that. What? Has somebody got inside an animal's head and found out? Submitted By SAM LEFKOWITZ On 10-28-95

Related recipes