Deborah Ross
HAPPY Easter? Thanks for asking but not especially, no. I've become rather obsessed with medical sites on the Internet and, in particular, typing in any symptoms I might have — disinclination to get up, disinclination to keep to a diet, inability to tear myself away from Animal Hospital — to see if they comprise a syndrome or disease or anything. And it's been a revelation. Honestly, I had no idea how ill I was. Just last week, for example, I had Lyme disease, lupus, lumbago, and that's just the Ls. I might have had a spot of Parkinson's, too, even though my partner said I couldn't have. 'You're not shaking,' he said. 'Oh great,' I said. 'I go out to work, I earn money, I look after the house, I go to Tesco's, I do the garden, I call in the man when the washing-machine breaks down . . . and you expect me to shake, too?' Truly, you'd think he'd let me get away with the non-shaking kind of Parkinson's, wouldn't you? You'd think he'd be generous enough to do that. But, oh no.
Anyway, my subject for this week? Yup, you've guessed it. Health. And healthy eating. And maybe, just maybe, not eating meat any more, because it can't be very good for you, what with all the BSE and foot-and-mouth stuff going on, can it? So, a vegetarian diet. then? I did once flirt with vegetarianism years ago, when I was a teenager, although my motives, I should confess, were neither political nor moral. I just wanted to annoy my mother, who was and remains) very much a meat-and-twoveg kind of cook. And it did work brilliantly; threw her completely. Didn't know what to put the veg around, until she came up with the idea of moulding kidney-beans into lamb-chop shapes. Delicious? I should say not. And the animal-rights movement? Never really been involved, although I did once write to the Body Shop to complain about one of its products. 'Dear Body Shop,' I wrote. recently washed our pet rabbit, Floppity, in your brazil-nut shampoo. Unfortunately, though, it seems to have given her very sore, red eyes. Couldn't problems like these be avoided if you tested on animals? PS: Could you please reassure me that your peppermint foot-lotion is safe to use on our pet fish, Goldie?' Strangely, I've yet to receive a reply. I think that Anita woman knows the game is up. I think she knows I'm on to her racket (although don't get me on to rickets, which I had for ten minutes last Wednesday, when my legs suddenly went all bendy).
Whatever, I decide we'll all go out for a vegetarian meal at Fiction, a north-London restaurant that comes well recommended by Time Out and the Evening Standard and similar. Our young son, a passionate carnivore, is aghast. 'What, no meat? No meat at all? Can I choose something and ask for sausages with it?' We go on a Sunday evening, at sevenish. Initially, things do not look good. There's a
sign on the door that says, 'Due to staff shortages, we will not be taking any orders after 9 p.m.' This just seems terribly unpromising somehow. Still, no matter. We are ravenous. My son and I have been to a swimming party where, foolishly, I agreed to be one of the accompanying adults in the water. It was one of those dreadful pools, with wave machines and everything. Actually, it wasn't that bad. Was quite fun, even, until one of the boys came up to me to ask, 'Is swimming good for verrucas, do you know?' Oh, terrific. I mean, I'm not even meant to get to the Vs until July. This is going to throw my diseases right off schedule, isn't it? • So, in we go. Initially, it's empty, just us. It's a nice place. Wooden tables and benches, brick walls with rugs hanging on them; that sort of thing. Soon other diners arrive. One is a woman who eats alone while reading a musical score. Her cardi looks hand-knitted; as does her face, frankly. No, I'm not saying she probably has hairy feet and uses nasty, recycled toilet paper and reads the Guardian. Just that, if she did, I wouldn't be surprised. A most earnest-looking couple eventually occupy the table next to us. 'Drinks?' the waitress asks them. 'Do you have decaffeinated tea?' asks the bloke. Decaffeinated tea? I mean, tell me, what is the point? It's like asking for a gin and tonic, then adding, 'But hold the gin. OK?' Well, no, it's not OK. It's daft. It goes totally against the tea-ness of tea. Thankfully, there is no decaffeinated tea, but there is herbal tea. 'Would sir like herbal tea instead?' Herbal tea? I mean, tell me, what is the point? Yes, it always sounds very
nice, is always most attractively named; you know: Tropical Carnival, Mango Fever, Strawberry Heaven, Country Berry, Forest Berry, Garden Berry (but never ben-ben, caused by thiamine deficiency, and which may account for my inability to tear myself away from Animal Hospital). But the taste is terrible — they all taste of pond. Worse, they don't even taste of nice pond, of a Monet pond, for example. They taste of horrid old boggy ponds with bits of pram sticking out and crisp packets lining the banks. Herbal tea: just juxtaposing the two words as I type makes me shudder. Unless it's the Parkinson's, of course.
We order. For starters I go for the young globe artichoke served with basil aioli (4.95), while my partner goes for chunky sweetcorn, cheese, spring onion and coriander fritters (£4.95), and our son orders curried roast parsnip soup (£3.95). It was all OK. No major complaints, apart from the fritters, which were generously sized but forgot to taste of anything. What, I wonder, do vegetarians have against salt? Are the mine conditions terrible or something?
Next I choose the forest mushroom stroganoff (£10.45) which is described as: The freshest selection of wild mushrooms cooked with young turnips and spring onion in paprika, red wine, lemon juice and garlic, and accompanied by baby potatoes in horseradish, sour cream and dill sauce.' Yum yum. Except that it wasn't. It came as a big plate of flavourless brown gravy (I've never seen so much gravy) with blobs in. Mushroom? Turnip? Spring onion? God knows. The blobs could have been anything. The blobs could have been old pram. You needed a fishing-rod to eat it — if you wanted to eat it, that is. And the boys? They didn't fare much better. My partner's spicy south Indian samba (£9.25) turned out to be bits of cauliflower swimming in a tin of tomatoes, while our son's broccoli fondue Wellington (L10.45) was also a big plate of gravy, only this time with a bit of puff pastry floating on it. For pudding we tried a plum-and-apple crumble between us. Not bad, but rather over-earnest, with one of those right-on, porridge-oats crumble toppings, and not nearly enough fruit.
So, all in all, not a great success. Perhaps, though, Fiction was just having a bad night that night. Alternatively, perhaps we're just not meant to be vegetarians. Or, as my son put it afterwards, 'If we weren't meant to eat animals, why were they made to taste of meat?' I do think he has a point. Or at least I think he has a point. To be perfectly honest, it's hard to think clearly about anything at the moment. What with the goddamn pleurisy and everything.
Fiction, 60 Crouch Hill, London N8; tel: 020 8340 3403.
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