Fish and the issue of waste again.

This time at a @Netskills workshop, great workshop on digital storytelling but the let down by the sad state of the buffet. On questioning the other delegates it appears that I was the only veggie. But as you can see below, the veggie sandwiches were a hit whilst the meat is left to rot in landfill.





When I ran a series of workshop in higher education we had over 300 delegates at 15 workshops in a 12 month period. At every event the catering was 100% veggie. No complaints, very little wasted.

And one other minor point, fish isn't veggie! It's got a face, it breathes, it's meat. Although the 'fish sticks' prepared below by Epicurious couldn't actually be identified by any of the meat eaters at the event, other than it smells fishy. Of course it may have been that they were just fried with the king prawns (big insect like things, they both faces and feet hence NOT VEGGIE).

Seriously, vegetarians do not eat fish

The oxford english dictionary defines a vegetarian as:
a person who does not eat meat or fish, and sometimes other animal products, especially for moral, religious, or health reasons.

It's an old argument, perpetuated by the weaklings who can't bear to give up all meat, usually bemoaning vitamins or protein etc. Crap. Vegetarians don't eat meat.

Guess what?

The same dictionary defines meat as: the flesh of an animal or bird

It defines a fish as: a limbless cold-blooded vertebrate animal with gills and fins living wholly in water

vegetarians don't eat fish

TUNA SANDWICHES ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR VEGETARIANS

Waste

1in 5 people in the World do not get enough to eat.
So when I'm at a conference it really winds me up when I see this sort of thing. I haven't named and shamed the event or the venue (and to be honest you can't blame the conference organisers).

I suppose that they need to bin some stuff like meats etc. But as well as that they were binning fruit, not just fruit, good quality fruit. If a high street store such as Pret can get their act together on this then surely a higher education institution can.

Would you like a plate of Cold Slaw instead?

Currently at the ALT-C 2011 conference. Great event so far, one the best things is that there is plenty of fruit on offer at the breaks. The sessions have been very good and there is a good 'feel' around the event.

A shame then that Leeds University Caterers have struck out with the veggie disaster.

There were two kinds of fish on offer, two kinds of meat and there should have been a Goats Cheese Tart for the veggies (if you're vegan, well who knows). However, due to an upturned food cart I had a 30 minute wait for lunch (and yes, the usual did happen whereby the carnivores fell upon the veggie option). However, my most memorable moment was when I looked at the meat options, looked up at the person serving and said:

"Is there a vegetarian option?"
"hmm, not at the moment, would you like a plate of cold slaw"

I was tempted to ask if there was any hot slaw, but...

Eventually, Leeds Uni did arrive with my Goats Cheese Tart, a little over done with the pesto dressing, but then I had to wolf it down in 5 minutes because I needed to be in session.

Hat's off to the conference organiser who immediately tried to sort things out though.

The plate of "Cold Slaw"

Why bother!

Today was spent in a meeting at the University of Nottingham. A great meeting, positive things were said and learned by all. But let's discuss catering....

The food was well labelled, i.e. Meat, Meat and Fish and Vegetarian. Just having the labels is a bonus in some cases. What I want to illustrate is waste. There were, confirmed, three vegetarians at the event and they proobably (and mercifully) catered for a few more. Because the usual happened, the carnivores on seeing the veggie delights fell upon them and cleaned up faster than Kim and Aggie on speed. And, as the image below demostrates, showed little interest in the meat.

The empty platter on the right is where the veggie snacks were; at the end of the workshop the 'unnamed meat on a stick' and 'sausage in something' options were still there waiting to be thrown away.

So given that (further reading)

• 8% of the World's fresh water supply goes to meat production,
• during the 1984 famine, Ethiopia was growing linseed cake and rapeseed meal for European livestock while its own people were dying of hunger and,
• Yvo de Boer, head of the UN agency that hosts international talks on climate change, has said that one of the best solutions to the planet's most burning problem would be "for us all to become vegetarians"
• And then, to add insult to environmental injury, we end up throwing most of it away at the end of a buffet because the meat-eaters liked the look of the veggie option, why do we bother.

University caterers, conference organisers and anyone else who is remotely interested in the planet - take the first step. Make all university provided buffets veggie.

Bothersome Buffets

If you're a vegetarian you're probably aware that when it comes to meetings with a lunch included they will probably ask if there are any 'specific' requirements. This is in fact code for, we're going to provide chicken and/or ham sandwiches if you’re a ‘freaky vegetarian’ you better tell us know so we can throw a bit of mousetrap cheddar on a bit of white bread for you. The other reason for this is so that they can work out what ‘percentage’ of food should be vegetarian.

Some of you are now either rolling your eyes and saying “whinging vegetarian” or rolling your eyes and saying “tell me about it”.

But what usually happens in this all too common scenario? 

You’re in the meeting and you catch sight of the lunch arriving in an adjacent room, it’s wrapped in plastic film and usually on a trolley. You or one of your fellow vegetarians now has to take control of the situation. Why? I hear you say. Because if one of them (the meat eaters) gets hold of the job of unwrapping the buffet you can guarantee that the carefully placed labels delineating the vegetarian option will disappear leaving you with sandwich or even samosa roulette.

The next thing to do is listen out for the meat eater’s battle cry of “this all looks very good”, this is where they see the insipid chicken and decide how fabulous the veggie option looks. The “this all looks very good” exclamation is their notification that they are going to get to the buffet before you and grab as many veggie options as they can.  I refer you back to paragraph one. The person ordering the food as worked out that in a meeting of twenty, four are vegetarian. They have specified to the caterers “20%” vegetarian, this will inevitably lead to only 1 in 5 sandwiches being provided. If you are half way down the queue for the sandwiches and the meat option looks a little dull, you could be in for a hungry day.

What’s the solution? 

At my last meeting, with colleagues from JISC InfoNet, they provided a sumptuous, but simple buffet. Even though there were only 4 vegetarians it looked as though the 20% rule was applied to the meat. Did the meat eaters whinge? No, because they all eat veggie food anyway. Talking to a couple of colleagues at the meeting who are not vegetarian they told me that if they have meetings they often ask for 100% vegetarian because it is usually better quality and no one ever complains.

ParmesanGate! Doesn't turn out the way you think...

Yet another blog project started, this time inspired by my Higher Education Academy conference attendance at East Midlands Conference Centre on the 5th and 6th July 2011. Now please don't think that because I'm starting out with a moan that this is going to be a series of posts about the pains and protestations of vegetarians, it is also my intention to give praise, when it is of course earned.
So what is the pain that I am sharing with this post?

Parmesan Cheese: Most self respecting vegetarians will tell you that parmesan isn't veggie. Why? Because it contains calf rennet, how and why they use it can be found in the Wikipedia article I linked to. Let's just say that your run of the mill off the shelf parmesan (or any expensive alternatives that wouldn't be found in a mass catering unit of a university)  won't be suitable for consumption by veggies. 

So, what happened on the 6th July 2011, during what we shall forevermore think of as 'ParmesanGate'. 

I was queuing for lunch, it was day 2 of the conference, the dinner the night before was standard conference fayre, a mostly harmless mushroom lasagne. I just caught sight of the menu, propped proudly on the counter, there was a meat dish, fish dish and "roasted vegetable Gnocci, topped with parmesan". Where's the veggie dish I thought to myself. 

"Excuse me, is there a vegetarian option" I said this, knowing full well the answer.
"it's the Gnocci" was the bright and cheerful reply.
"ah, Parmesan isn't vegetarian"
"it's cheese"
"it contains an extract from the stomach of a calf"

A whispered conversation between person serving and a supervisor. 

The supervisor comes toward me with a big smile and nodding "it's cheese" 

I explain the issue. 

"I'll go and check with the chef" 

Five minutes later he was back, carrying a big catering pack of grated cheese (cheddar), "he just puts this on it!" and on the side, in bold letters, Suitable for Vegetarians. 
"that's great, thank you for checking, I appreciate your help"

So in the end I was very happy, and as a gnocchi 'bake' it was the best meal of the conference. But I'm not so sure that the organisers would be that pleased that the expensive sounding meal was reduced to gnocchi with generic cheap cheddar topping.