@Yorky pikelets - someone else who knows them -
at long last. My grannie always used to make them and I took it over. I think my recipe is on here somewhere for them... if not I will have to track it down and ensure it is. Though mine are not done in a ring like yours so the air bubbles are not as pronounced and don't look quite like a thin crumpet as yours do! Anyhow...
Yes to vegetarian. It was a biology experiment at school when I was 11. The chicks were hatched and at various stages we had to dissect the eggs. I was actually OK with that but both times ended up with unfertilised eggs (someone obviously had not candled the eggs to check). When the remaining eggs hatched, the 2 girls who were not in the school dance competition had to go to lessons as normal and Friday afternoon was double biology. You can't teach a class of 2 and expect the other 27 to catch up... so we didn't do anything except play with the chicks that had hatched and any other animals/insects in the biology lab. On the Monday, first break we both went (together) to see the chicks... they had been fed to the teachers dogs over the weekend. By the end of that term we were both vegetarian. She was still veggie when I left the school at 18, as was I.
I never grew up with much meat in our diet anyway, bacon was non-existent except when visiting my Grannie and more often it was actually ham she served us for lunches on baps... I never had fish, so actually moving from eating anything in a single parent family where mum didn't eat because we couldn't afford it to step-father starting his own business so times very lean, to veggie wasn't actually that hard at all. Vegan+eggs which is now labelled veggan btw came about because of an allergy to cow's dairy that nearly killed me... then I had to quit sheep's and goats milk as well, before finally accepting that all dairy wasn't an option (same allergy just got much worse - and no, to those who do not know, its not lactose intolerance, its anaphylactic shock and its a protein in milk I'm allergic to).
Have I eaten meat since? Well whilst travelling (mine was cycling around the world as most of you know) there were times when it was impossible not to eat meat or on one occasion fish. Did I like it - with the exception of 1 meal, no I did not. That one meal was prepared by a bartender in a small village somewhere deep in Poland near to the Ukraine border and BG he must have been a darn good chef at one point because even my husband said it was the single best piece of pork he had ever had. We have pork, egg, chips and peas with gravy. I have never had pork before and didn't know what to expect but rumours of it being tough, hard, likely to be this that or the other, were completely unfounded with this piece of pork. Would I eat it again - no, not by choice. If I can avoid meat/fish etc I will and do, often at the expense of not eating or taking my own food. One that occasion it was not possible and there was nowhere else to get food or even cook on our stove. through other countries (poorer ones) we managed to use our gas or meths stove in the shower or on a patio and avoid eating out.
I've been veggie for over 33yrs now. I don't regret it. I have been veggie-cow's dairy for the best part of 23 years and veggan for around 7-8 years. I don't regret it, it can be touch at times but it is a lot easier than it used to be. Ironically it was the USA that I was dreading the most with our travels and my food issues - but we never got there!
You are also on a challenge. Do you ever do a vegetarian day?
