‘One by one we all abandoned meat…’

• I AM the mother of your correspondent who wrote about a lifetime of vegetarianism, (Vegetarians are remarkably unfussy… Forum, September 26).

What my son Dan doesn’t know is, that when he was due to be born, a lovely friend called Liz van Wrensberg came to stay, to help with the children in return for board and lodging while she did a weaving course at the North London Poly. She was Welsh, but lived in Botswana.

At that time we would get a month’s supply of frozen meat very cheaply from Corrigan’s butchers because the family lived next door. Liz was horrified, and suggested we should instead have a row of glass jars filled with pretty dried pulses, yellow split peas, orange and brown lentils, red kidney beans etc. She said they’d look nice, would give us lots of cheap protein and this was better all round. And so we reduced our meat intake drastically.

I never liked red meat much but cooked it because I thought I was necessary and healthy for my growing kids.

One by one we all abandoned meat, until only their dad and Dan’s older brother were still eating it. We never had “vegetarian” food, most of us thought vegetarian sausages were not much better than meat ones. So we had lots of vegetables, cauliflower cheese, bean stew, nut rissoles, pancakes etc.

We ate fish often as well, although Dan never did and one of his sisters never liked it. So we tried to have plenty of different things at each meal.

All thanks to Liz from Botswana!

SARAH CARRIER, NW5