Fine dining

Masterchef is nearly done and the cooking is vairy vairy posh.

I do wonder what you are to do if you have a limited diet in any way and go to a fine dining occasion where set menus are presented, complete with fish, meat and any manner of offal, feet or shells as garnish. Last night's Masterchef had 238 legal top boffins and it seemed all 238 were served a fish starter and steak main.

Yes, vegetarianism again. Shoot me.

In my limited experience of fine dining it does seem to be that the finer the food, the more the food consists of whole creatures. Seafood particularly is served in its entirety: legs, shells, eggs sometimes. Even in my voracious omnivore days I couldn't eat something that looked like it did when it was alive. Prawns I liked, assuming they came as little curls of meat, not with their entire being attached. Nor could I eat a fish with its head and eyes on my plate. Fish appears more as the menu gets more refined, and the finest is plucked from the sea and plonked more or less directly onto the plate.

Pork also, tasty food, but why serve the trotters and ears? The posher one is, the rawer the beef and lamb are served. Masterchef often criticises contestants for serving meat cooked to what I would describe as edible. Not well done, just cooked. They call it overdone. I've cooked a lot of meat in my time and I have never served it either dry or half raw.

I have on two occasions had genuinely fine dining. Once at a quite marvellous wedding, and once at a Michelin starred restaurant. On both occasions I had vegetarian meals as I was fully vegetarian at the time. On both occasions I was served sublime food that was equal in perfection to any meat dishes. At the restaurant I had the vegetarian taster menu and seriously, if you can get food like that without meat, why would you ever eat meat?

On both the aforementioned occasions however, I was made to feel slightly freakish. I get that most people aren't vegetarian, but there's a sense that eating everything is sophisticated and turning the pigs ears down is crass. More than that, I get the impression that vegetarianism is considered to be the premise of teenagers and tree huggers and anyone else is kind of immature or simply uncultured.

I find as I get older and, one would assume, maturer of mind, that I care more about the planet and the life upon it as a whole. I don't like being made to feel stupid and unworldly for doing so.

Gluten-free is smart and clever; vegetarianism is silly. Unless of course you know anything about nutrition.

I do eat some meat, for now and not for long. I make meat for my children. I like to choose vegetarian dishes when eating out though and I'd like to be able to do so without pasta or mockery.