Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Butcher's girl

My husband is a gentle sort of character. A teetotal, poetry-writing chap who would - no, has - crossed a road to rescue a stranded caterpillar. A man who brings me flowers almost weekly, who runs up two flights of stairs to see me and the children in the evenings, who looked after me every step of the way through two difficult pregnancies and a miscarriage, bringing me supper and breakfast in bed, while making endless cups of tea, a man who allows my mother - his mother-in-law - to be a daily part of our family. However, our otherwise idyllic relationship has hit a stumbling block.

It's about diet. He is a committed vegetarian. Since having Button in July I have become a carnivore. I need lots of meat. Not just the odd bacon sarnie. But roast chicken, lamb and steak. Sausages. Burgers. Slices of ham. Daily. For the protein and iron? I don't really know. I just know I MUST HAVE MEAT. Like a junkie needs a fix. The cravings are as bad as in early pregnancy. When I wanted peanut butter, fruit and nut chocolate and strawberry milkshakes. Sometimes together. When I ate mushroom papardelle every night for a fortnight, Washed down with the aforementioned milkshake. Urgh, I feel sick just remembering.

Now I absolutely must have steak. At least every other day. Maybe it's the breastfeeding? Which, by the way, is going well now. After a shaky start. When it hurt so much my tears of pain and frustration were dropping onto poor Button's head.

The problem, well, no, not problem, but, let's say, the dietary challenge is that husband is a veggie of firm principle, unshakeable in avoiding all meat and fish. Shellfish actually makes him violently ill.  And he can't bear animal suffering. For years now I've eaten the same veggie diet as him. Mostly for convenience. I can hardly remember the last time I cooked chicken or ate steak, except in a restaurant.

But now I need to produce two meals each evening - one veggie, the other with meat. New for me, and not as easy as it sounds. I am but a novice in the world of carnivores, as events yesterday proved.

It was with some trepidation that I yesterday manoeuvred the three-wheeler buggie containing Button into our local butcher's shop. We passed what I think were probably a brace of dead grouse (well, maybe not, they might have been pheasants, hard to tell; as I said, I'm no expert in the subject, but some manner of colourful, dead feathery birds, anyway). The smell of blood, meat and animal made me want to retch. Again, a happy reminder of early pregnancy.

Bits of guinea fowl, partridge, venison, veal, wild boar, haggis, black and white puddings lay in front of me, wrapped in plastic, the blood seeping to the edges of the packets.

"Can I help you?" asked one of the several men in bloodied uniforms behind the counter.

"Well, the thing is I need some more iron in my diet. But my husband's vegetarian...."

Cue hysterical laughter from all four men behind counter.

"So you've come here to buy him some meat?"

Mentally I cursed my tendency to talk too much when nervous. But found myself unstoppable.

"No, I haven't. It would need to be something you could serve for one. For me."

"How about a nice piece of liver," said one of the younger of the men. He held up something that looked like a human placenta.

"If you can stomach it," he added, concessionary.

"Errrrr...It's not really my thing, to be honest."

Another female customer piped up with a suggestion. My God. The whole shop was taking an interest in this ridiculous inquiry.

"How about beef stock? You could drink it? Or add it to a vegetable risotto"

Yuck! I thought. Plus, it wouldn't really be a vegetable risotto, would it, if it had beef stock in it? I mean, strictly speaking, Trades Description and all that.

But, brought up in Edinburgh, I said nothing and resorted to my polite laugh. The one that really means she's got to be taking the proverbial. No way am I replacing Twinings English Breakfast with some vile concoction of ground-up cow flesh. No way am I deceiving my poor vegetarian husband into consuming the same. I wanted to talk more about what she meant, but felt we had both the wrong venue and subject for a girly bonding session.

The first, older butcher produced a metal hook from behind the counter, the kind pinning the grouse/pheasants/patridges to the wall, which he waved in front of my face. I really wasn't sure where he was going with this gambit. Then all became clear.

"You could have this. Plenty of iron in this," he guffawed, pleased at his own wit. Oh, for goodness' sake.

Clearly, I have spent too much time with other new mothers, sensitive and thoughtful types who have forsaken high-flying careers for motherhood and take nutrition seriously. I had no idea how to respond to the hook's appearance. No repartee came to me. My hands were shaking. My only ally in this horror of blood, guts and border-line misogyny (or misplaced attempts at humour) was Button. Though only three months old, I sensed a mute sympathy from her. She gave me her crafty sideways look that seemed to say: "Together we're strong enough to get through this difficulty". Anyway, I felt better for looking at her.

I also looked at the other female customer, Beef Stock Woman, expecting a brief eye-meet between us, expressing shared horror at the medieval attitudes of these people, but nothing came back. I lowered my gaze. I couldn't help but suspect she was offended at my lack of warmth in response to her beef stock sally. And, although she could not have been in more than her mid-thirties at most, she had a shopping trolley with wheels by her side. Yes, one of those trollies. Like the ones people's grannies used to own. An indicator, just perhaps, that she and I might not see  eye to eye on humour.

"Perhaps I'll just have some fillet steak," I said, injecting an artificial jollity into my voice, pride forcing me to try and preserve the pretence that I was in control of the sitation.

"Aye," said the older butcher, nodding as if I was a teenager who had seen sense at last, bowing to parental widsom on the dangers of late nights, bad boys and lentils. "How much would you like?""

We settle on a slab that would fill half a large frying pan.

I pay. But by this point I am so flustered by being plunged into this alien world that I drop some of my change. My eyesight is especially poor at the moment and I feel even more panicked than before. But, somewhat to my surprise, it is the first, older butcher, the one who thrust the hook in front of me, who insists on coming out from behind the counter to help me look for the missing coin. Even though it takes some minutes, and I suspect his eyesight isn't much better than mine, he sticks with the search until we find the money. All 5p of it. I feel relieved by the man's kindness. The world is a better, nicer place than I was beginning to suspect.

As Button and I (finally) reverse out of the shop, I catch another glimpse of the grouse/pheasant/indeterminate birds, still hanging on the wall where they were when we came in, having failed to attract any takers. Not only dead, but unwanted too.  Oh dear. But perhaps I had more allies in the shop than I first feared. For was it my imagination, or did one of the birds give me a wink as I wheeled the buggy past her? Help comes in unexpected places, at unexpected times. We exit. I breathe deeply.

Posted 30 October 2008 14:51

Angst Breastfeeding Edinburgh Etiquette Food New baby

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