Today, I'm writing in my parents' living room; a domain where natural light is scarce, but a softly-humming stillness seems, somehow, to be a silent inhabitant.
A few years ago, my grandfather had to move in with us. Our house is small(ish) and we had to build a new bedroom within the boundaries of the garden, bracketing off a portion of the light that would usually filter into the living room. Fast-forward to the present day, my parents' have installed blinds in the opposite window thus limiting the brightness further.
I live in a flat in South East London; a home where the white walls try their very best to mimic the light-from the outside. On clear skied days they overachieve, becoming near-pearlescent the eyes and residual senses of a light-sensitive, fledgling writer (who feels hesitant to even call himself that). I haven't been writing for long, but these past six blog posts have come from different settings and I'm finding it interesting to tease out the feelings which come from each.
Now, on to what I originally intended to talk about... vegetarianism.
Why am I talking about vegetarianism today? I'm talking about it because of a contradiction that is wholly unnecessary; one that I get the feeling anyone who imposes conditions on their diet has probably dwelt upon at some point.
Since May 2016, for all intents and purposes, I have adhered to a vegetarian diet. I can track this because I had to wait until after sister-of-the-blog Lynsey's wedding where I had pre-ordered a meat-based main (whoops!). I was almost at the end of my three years undergraduate study, and practically everything I had cooked had been meat free. It seemed to me that the choice between spending £3 on a pack of chicken (any other meat would have felt wildly decadent) or 60p on a couple of tins of lentils/chickpeas/ambiguous-pulses was pretty clear. Adaptation was no issue.
Largely, nothing has changed. I don't find myself, as 2019 approaches its close, in a state of dire repression. Though occasionally I may walk past a fried chicken joint and think "hmm, that smells pretty good", I don't wake up at night emerging from a herbivorous nightmare. I don't feel somehow cheated after eating a tofu or lentil-based meal. I'm pretty content to keep going on largely the same.
Okay, so why am I writing this then? Other than to obnoxiously humble-brag about how I'm "sooooooooooo content" with my meatless lifestyle. I'm writing this because of fish sauce. As in, I purchased a bottle of it. I then opened this bottle. I sprinkled a small measure into a meal I was preparing. And "what happened to this meal" you ask? I ate it. I, the vegetarian, consumed a fish-based condiment. Somewhere offstage (off-blog...?) someone has blanched and fainted at this shocking new development.
Though it seems insignificant, this crossed that I had set up for myself. When we breach these lines, we tend to get met with a lot of confusion; I can hear the voices of *certain* people I know drawling "but I thought you were a vegetarian?" Oddly enough, these gatekeepers of dietary purity also seem to be the same people who give people grief for choosing to limit their diet. Whatever this represents to other people, to me it seemed like the first step into becoming more flexible.
Flexibility for me represents my ability to choose for myself how I'm going to limit my diet. I don't think I'm going to eat meat; that's still off the table, although the idea of "cheat-days" will probably always be floating not far above my head (I've had one since becoming a vegetarian, and yes, it was fried chicken...). The bottle of fish sauce is perhaps the perfect figurehead for this choice as it embodies a taste I felt I couldn't replicate through a vegetarian diet, so I made an exception. I haven't really made any other long-term exceptions yet, but it will be on my mind for sure.
Flexitarianism is a very well-established term now, but I'm not sure it describes what I am. Even so, I think I'm less worried about setting down a clearly demarcated palisade than I am about taking things on a case-by-case basis. Although the context is slightly different, back in 2017 there was an interesting article (click here!) in the Metro about "selective veganism" and I think a lot of the points transfer neatly to vegetarianism.
The point in the article about disordered eating sticks out a lot to me; it's a good reminder to first set out the parameters of what is healthy for us before we begin thinking about ethics. And, as much as I talk about flexibility, I do think everyone should be thinking about ethics. However, it's about doing something rather than doing everything.
As a last note, I want to say that you don't need to justify your diet to anyone (though, if you find that meat is your default go-to for food, then now is certainly the time to change that). If you do want to follow a wholly vegan diet, then that is perfectly fine and can be done in healthy, exciting and sustainable ways. I'm not trying to say that flexibility is a prerequisite, but I think it makes it a whole lot easier to start attuning our eating habits to contemporary issues (which I'm sure we're all aware of, but for good measure I'm going to quietly link a few articles here - click here! or here! alternatively, here!)
Flat Noodle Papaya Salad
Here, the relevance of the bottle of fish sauce becomes clear!
Green Papaya Salad is a dish common in Southeast Asia and, though the precise origins are unclear, it's thought to have originated with the Lao people who (unsurprisingly) reside primarily in Laos. This is also very commonly encountered in countries such as Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam (where I had it for the very first time!) Originally an amalgamation of local sour ingredients, hence the centrality of the unripe papaya, however the Columbian Exchange (which I think is an incredibly sanitised name for something that spread undesirable phenomenons such as disease and genocide) brought non-native ingredients into the mix.
This is where I come in, along with my own "non-native ingredients", though I hope I will be far less destructive in my recipe-creation. I reflected upon how the papaya salad could be made more substantive. Though this has been done numerous times with rice noodles, the Thai flat noodles we had in our cupboards seemed more fitting.
I want to disclose, that although green or unripe papaya is really supposed to be used here, my papaya was regretfully somewhat ripe. A green papaya is vegetal, with a slightly-carrot like texture. As it ripens, I feel a more melon-esque taste begins to emerge. This is not necessarily ruinous so if you find that your papaya has ripened then carry on as usual; you'll still get a great result! But, if at all possible, try and find the unripe stages of the fruit (this may mean a trip to an Asian grocer - which is not possible for all).
As for the fish sauce, it's kind of the same situation as the ripeness of the papaya. You could leave it out (and I will provide my idea for an alternative, as always!) but I think it does bring something unique to the table.
Ingredients & Method
Preparation time: 20 minutes.
Serves: 1-3 (this really depends on how you're serving it)
1 papaya (ideally green)
100g of Thai flat noodles
2 red chillis
2 spring onions
1 red pepper
4 cloves of garlic
Handful of coriander
2 limes
3/4 of a tbsp of fish sauce
1/2 a tbsp of sesame oil
1 tsp of palm or brown sugar
Handful of peanuts
Salt
Before you prepare the vegetables, put your flat noodles on to boil. Usually this will only take about 3-4 minutes once the water has come to a boil. Drain the noodles and rinse them through with cold water in order to get rid of the starchy residue (this will make them less sticky). Once they have been rinsed thoroughly, put them in a large bowl.
Next, prepare the papaya. The best way to do this is to peel the skin off, before cutting it in half. The centre will be pregnant with plump, ink black seeds. Scoop out the seeds before cutting the papaya julienne style. The riper the papaya is the, the harder this will be to do
however precision is not a concern here! Just make sure to cut in relatively-thin strips. Add to the large bowl.
Remove the core and seeds before slicing your red pepper and your red chillis in the same fashion, making sure to cut in long thin strips. Add to the bowl.
Slice up your spring onions. I think it is best to use coarse slices on the green parts, before going finer as you get to the thicker, crunchier white ends.
Remove the stalks from a handful of coriander and chop finely.
Crush your cloves of garlic and mince, before adding everything to the bowl once more (really you can add your ingredients to the bowl at any time but I think it's best to do as you go - AND allows you to make snazzy photo grids such as the one below, which may not be a grid if you're reading on a phone...)
Mix everything together.
Now, time to make the dressing. Squeeze the juice out of two limes. Sometimes I find limes can be quite firm which can be challenging if you don't have a juicer (which I don't). My strategy is to push into the flesh with two thumbs and attempt to turn the lime inside out. This will get a larger amount of juice out than just squeezing.
Mix in the sesame oil, fish sauce, sugar and a pinch of salt and mix together until the sugar had dissolved. Pour over the salad and mix through once again, making sure everything is coated.
Finally, roughly cut up a handful of peanuts and mix them into the salad.
Adjustments
This can be made vegan by removing the fish sauce. If you do remove this, I recommend substituting the same quantity of light soy sauce and a 1/5 of a tsp of MSG (if you have it to hand). This will replicate (to an extent) the salty-savoury flavour that fish sauce brings to the salad.
The peanuts are non-essential if you are allergic or not partial. Other ideas for garnishes are sesame seeds and torn pieces of sushi nori.
Other vegetables can be used in here. I *almost* used a carrot in my recipe but decided against it. Versions of this dish are also served with cherry tomatoes, which I don't enjoy that much in their raw form so I left them out.
By all means, try this with other types of noodles (I'm thinking rice or soba...) or even without noodles, if you so dare!
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