Vegetarian Ham

Grace from Year 8 popped her head around my classroom door yesterday. It was lunchtime, and as usual I was eating 'n' marking at the same time, and trying to scrape the pips of a particularly exuberant tomato from an essay on 'Of Mice and Men.'

'Eeurgh!' said Grace, looking at my lunch box. 'You on a diet, or sumfin'?'

I looked at my lunch. A multi-seed bagel with cream cheese, some cucumber, salad leaves, tomato and celery, a few nuts and a banana.
'No,' I said. 'This is what I usually eat.'
'You should to eat junk,' said Grace. 'I do.'
'Right,' I said.
'So, don't you eat burgers?' said Grace. 'And what's that?'
'It's a Brazil nut,' I said. 'And no, I don't eat burgers. I don't eat meat. I'm vegetarian.'
'Is burger meat?' said Grace, genuinely surprised.
'Yes,' I said. 'It's cow.'
'God,' said Grace. 'Did you see that programme about India, and chopping up cows and turning them inside out and scraping their skins and making them into handbags. Eugh, it was disgusting. All blood and fat and cows with no heads.'

I stopped chewing my bagel. 'No, I didn't,' I said. 'But it sounds like the kind of programme that put me off eating meat.'
'Yeh. Poor cows,' said Grace. 'We was eating take-away at the time and I thought, 'I ain't eating any more of this. But then I did. What about chicken? Is chicken meat?'
'Yes,' I said. 'And I have chickens in my garden.'
'Do they give you eggs?' said Grace.
'They do,' I said.
'So what if you eat an egg and it's really a chick?' said Grace.
'That won't happen,' I said.
'Why not?' said Grace.

Oh blimey, I thought. Here we go.

'Well, to get chicks, the eggs have to be fertile. And for that you need a boy chicken. A cockerel. And all my chickens are girls.'
'Are you sure?' demanded Grace.
'Positive,' I said.
'I like bacon,' said Grace. And she paused in a whistful bacon-sandwich dream moment. 'Do you eat bacon?'
'No, it's meat. From a pig,' I said.
'Blimey,' said Grace. 'What about ham? That's good for you.'
'Again, it's pig. And full of salt. Not good for your blood pressure,' I said.
'I told my mum I was fed up of being fat,' said Grace, who, I have to admit, is a tad tubby, but not that I would worry about.
'And she said, 'Well, what are you going to do about it?' Grace continued. 'And I said 'Eat salad and do trampolining.'
'It's an idea,' I agreed. 'You could try growing some salad. It's really easy.'
'Trampolining is okay,' said Grace. 'But it gets boring after a while. Up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down...' And then her face lit up.
'What about sausage rolls?' she said triumphantly. 'I bet they haven't got any meat in them!'

And I guess in some cheap brand, cost-cutting way, she could well be right.

'Sorry, Grace,' I said. 'But sausage rolls come from pigs, too.'
'Bugger,' she said. 'Is it time for lessons yet?'
'Yes,' said I.