Another update then:
In Dutch culture, vegetarianism has always been considered a sign of extreme poverty. And due to our relatively cold climate (at least that's what it used to be like) it was harder to keep warm and eat enough calories without meat.
Traditionally even the lower middle class to upper poor class people would join together to buy a pig to fatten up and slaughter together at the end of the year. Usually around oktober or november, when the still well known Beer garden festivals are held in Germany. Those were held to celebrate the harvest and the freshly slaughtered pigs.
So most Dutch poverty food contains at least a little bacon or bacon fat. Traditional poverty food like ''doop' is a dish where poor people eat only potatoes, but they are dipped in lard and mustard. So even the poorest Dutch, for most of history, had access to some meat. Usually that was a bit of bacon on sunday, and the fat was used for the rest of the week to be eaten as above or with beans and mollasses. Beans with molasses and bacon is another poverty dish from long ago.
The desperately poor, those in the workhouses or the destitute on the streets were practically the only ones to whom meat was truly unavailable. Those people lived on bean stews, green vegetables, potatoes, and dark rye bread. I mention green vegetables here and not in the rest of this introduction, because back in the day vegetables were considered unhealthy which is why people who could just scrape by usually spent their money on meat or dairy to go with their potatoes instead of vegetables. Fruit was not even considered nutritious, it was eaten purely for pleasure so a poor person would definitely not have access to fruit.
But, around 1800 the first sign of vegetarianism did show up in the Netherlands. To the awe of many, some upper class people, mostly adventists decided that eating meat was gluttonous and sinful. They believed that Jesus was poor, and would thus have not eaten meat or very rarely. They wished to emulate this example.
The response in the newspaper to this new phenomenon? (translated quote )
Just imagine, no perch, no bass, no steak, no chicken although these are common, imagine what it's like for the gourmand? No truffled pheasants, no bass a la Chambord, no oysters for the one who desperately needs it to please his palate. To him the life of a vegetarian must seem no life at all!
What could one eat then? Flour, grits, potatoes, rice, pasta, and when done with this list one has to repeat it. Because as we all know, vegetables are not nourishing, and without meat they would be boring anyway. To think of cauliflower without sausage, spinach without ham, carrots without beef and pears without calves meat, such horror! Anyone considering this, must soon decide it to be impossible.
This was part 1.
I've been quite busy (in a good way) and spend less time online as a result.
