Ever heard of a being Flexitarian? - no nor me but hey sounds good to be one if you come to Argentina…..

---

When I am in the city (Buenos Aires that is). I try and go to Toastmaster ( www.toastmasters.com). I really like it. It’s a worldwide organization that helps those who want to improve their confidence in public speaking - which as we all know can be pretty nerve wracking. Not that I am training to be the next Tony Blair (umm why would I) but its great to hear public speakers and watch how confident they can be and I would love to have that skill so Toastmasters it is for me at times to try to learn it. Last night I was in town and there was a meeting of Toastmaster and off I went. One guy did a speech, which was in itself very interesting – it was about how the way we act and think can affect our health – true indeed and it was an excellent speech – you should have been there Mel you would have loved it and him too probably!!
But what really got my attention was that he introduced himself as ‘flexitarian’. Now I had never heard of a flexitarian and I am not even sure that is how it is spelt to be honest but when he explained what it was it made me think how useful it could for those who come to Argentina who are vegetarians. It seems that flexitarians are a group of people who on weekdays don’t eat meat but at weekends they can eat what they want. Now I know that for vegetarians’ coming to Argentina it can be a little difficult. Lets face it one of the most famous things about Argentina is of course the meat. Argentina is in the top thee of meat eaters in the world – they eat it for breakfast – ok only joking but nearly. To give you a clue on how serious they are about meat the Spanish word for meat is carne but carne does not mean chicken or pork it is only used for beef. I remember once letting Rachel our chef on La Margarita know that we had some guests coming to La Margarita who didn’t eat meat. She said fine no problem I will prepare something for them without meat – great I thought look forward to it. That evening she served up a delicious meal of chicken cooked over an open fire – opps. I was new to Argentina at the time and I didn’t realize that meat meant beef and nothing else and in Argentina chicken is not meat. Poor guests they nearly passed out. Still Raquel quickly made a delicious pasta meal and all was saved and I was forgiven. Now flexitarainism could be the answer. Eat as a vegetarian on weekdays and eat what you like at the weekend or when you are on La Margarita. Umm maybe it will catch on – probably not but who knows it just might.

This is David Cummings alias the English Gaucho of to help Lalo with the asado!

---