WOM 620

Recipes for love

Has love or friendship ever caused you to change your dietary habits?
Paul MacInnes eats vegan
Paul tucks in. Photograph: Linda Nylind

I done writted an articule about wot me wifetime maiks me eet. It's a vegan diet so short of basic nutrients like iron and calcium that I am left too weak to write a coherent opening sentence to a blog post.

It matters not though, for I have ventured into new nutritional terrain purely because of love. I first tried this meat, virtually fat-free food, which is quite unlike anything I would normally choose to eat, because my wife wanted me to try it and because she had put real time and effort into persuading me. Soon though, I began to develop an actual taste for the dishes. I'd make them even when she wasn't around (though inevitably with more oil) and would even pretend that our new nutty, beany diet was as much to do with me as with her.

It isn't the first time I've had my taste in food dictated by those close to me. When I left university and moved into communal digs, my friends started to buy Nigel Slater cookbooks. I copied them and several years of delicious, simple and incredibly buttery dishes followed. I am also a black coffee drinker, but only got there because of serious-minded German-speaking pals who used the word 'krups' with a reverent tone usually reserved for religious figures.

That said, and despite my mother's attempts, I never did get into Delia Smith.

So, as they say, what about you? Hated edam for 20 years only to be convinced by a lengthy lecture outside a Rotterdam cheesery? Have your Thai flatmates changed your minds on tofu forever? Do share.

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