Let It Be Veggie
Sir Paul McCartney talks to Zoe Williams about his passions, parenting – and why he’s selling sausages in Sainsbury’s
It’s impossible to believe how long Paul McCartney’s been famous. Not because time flies and all that, but because it’s hard to see how anyone could have been fêted, everywhere, for nearly half a century, and still be such a nice guy. Yes, he’s got soya mince to sell, and nice manners are the very least he’s prepared to put behind his evangelical vegetarianism. But you can’t fake this kind of charm.
The story of Macca’s vegetarianism bears repeating, I think, because it is so sweet. ‘It first of all started for Linda and me as a compassionate reason; we had lambs on our farm, and we were watching the beautiful innocence of youth as they were enjoying their first few months. And we made the connection that quite a few people have made since. But, yeah, it required quite a bit of effort, and we always used to refer to it as the hole in the middle of the plate. Most people would start a meal with the meat. You buy some chops and you put the other stuff round it. That was our challenge and that resulted in Linda McCartney Foods being formed’.
That was all yonks ago – Paul McCartney, now 66, hasn’t eaten meat in 30 years, and it feels as if Linda McCartney’s sausages have been veggie fare for as long as vegetarianism has existed. But maybe their bangers floundered a bit in the portfolio of McCartney’s career, and maybe the competition got a bit stiffer – whatever the reason, they’re being relaunched.
‘For years we’ve been trying to improve the ingredients and take out some fats. All I do is talk about the idea, the policy, and then the chefs get a new recipe, and the family tastes them to see that we’re happy with them. We’re always striving to take out additives and anything that doesn’t have to be in there. So we’ll have a completely natural range’.
There’s the difference, I imagine – when Linda who died of breast cancer 10 years ago, first started her pioneering work as a vegetarian chef and product developer, veggie sausages were revolutionary just by virtue of not having spinal cord in them.
These days, things are very different, and a commitment to eschewing GM ingredients – which Paul has always held to – is fairly mainstream. Parents especially are crazy fussy about organic credentials and hydrogenated fats, but McCartney, in his easy-going way, is on the side of the picky.
He’s brought up children in two generations, after all. When he married Linda in 1969, they had their first child, Mary (now a photographer like her late mother) within the year, then Stella (the successful fashion designer) and James (a musician) – and even though the pair were committed veggies while they were bringing up their kids, things were very different. Nobody was worried about additives and hydrogenated fats. ‘Organic’ was still just an antonym for ‘synthetic’. He doesn’t look back on that kind of parenting with undue nostalgia, though. ‘There was an innocence before. The only thing is, as we go on, we do learn a bit more about nutrition. We’re on the right track now. People starting a family know that there’s not going to be anything that’s going to catch up with them.’
Now, of course, he’s fully immersed in noughties’ parenting, with his daughter, Beatrice, who turns five this month. When I ask if he thinks parents are too uptight this time around, he says, ‘ I suppose you could use the word uptight or the word careful. I think it’s a good thing, really. We pretty much used to eat whatever we were provided with, and there were no ingredients on the packet. One of the first things I do, like most people now, is to look at the ingredients. My youngest daughter is vegan, so I’m often looking for vegan food and I need to know if there’s any dairy products.’ He pauses for a bit, and emerges from his thougth-bubble even more in favour of the way we do things now.
‘I prefer to think of it as caring; it’s a good thing, you do it for the right reasons.’
But more has changed in the past 30 years than just a growing angst about pesticides. Much of the modern case for being a veggie centres on the environmental benefits.
Beside the decades of meat avoidance, Paul McCartney sounds rather prouder of the fact that he drives a hybrid. ‘Simply because it mean’s we’ll leave a decent planet for our children. If we ignore it, it really is going to go up the spout.’
So not only does he get past the London congestion charge, when he talks about the global impact of being meat-free, McCartney becomes really inspiring. ‘I’d be happier if everyone was vegetarian. The planet would be better off for it. There was a UN report – and you have to remember, they aren’t vegetarians – saying that the single most effective thing that any individual can do for the environment is to become vegetarian. Cattle-rearing produces more greenhouse gases than the entire transport system put together. Having the UN point that out, that is something we’re very keen to push. I’ve written letters to Gordon Brown, and newspaper editors...’
As soon as he gets on a roll, though, he talks himself down almost immediately. He seems to be constantly caught between his convictions and his desire not to be annoying. It’s really endearing. ‘I think it’s a case of live and let live. I will talk to people about advantages of vegetarianism, and it will upset me if we’ve had a good conversation and then they turn around and say something stupid – I just read a quote from Gordon Ramsay, “....if my daughter ever grew up and married a vegetarian, I’d never forgive her”. But even that I would forgive because it’s not my affair, it’s not up to me if he talks stupid or not.’ He obviously isn’t comfortable with even the slight judgment at play here. ‘I don’t want to overdo it because I don’t like people are too born-again. But I just say, let me talk to you about it: I’ve got nothing to gain.’ Here, he chuckles, ‘Well, I have got something to gain, I sell these sausages,’ which is funny because it’s true, and funny because it interrupts his rhetorical flourish, but also funny because it’s total lunacy that he needs the money from his veggie sales.
Later on, when he’s talking about the range, and saying the burgers are the best in the world, ‘ I have friends coming over from America who say, “Oh, my God, what is this?” They can’t believe it,’ he describes the Linda McCartney cheese plait that you can get out of the freezer, and it’ll be done in 20 minutes, and it’s delicious. My first thought was, how do you even know where your freezer is, you funny global star?
My second was, this is what moors you to the real world, a massive passion outside yourself, infusing your family memories, informing all your choices, marrying your beliefs to your happiest times. He’s not a vegetarian icon who happens to be a nice guy; he’s an icon because he’s a nice guy because he’s a vegetarian.
He’s about to sign off the conversation, and there’s obviously something he’s not happy with it: ‘If you do see Gordon... tell him he’s a lovely boy’. I assume he means Ramsay, not Brown, although I wouldn’t put it past him to think they’re both lovely. If that soya mince is a half as nice...
Jeśli ktoś jest ciekawy jakie produkty serwuje Paul, może zajrzeć na stronę:
www.lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk
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