'I realised meat was all about taste.
Before you eat meat, you taste
nothing. When it's in your mouth, you
taste the meat taste you've come to
expect. When you've swallowed it,
you taste nothing again. So for that
brief minute or two of pleasure, you're
prepared to wreak havoc on the planet
and cruelty to animals.' - Wally Fry
W
hen Wally Fry met his wife Debbie, she was
a born vegetarian. Wally was buying and
selling livestock for slaughter: 'I was the
had to make a difference somehow.'
Wally grew up on a farm. Meat was his staple. He
loved both the taste and the texture.
furthest thing from a vegetarian you could imagine,' he
He was no cook, but being creative, he's introspective:
says. Marriage to Debbie didn't change his love of meat,
'I realised meat was all about taste. Before you eat meat,
although faced with vegetarianism daily as a way of life,
you taste nothing. When it's in your mouth, you taste
it did make him think.
the meat taste you've come to expect. When you've
Wally joined the construction industry, and recalls
swallowed it, you taste nothing again. So for that brief
being immensely proud of one of his projects: 'It was
minute or two of pleasure, you're prepared to wreak
a 4 000 sow unit – a very complex structure to build,
havoc on the planet and cruelty to animals.'
and I was genuinely proud of it. But when we returned
Wally took the decision not to be part of it: 'I needed
to the site to do the "snagging", I saw, in action,
something to take the place of meat – food that would
what I'd created: four thousand female pigs, artificially
have the look, taste and texture of meat – same flavour
inseminated, lying on their sides, held in place by bars
and feel – but wouldn't involve animals. I was very over
their entire lives – they can't move – while their young
broccoli, feta and spinach. Truthfully, most chefs think
are separate from