Betrayed by smell (From York Press)

Betrayed by smell

12:05pm Saturday 2nd September 2006 in Letters By Reader's letter

TALIA Minger is perfectly entitled to try to persuade people that they shouldn't eat meat, since this is, after all, a free country.

I was once making a corned beef hash when one of my wife's vegan friends arrived unexpectedly.

"Yummy!" she gushed, salivating madly. "That smells really, really nice! What is it?"

Being an adoptive Yorkshireman, and sensing someone was after a free meal, I told the truth.

"What! You eat flesh?" she roared. Her sense of smell betrayed her principles, for underneath our thin veil of civilisation we are all slavering carnivores.

Andy Baldock, Heworth Green, York.