One day an English vegetarian, a Scottish vegetarian and an Irish vegetarian went on a trip together to explore the vast and varied land they called home. Having each come from a different corner of that land, they had decided it would be good for each of them to see all the corners. Of course, as everyone thinks his home is at the centre of everything, they could never agree on which parts were actually the corners. Consequently, they often has disagreements over whether they were heading towards or away from, into or out of, up or down or back or forwards, but this was still a trip they all agreed should be undertaken.
It should be mentioned that, although our three travellers were of what they all considered different and distinct national identities, they were all male, roughly of the same age, and furthermore, all called 'Jim'. For reasons of expediency then, in the narration of this tale we shall refer to Jims one, two and three, while being clear that the order in which the individuals are identified here is not necessarily that in which they were introduced at the beginning of our tale.
On their travels the Jims were often hungry, as is always the case with young growing lads. Having been vegetarian for a number of years, each had become in his own way a fairly competent cook and all tended to cook and eat at home rather than eat out. They had, of course, expected to occasionally be faced with difficulties in finding vegetarian food on their travels and they usually carried a stock of dried food and other emergency rations. One day however things were particularly grim. After spending three days travelling in a remote mountain region, they had exhausted their supplies. All three were utterly famished when they came down out of the last mountain valley and when they encountered the first signs of habitation, they began to look for somewhere to eat. The choice of eating establishments in such remote areas is always limited and on this occasion there was only the one establishment, a hotel bar serving food to passing motorists and therefore there was really no choice at all, except 'take it or leave it'.
The Jims knew things would be difficult but expected to find at least one stock 'vegetarian' offering and just hoped that it wasn't eggs. The reality was more severe. The only possibility they could find on the menu was 'vegetable soup'. 'But is it really vegetarian?' they wondered. 'Are you sure there's no meat in it at all?' they enquired of the waitress. 'What about stock? What kind do you use?' They were assured that it was indeed vegetarian vegetable soup and further assured that had there been any meat in it at all, the proprietor would have been quick to advertise the fact in the menu and more than likely to charge considerably more per portion. They decided to order the soup and as soon as it arrived they all started eating as fast as they could. The company was silent apart from the sounds of spoons rattling in bowls and the occasional slurp.
Suddenly, just as he was about to raise a spoonful of soup to his to his mouth, one of the Jims noticed a tiny piece of what appeared to be ham floating around. Confirming their worst fears, the others, dredging the remains of their bowls of soup, also found pieces of a similar substance.
Jim 1 stopped eating immediately and called on the other two Jims to do the same and he was extremely annoyed with them when they both refused. Jims 2 and 3, however, felt that since they had started eating soup with meat in it, they might as well finish it. Jim 1 maintained that while one could never be sure that any dish was completely free of traces of animal products, there was a moral difference between unknowingly and knowingly eating meat.
Jim 2 felt that, in the case of a particular bowl of soup, if he had he had already partaken of flesh unknowingly by eating half of a bowlful, there was no significant difference whether he stopped eating at the moment of realisation or continued until the soup was finished and as he was still hungry he chose to continue. He was however, despite his lack of concern for the moral issues involved, very disappointed that the situation had arisen at all, as he had managed to abstain from meat for over three years and felt he had just blown it.
Jim 3 agreed with Jim 2 that they should finish the soup. He too thought Jim 1 was being over philosophical but he also felt that Jim 2 was wrong to be so upset that he had mistakenly eaten meat. After all, if none of them had noticed the pieces of ham, Jim 2 would still think he had been successfully abstaining from eating meat. As Jim 1 had implied, for all they knew they each could have unknowingly eaten meat numerous times in the past, so what was the point in worrying about it so much.
In short, both Jim 1 and Jim 2 felt that Jim 3 was not taking the whole thing seriously enough, Jim 2 and Jim 3 thought that Jim 1 was being too fussy about the moral issues involved, while Jim 1 and Jim 3 believed that Jim 2 was being obsessive about how long he had been a vegetarian.
All three Jims agreed, however, that the situation wasn't very funny.