A Vegetarian Hunt

'How about a salmon sandwich?', asked the stewardess. She had  just informed me apologetically that owing to some glitch, my choice of vegetarian meal was not loaded on the flight. Unfortunately, I had to decline her offer. I told her I did not eat fish either and resigned myself to eating what little was vegetarian on the plate.

When people find out that I do not eat meat, they often ask, 'How about fish?' or 'Not even chicken?', as if fish and chicken are not meat. Then there was this person who wanted to know if I was 'fiercely vegetarian' and I had to correct him saying, 'No, just vegetarian'. Others wonder how I get my proteins. I tell them that I wonder about that too. I am as health conscious as the next person, but good eats are what I primarily care about and there is no end to the list of delicious vegetarian dishes. Of course, for generations unknown, my family and countless others like mine have managed to keep themselves healthy on a vegetarian diet. People sometimes fail to understand this and assume that I must be subsisting entirely on salads or boiled vegetables. Or tofu, that magical substance which apparently can be transformed into virtually anything since it tastes like nothing.

Speaking of tofu, a friend once took me to a restaurant which, he claimed, was a vegetarian's delight. It was not even remotely delightful to me. The place served all kinds of mock meat made of tofu. Unfortunately, mock meat leaves me cold just as real meat does. But I can see how it will appeal to those who are actually giving up meat. The point, and this is an important point, is that I have not 'given up' eating meat. I simply have never eaten meat. I do not miss its taste, texture or flavour and am not seeking an alternative to it.

Nowadays vegetarian or even vegan diet is quite popular and in most big cities in America, one can readily find restaurants that offer plenty of vegetarian choices. But twenty or thirty years ago (and probably even today, in smaller towns), this was not the case. I once lived in a suburb where within a radius of a few miles, I think there was just one vegetarian dish among all the restaurants if you did not count salads or pizza. This dish was called, quite appropriately, 'Buddha's Delight'. I also remember a Thai eatery where there was not a single item without meat on their extensive 6-page menu. When I asked the waiter about it, he brought me a hand-written menu with five dishes on it!

Eating out can still be challenging for a vegetarian. Names can be deceiving. It is important to ask the waiter what's in a dish before ordering. For instance, I understand that 'duck sauce' does not contain any duck, but 'oyster sauce' is a different story. Nevertheless, I take no chances with either! The rice served in Mexican restaurants is often made with chicken broth, something I would not have discovered if I had not asked.  And I have heard the story of someone who assumed that hamburgers were made with ham and cheeseburgers with cheese and decided the latter were vegetarian!

While we vegetarians face such problems, there is another side to this too. I think it is a little bit of a problem for co-workers when we decide to go out for lunch occasionally. They always make an effort to accommodate my dietary preference. I usually tell them that I can always find something in most places and not to worry about me. Sometimes, it turns out to be not so easy.

There was this time when a friend and I found ourselves at a restaurant where we were struggling to find anything vegetarian, though my friend had assured me that he had eaten there before. It turned out that they had vegetarian dishes on the fare only occasionally, say, once a week. The man eating at an adjacent table upon seeing our plight, tried to help out by critically examining the menu, and talking to the waiter, but there was nothing to be done. In the end, rather than going to another place, we just ordered fruit salads. We got to talking with our new friend and learned that he had visited India as a sailor. He had once been to Bombay where he said he even won some money at the races. By the time we finished our salads, he had left but we found out that he had paid our bill too. I suppose he somehow felt guilty that his country had let its guests down and decided to make some amends. Let us say that it was karma - his winning at the races in Bombay and paying for our meal in the US!

The staff at the restaurants are sometimes hard put to accommodate our choices. I once worked in a very small town near Buffalo. The only places to eat lunch there were a diner and a couple of fast food restaurants. A bunch of us newcomers descended on the Burger King or McDonald's there (I can't remember which) for lunch on our first day. Many of us were vegetarians and wanted to order a burger with all the fixings, but without the meat! This made for some confusion there as the order clerk was puzzled at first. At first, he could not believe that we had asked for a burger without meat. He was sure we had meant to say pickle or cheese or something like that. When he finally realized that we really did not want any meat, this seemingly raised a different problem. By now the line behind us had started to grow and people were becoming impatient of the wait. After some hemming and hawing, he called the manager.

The manager came out. After the clerk told him about our order, he looked serious. We thought perhaps that they could not make the burger without meat. Integrity of the product and all that, you know. But that was not it. Instead, the manager told us somewhat apologetically that he would have to charge us the same price as the regular burger. You see, the real issue was that the cash register was not programmed for our option and they could not figure out how to override it. We were hungry and told him we did not mind.

To his credit, the manager had the register re-programmed and added the 'no meat' option after a couple of days of this!