Vegetarians

[stacey-lyn]

I'm not a vegetarian but a significant number of my family and our friends are. 3 out of 4 of my neighbours are as well.

The number of people choosing to eat less meat or give it up all together is growing.

These days people who choose to eat meat-free or reduced meat diets could be anyone from your local GP to your lawyer, dietician, web designer - and yes, the occasional hippy activist. Many like to eat out at high-end restaurants because they are not, as some may believe, pouring all of their funds into PETA and hemp clothing.

They are not attention seekers but have chosen not to eat meat for a variety of reasons.

We often go out, four, 6 or 8 of us, and it's very disappointing to go to a local eatery to find such a lack of choice. The idea that they should be corralled into segregated "vegetarian restaurants" is just plain silly and falls apart when you consider most people dine in company and most vegetarians aren't so stuck up their own rear ends that they don't have meat eating friends.

It's disappointing to read that the soft opening of the 'new restaurant' didn't have a vege option.

Some restaurants already get it - like Carluccio's, offering as many meat-free dishes as they do seafood, beef or poultry or friendly staff willing to talk to chef about a suitable alternative dish. I recall way back in the day, Free Range was very accommodating.

But plenty still prefer to live in the dark ages, treating vegetarians as more a nuisance than paying customer and refuse to go beyond a Greek salad or the much-hated veggie stack or the clich?d goat's cheese tart. The 'it isn't cost effective' excuse is just nonsense.

The cuisines of Italy, France, Spain, South East Asia, India and so on have many dishes that aren't purposely 'vegetarian' but rather simply standard dishes that are part of their regular diets that can easily be replicated here.

So why don't the pubs and niche restaurants in ED do more?

I'd especially like feedback from local vegetarians.

[Jeremy]

I think restaurants simply respond to demand. If a restaurant has - for the sake of argument - eight main courses on the menu and one in ten customers are vegetarian, it simply doesn't make sense to have more than one or two veggie dishes.

I'm sure the new place could cater for veggies if you ask them.

[Marmora Man]

In my circle of close friends I only know of very few vegetarians - and two of them converted back to meat eating after spending nearly 5 years in Argentina.

A "problem" with vegetarian food is that many chefs find it difficult to be truly innovative or inspiring without a central lump of fleshy protein around which to base the dish. Perhaps this is wrong but as a keen cook my spirits always sag when I have to provide a veggie option. I'm happy with veggie starters (asparagus & poached egg for example or a beetroot tart tatine) but otherwise see vegetables as complimentary to a piece of flesh, fish or fowl.

[Andybol]

I'm not so sure of that. My Fiance and I don't eat a lot of meat anymore for a couple of resons. The first is to save money - meat is very expensive - and second is that eating a lot of meat is bad for you. That means I've had to be much more creative with my cooking and while that's been a learning curve I'm now smashing out some pretty ineteresting stuff.

I agree that having seperate veggie restaurants does seem counter productive but t6he majority of people eat meat and there's only so much money you have to order supplies for the week of which meat is quite a pricey one. It must be difficult for restaurants to be able to provide a more comrehensive split menu.

[Penguin68]

Much of European cuisine is based around animal (including fish, shellfish etc.) protein - even where dishes are virtually 'meat' free they are often traditionally flavoured with meat stock - particularly pig. The peasant 'mess of potage' though primarily grain and vegetable based would have had pig bones etc. to add flavour. For many vegetarians even stock would not be acceptable. You have to look to Asian and South Asian dishes to find true vegetarian meals (sourced from vegetables and fungi) embedded in the eating culture. [The widest European tradition availability is around pasta/ sauce dishes - these can be flavoursome but samey - and for a place which is not specialising in Italian dishes may not fit into the offering.]

This means that restaurants which do not go the Asian and S. Asian route are hard-pressed to come up with a large variety of vegetarian food in their cuisine vernacular, and even more constrained where eggs, cheese and butter are additionally excluded.

For a European-tradition cook to manage a genuinely interesting and varied set of vegatarian options is a significant ask.

Of course for non-vegans there are multiple stages of vegetarianism - some will take fish or shellfish, some even (why?) chicken - but if you are offering a veggie option it does need to be quite hard-core to meet a wide range of customer needs.

[KidKruger]

I think it depends how strict the vegetarians are, 'vegetarian' food prepared in a meat kitchen, does seem to qualify though to most UK vegeterians.

OP - It's not reasonable to compare to India as having it 'sorted' though, because in the UK most restaurants won't want to go to the extremes which India does. 'Vegetarian' there means something different than your usual non meat-eater in the UK. Indians segregate not just the menu, but the entire building the restaurant is in, especially in the provinces. There is a sign above each half of the restaurant - 'NV' (non-veg) for meat eaters, who are the minority. They have a wall through the entire building, so seperate eating area, separate kitchens and often even separate V/NV loos. Veggies in India are strict to the point of EXPECTING this physical separation, to avoid cross-'contamination'.

For them it's more than just sticking a few vegetable dishes on the menu, it's more a case of the vegetarians being aware that there's meat-eaters around and not wanting their purity compromised.

ETA: While the thread title is Vegetarians, the thrust appears to be about vegetable dish avaiability on a meat restaurants' menus.

[Penguin68]

It's not reasonable to compare to India as having it 'sorted' though

I have not been assuming the sort of vegetarianism that equates to running a kosher kitchen - just that S.Asian and Asian food combinations and cooking methods offer a far wider range of (different) vegetarian dishes - which would support greater choice for vegetarians. Offering a single 'vegetarian option' which used eggs or cheese (or butter) in the cooking - for many French restauranters the veggie option is a cheese omlette (!) - would not meet all vegetarian needs - so you would have to go hard-core to be offering a genuinely vegetarian option to meet most needs.

I am assuming strict Budhists or Jains would not be eating in a meat restaurant at all - as strict and orthodox Jews would not eat from a non-kosher kitchen.

[KidKruger]

penguin - I shoudl have clarified, I was responding to OP's post which was comparing UK to India, which isn't a reasonable comparison IMO. However, some buddhists eat meat, as do some Hindus, so I was not getting into the religion-based drivers, because there are always exceptions !

[tracymcdavis]

My husband and I are both vegetarians, have been for many (over 20) years. We don't eat any fish or shellfish. I find this complaint about not having veggie options quite old-fashioned. Veggie eating out in the UK has come on leaps and bounds in the last 10 years or so. Yes, I do not have the same choice as a meat eater - but I have chosen to restrict myself. Most places will have at least 2 options and a lot will modify other dishes when asked. It helps that my favourite foods are Italian and Indian.

The caveat to that is I never go to French restaurants - there's just no point as the veggie option will be a tasteless pile of overcooked vegetables. Chinese and Spanish/Tapas can be a bit hit and miss too - some places have a great choice, others don't.

But the point to this is, I chose this lifestyle, I cannot expect others to cater for it to the level that the meat-eating majority get. I check menus before eating out and if there is nothing I want on it - I go somewhere else.

[stacey-lyn]

tracymcdavis, you may think it old-fashioned but it is valid from my experience. You'll agree that generally, what's on offer is simply not good enough. My sister, her husband, his brother and wife have been vegetarian since their school days so over 30 years (I was myself but that's another story). We often go out together. Of course it is also down to the skill of the chef. The French vegetable dishes that are made properly (examples below) are delicious and far from tasteless.

Some restaurants don't even offer vegetarian options for anyone, veg or not, wanting that choice.

Jeremy, point taken, but my point is that there is a demand (Indian Mischief seems to do well) and if vegetarians were better catered for, their custom would increase and benefit our local eateries. Win win.

When we have gone out for dinner, at least half of our party ie 2 out of 4 or 6 out of 8 are vegetarian. Seeing their eyes roll at yet another goats cheese tart or stuffed squash is really disheartening.

The option is to go further afield and out of our local area to restaurants with interesting and varied choices who are savvy enough to put more consideration into their menus and their clientele.

In any event, why should you have to ask a restaurant? Noone wants to feel the 'nuisance'.

(Btw, you may recall that I did ask the 'new restaurant').

Penguin68 and KK: Just an example of some dishes that I have selected as a non vegetarian simply because I fancied it: stuffed zucchini flowers, tart a l'onion, ratatoullie, wild mushroom & truffle risotto (made with vegetable stock), baked fennel, chicory au gratin (both of which I have regularly found in France), a range of well prepared antipasti, cheese filled arancini, and on and on.

And if you're not going for the European theme, other cuisines apart from Indian such as Middle Eastern restaurants offer impressive selections, too numerous to list here.

So I don't know why this is a 'significant ask'.

Perhaps the chefs simply don't have the skill or just can't be arsed.

KK, I understand about religious observances and logistics but if you read my post, I wasn't comparing India with the UK but simply using that cuisine - and others - as an example of a nation full of inspiring and delicious 'vegetarian' dishes that can be replicated or adapted.

[Jeremy]

stacey-lyn Wrote:

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> Jeremy, point taken, but my point is that there is

> a demand (Indian Mischief seems to do well) and if

> vegetarians were better catered for, their custom

> would increase and benefit our local eateries. Win

> win.

Sure, more veggie choices would possibly win more customers. But if they came at the expense of meat/fish dishes, they would almost certainly alienate existing customers.

On the other hand, increasing the length of the menu would mean the overhead of having to stock more fresh ingredients, and the complications of cooking extra dishes.

Doesn't really seem win/win to me.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Restaurants cannot be expected to cater for everyone, all of the time. As I understand it, the new restaurant had an extremely limited menu on offer the other night as it was a ?dry run?, before they open properly. Their full menu will likely include some vegetarian options - but frankly whether it does or not is up to them. As a potential customer, you consider the type of food on offer and decide whether it?s somewhere you want to eat or not. Should the Blue Brick Cafe cater for meat eaters, or is it up to them what they choose to offer people?

[KidKruger]

I think that with a fairly small high street East Dulwich is doing well to have 2x dedicated 'vegetarian' restaurants within a short walk of one another. However, the points made by posters above are reasonable, you can ask for dishes to be tweaked (if ANY restaurant considers you a nuisance for requesting a change to a dish, that's their problem, not yours).

[oimissus]

my husband is veggie and we now rarely eat out as he hates goat's cheese tarts (having been obliged to eat them for 10+ years), and there is rarely anything else on offer (I'm talking pubs particularly). So we don't bother. I would love to eat out more but, as Stacey-lyn says, watching his face fall as he contemplates yet another uninspired single 'choice' is just depressing.

I wonder what would happen if restaurants decided to do meat-free Mondays or something (maybe change their menus around so it's mainly veggie with a single meat choice) - I reckon with the right marketing and an inspired choice of dishes they could be packed to the rafters. And perhaps the dedicated carnivores could see what it's like having so little choice!

[Sue]

KidKruger Wrote:

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> I think that with a fairly small high street East

> Dulwich is doing well to have 2x dedicated

> 'vegetarian' restaurants within a short walk of

> one another.

xxxxxx

Indian Mischief is one - what's the other one, KK?

[Twirly]

Sue, it's the Blue Brick Cafe (I assume)

[DaveR]

Very few chefs are vegetarian except in specialist vegetarian restaurants hence less interest in meat free dishes. I don't know what proportion of diners are veggie but like Jeremy said, if the demand is really there you would expect things to change.

I know hardly any vegetarians; certainly fewer now than when I was in my twenties, say. Having said that, I suspect a bit of self-selection is at work.

[numbers]

oh I feel soooo old writing this but I remember the days when eating out for veggies was REALLY dismal, its improved a hell of a lot in the last decade or more.

When I was veggie, I used to feel cheated when presented with only one choice of dish, (usually centred around a particular ingredient I didn't much like - mushroom or aubergine) whilst friends tucked into divine Sunday roasts with gravy, yorkshire puddings, the lot. Many places didn't include those as standard with a veggie 'roast' option, actually, some didn't have that as an option anyway. You'd have to be satisfied with a cheese & onion quiche & side salad (butter lettuce, insipid slice of tomato, onion and sweetcorn if you were lucky).

Now there are so many 'fake' meat type products that if you want a (veggie) hot dog you can get it, wasn't like that previously when you'd have to nibble on rice cakes & cashew spread only available from the health shop.

Saying that, it does seem like goat's cheese (& invariably beetroot) appears to be the 'new' veggie lasagne/mushroom risotto/nut roast/vegetable moussaka/quiche/omelette.

edited to add: what's this got to do with east dulwich in particular?

[stacey-lyn]

DaveR, there is an accepted fallacy that the demand is not there. There is the demand - really, there is. But if you're repeatedly disappointed and as oimissus attests to, you simply give up. Moreover, as a non veg, sometimes you just fancy a non meat/poultry/fish alternative that has had the same thought and skill and is as delicious as the kobe beef, fillet mignon, cornish game hen/posh kiev or dover sole/monkfish. Just saying that it would be nice for non meat eaters to come away not feeling like they've drawn the short straw - again.

[KidKruger]

I never did get the obsession of many veggies of eating non-meat food thats manufactured to look like / have the texture of meat, especially as in the UK one of the main reasons for being vegetarian is the welfare of animals / repugnance of eating dead flesh.

I also never got the comparison made between a Sunday roast and whatever a vegetarian is going to eat. They're different approaches to food consumption, so why are they ever going to be similar ? That's an unreasonable expectation or desire.

UK mainstream food culture just isn't set-up yet to carer properly for vegetarians, it'll probably take decades to be anywhere near equal to non-veg provision, if ever.

[numbers]

So why don't the pubs and niche restaurants in ED do more?

I'd especially like feedback from local vegetarians.

now I've properly read the thread, I see the ED angle. You could try asking the dulwich veggie & vegan society for feedback, tom who runs it posts (or used to) on the forum?

as for the 'niche' restaurants in ED, are you referring to the ones that predominately do old skool, nose-to-tail type dishes, traditional English/British? It could simply be that other styles of cookery (Italian, SE Asian) are a) ubiquitous and b) naturally comprised of dishes that cater well for veggies & meat-lovers alike, so mixed groups of people prefer to choose to eat there anyway. Perhaps some veggies (and non-veggies) are put off dining in places that serve certain cuts of meat? Am wildly guessing here but maybe they don't relish sitting across from someone tucking into a pig's head...

agree that you can produce imaginative, delicious veggie dishes with same care that has gone into the others.

(edited to add: KidKruger I don't get that either about replicating meat texture etc however if I was veggie and paying same amount for a Sunday veggie 'roast' in a pub, I'd damn well want the Yorkshires & gravy etc as well).

[Sue]

Twirly Wrote:

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> Sue, it's the Blue Brick Cafe (I assume)

xxxxxx

Ah yes, thanks :)

[maxxi]

It's that phrase in the OP "choose not to eat meat for a variety of reasons".

If the reason is not liking to chow down on gobbets of flesh they may not object to things like chicken stock, fish sauce, Worcester sauce, anchovy essence etc. and the chef wouldn't to have to guard against any possible 'contamination' with meat/fish essence as though customers were going to go into anaphylactic shock if they inhaled a speck of oxo (even to the point of making sure one didn't use the same spoon/pan).

Perhaps predominantly vegetarian dishes are much easier to attain than strictly 100% vegan dishes?

Though when the Blue Brick cafe stopped doing bacon and sausages at breakfast time I just sucked it up and went elsewhere.

[Pugwash]

I am not a vegetarian but if there is a good veggie option on the menu I usually go for it. Having had an operation a couple of years ago, I find it difficult at times to eat meat as this frequently makes me sick, as do pasta and bread dishes. I tend to go for fish and vegetarian dishes and I love experimenting with vegetarian receipes. At one time in my office, half of the staff were vegetarian and we had one vegan, so all shared staff lunches and teas, had to cover a wide base. I too would prefer a wider choice of veggie options other than egg based dishes. At work lunches, colleagues usually rely on me to bring the veggie option in as most of our office are now meat eaters. Indian Mischief is a great place to go as is the Blue Brick Cafe. Even the smallest of 'cafes' should be able to offer at least 4/5 veggie options if you base this around. eggs, cheese, fruit and veg and pasta - all which could be made in a few minutes

[ellieaness]

I'm a veggie and eat out all the time, in the last few years I've started to eat some fish and seafood occasionally so I suppose I'm not a strict vegetarian any more which gives a little more choice but like one of the other posters I'm happy to know ill never go to Tramshed.

Hopefully the new place (whatever it's called, was a name ever decided on) will ofFer something totally meat and fish free even if its risotto or gnocchi (up there with the goats cheese tart!)

To those who are saying they hate cooking with vegetables, it's worth checking out Hugh FW's river cottage Veg book, it's full of really inspiring stuff and getting on my soapbox for a second, eating meat regularly instead of as a treat means your carbon footprint is incredibly high.