I'm almost as non-vegetarian as Tony Bourdain. That said, I could almost imagine being a vegetarian in India. There were periods in Nepal where I was effectively vegetarian, and I absolutely craved meat. Even a fried egg was like having a steak after a while.
Still, having good vegie recipes would be really useful since I do have vegetarian friends, and I'd like to have "foodie" stuff on the table for them, too.
Funny story. Knew a vegetarian guy (from NYC) who loved asian food. We went out to a vietnamese place, and he got tyhe vegetarian spring rolls. The spring rolls indeed had no meat in them. He's dipping the things in nam pla, lol.
I didn't say anything. He'd been eating such food for years, and it had never occurred to him that the thin "sweet/sour" sauce he always got was fish juice.
A friend who is a more careful vegetarian said it's hard because many thai and vietnamese places call it vegetarian if there is no chunks of meat (or seafood) in the dish, but since fish sauce is their salt... it never occurs to them not to put THAT in. There's really no such thing as thai food without it...
|