Eating around the world

Duck59

Guru
Joined
23 Apr 2015
Local time
12:03 AM
Messages
3,149
Location
Fife, Scotland
Website
duckholiday.com
I've been lucky enough to have visited more than 40 countries and one of the things that people often ask is whether I managed to find enough veggie food. Well, since I appear to be still living, the answer is probably yes.

Admittedly, there are places where you have to search a bit, but most cities and big towns have vegetarian restaurants, or at least vegetarian options. I suppose it can be a bit tougher if you are stuck in a remote area, but I've always found that people are very helpful and will manage to knock up something that avoids meat.

I lived in Eritrea for two years and managed to avoid anything meaty (okay, I might have swallowed the odd fly). I suppose that being able to cook my own food was a distinct help. I've worked in a couple of other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and been more reliant on restaurants, but even then, it's not so difficult.

I've never been to southern India, but I'd guess that is an easy place to find veggie food. Sri Lanka certainly fits the bill.

I'd be interested to hear the experience of other vegetarian wayfarers.
 
Cooking your own food has never been a problem. Eating out has been. Finding accommodation where you can cook your own food has always been an issue though! We have been known to light our stove in the shower of a room if we could or even my husband go outside and 'hide' to cook our food, but it has not always worked. Sometimes it has just been a case of having to accept it sadly.

We have travelled extensively through Europe and have had issues. Typically they were eastern European countries and one ex soviet state where getting something was almost impossible. We had a night in rural Poland in small village 'Pub' where we ended up eating meat. There simply was no option and no way of explaining the concept of not eating meat. Further on, in Serbia several times we ran into issues where we had stopped for the night in a small hotel at the side of the road (usually when we had run out of options and daylight and had not option to camp, so had had to accept defeat and use the next hotel/room to arrive). Here we would have no option but to eat in the 'restaurant' and pick the option with the least meat. Often these rooms came with breakfast and a typical breakfast in eastern Europe is not cereal - the concept does not exist and with us needing plenty of calories and protein (we were cycle touring at the time) we would have to have bread and omelette and inevitably the omelette would have meat, even when we asked for it not to, because the idea of not having meat in a meal is completely no existent. Belarus was another country we had problems avoiding meat/fish in and ended up with a fish & mushroom omelette and not the mushroom omelette we had wanted. I think we managed OK in Slovakia and also in Macedonia which was good.
 
I recall a (vegetarian) friend who spent some time travelling around the Balkans when tensions were still high. He said that about 80% of the food he ate during that period consisted of burek!
 
I recall a (vegetarian) friend who spent some time travelling around the Balkans when tensions were still high. He said that about 80% of the food he ate during that period consisted of burek!
I have a very dear Croatian collegue ,who makes burek,stretching the dough is a art and he does a feta and tomato one and like a mince meat goulash one
Very nice:D
 
I have started to tell people who are looking for vegetarian fare when traveling to search out places that serve Asian food. Though not strictly vegetarian, there are a lot of vegetable dishes and soups so it's easy to find something you'll want to eat without having to settle for a pitiful side salad and a baked potato. Times are changing though, there are lot more options than there were 20 years ago.
 
In Europe, a city or reasonably large town is almost guaranteed to have plenty of choice in terms of restaurants. I went for a curry in Reykjavik once, in a restaurant claiming (almost certainly accurately) to be the world's most northerly Indian restaurant. There was, for those partial to meat, the option of elk vindaloo, though there was plenty for veggies as well.

I should also mention the restaurant in Bucharest where one of the menu items was 'bear in mustard sauce'. This was not a misprint (my grasp of Romanian may not be perfect, but I know enough Latin to realise that 'urs' means 'bear'). I trust that it was not the entire bear, though you can get some pretty large portions in Eastern Europe.
 
I've been lucky enough to have visited more than 40 countries and one of the things that people often ask is whether I managed to find enough veggie food. Well, since I appear to be still living, the answer is probably yes.

Admittedly, there are places where you have to search a bit, but most cities and big towns have vegetarian restaurants, or at least vegetarian options. I suppose it can be a bit tougher if you are stuck in a remote area, but I've always found that people are very helpful and will manage to knock up something that avoids meat.

I lived in Eritrea for two years and managed to avoid anything meaty (okay, I might have swallowed the odd fly). I suppose that being able to cook my own food was a distinct help. I've worked in a couple of other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and been more reliant on restaurants, but even then, it's not so difficult.

I've never been to southern India, but I'd guess that is an easy place to find veggie food. Sri Lanka certainly fits the bill.

I'd be interested to hear the experience of other vegetarian wayfarers.
I haven't traveled much but I do study other cultures, and being vegan for 3 years, I find it pretty easy especially when you step outside of the american culture of eating. There are plenty of vegan options all over the world. One day we'll do an asian dish, the next day we will do something Indian, or Caribbean. Life is easier as a cook, the world is at you hands all from a youtube search on recipes.
 
I am shocked that in some places of the world, it is hard to find a meatless vegetarian meal. I thought that the US were the big meat consumers of the world, but it sounds like the eastern European countries are just as bad. If you are a vegetarian, I guess that is one of the things you have to research before you take a trip to another country. Like Chanel said, you should not have any problems finding vegetarian dishes if you were to travel to the Asian countries of the world. I imagine it would also be easy to find vegetarian dishes in the Middle East as well if you felt comfortable enough to travel to that region.
 
I am shocked that in some places of the world, it is hard to find a meatless vegetarian meal. I thought that the US were the big meat consumers of the world, but it sounds like the eastern European countries are just as bad. If you are a vegetarian, I guess that is one of the things you have to research before you take a trip to another country. Like Chanel said, you should not have any problems finding vegetarian dishes if you were to travel to the Asian countries of the world. I imagine it would also be easy to find vegetarian dishes in the Middle East as well if you felt comfortable enough to travel to that region.

I'd agree that it can be difficult in eastern Europe if you are off the beaten track. In cities and most big towns, there is no problem finding vegetarian food. I've found plenty of vegetarian restaurants and lots more that have vegetarian options. Most places have one or two Indian restaurants and it's easy to have a veggie meal. In fact, I had a lovely Indian meal in St Petersburg last year and there is a wonderful Indian restaurant in Budapest where nearly all the dishes are vegetarian.
 
I would love to take a trip around the world at some point and just spend my time looking at the sights and eating local food. It would be a very expensive adventure, and I doubt I will ever be able to afford it.
 
I am shocked that in some places of the world, it is hard to find a meatless vegetarian meal. I thought that the US were the big meat consumers of the world, but it sounds like the eastern European countries are just as bad. If you are a vegetarian, I guess that is one of the things you have to research before you take a trip to another country. Like Chanel said, you should not have any problems finding vegetarian dishes if you were to travel to the Asian countries of the world. I imagine it would also be easy to find vegetarian dishes in the Middle East as well if you felt comfortable enough to travel to that region.
A lot of countries, particularly former Soviet states including Russia hold the belief that a meal is not complete without meat. It comes from the harsh winters they (used to and sometimes still do) get, and the need for meat in their diets as a result. Even breakfast includes meat and when away from larger towns and cities the older beliefs still hold today. It is kind of a different needs thing. They could not grow veg/oats/barley/cereal crops etc for large parts of the year with the ground being frozen, so meat featured very highly in their diet - especially once stored grains/veg and the likes had run low over winter. Spring for them was not a time for planting out crop, it was still a time of winter conditions. Even places like Poland still have a very high meat content in their diet. It was a way of life when weather conditions were harsher. Once you start getting to higher latitudes and further east it is meat all the way because the ground is permafrost all year round and you simply can't grow crops in those conditions, so any animal that could be used was, and fully. Reindeer in particular because they can survive the severe conditions.

As I said, it is very much a Soviet state thing really. Any country that was a former soviet state will have a very high meat content to their diet. But things are changing in bigger towns and cities. We were taken out to an Austrian restaurant in Hrondna (capital of Belarus) and we were able to get a vegetarian dish there.

However, once in Turkey, it wasn't a problem and I know in one place we stayed in, the idea of pide (Turkish pizza) without meat and putting cheese on it instead found its way to the menu after we asked for it (using sign language and pointing to words in a dictionary).
 
I travel a lot too and while I am certainly far from even considering to be a vegetarian, a friend with whom I travel a lot is. And we always manage to find something without meat for him, especially in Western Europe pretty much every restaurant has a few vegetarian options. And any place with Asian food is bound to have vegetarian options too.

As a last resort, if you don't find anything else, you can always pick a meal and just ask them to make it without the meat. A lot of dishes, like most of the asian ones, curries, salads, stews etc. will be just fine even if they are missing the meat ingredient.
 
A lot of countries, particularly former Soviet states including Russia hold the belief that a meal is not complete without meat. It comes from the harsh winters they (used to and sometimes still do) get, and the need for meat in their diets as a result. Even breakfast includes meat and when away from larger towns and cities the older beliefs still hold today. It is kind of a different needs thing. They could not grow veg/oats/barley/cereal crops etc for large parts of the year with the ground being frozen, so meat featured very highly in their diet - especially once stored grains/veg and the likes had run low over winter. Spring for them was not a time for planting out crop, it was still a time of winter conditions. Even places like Poland still have a very high meat content in their diet. It was a way of life when weather conditions were harsher. Once you start getting to higher latitudes and further east it is meat all the way because the ground is permafrost all year round and you simply can't grow crops in those conditions, so any animal that could be used was, and fully. Reindeer in particular because they can survive the severe conditions.

As I said, it is very much a Soviet state thing really. Any country that was a former soviet state will have a very high meat content to their diet. But things are changing in bigger towns and cities. We were taken out to an Austrian restaurant in Hrondna (capital of Belarus) and we were able to get a vegetarian dish there.

However, once in Turkey, it wasn't a problem and I know in one place we stayed in, the idea of pide (Turkish pizza) without meat and putting cheese on it instead found its way to the menu after we asked for it (using sign language and pointing to words in a dictionary).

Thanks for the explanation, that was a great read and very informative. I guess when you are in survival mode, like one would be in severe winter conditions, the most important nutrient is protein. Protein is much more filling and will leave you satisfied and energized much longer than vegetables or grains will. People must adapt to the foods they can get their hands on. Tradition is ingrained into most of us, even if we now have the ability to get foods imported in.
 
I come from a country where people love eating meat. Whipping up steaks at family gatherings is the norm here and it can be difficult to be vegan. Good thing is our meals more often than not come with variety thus one can settle for non-meat and watch the others wolf down bits of meat close by. I would say going vegan in my part of the world would be a tall order. But in the event one does make it, there is lots of vegetables to make up for the meat!
 
I come from a country where people love eating meat. Whipping up steaks at family gatherings is the norm here and it can be difficult to be vegan. Good thing is our meals more often than not come with variety thus one can settle for non-meat and watch the others wolf down bits of meat close by. I would say going vegan in my part of the world would be a tall order. But in the event one does make it, there is lots of vegetables to make up for the meat!

I lived in Eritrea for two years and found it reasonably easy to stay vegetarian. Vegan would have been more of a test, though. The fact that I had my own house and could cook my own food helped a great deal. It was harder in restaurants, where I often had to settle for pasta with a meat-free sauce. I also spent some time in Ethiopia and lived in a hotel, so I had to eat out most of the time. Even then, I didn't find it too difficult to stay veggie.
 
Back
Top Bottom