Category Archives: Food & Drinks

Are you a “non-veggie” vegetarian?

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If you are a vegetarian, there could be occassions when you become a “curiosity generator”.  When people around me learn that I am a vegetarian, I usually get a series of questions in this order(more or less).

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1. Do you eat fish? No.

2. Do you eat egg? No.

3. Do you eat milk-based products? Yes.

4. What is the reason for being a veggie – Religous? Yes.

I have to say that this happens mostly when I happen to be outside India. In India, vegetarians are pampered with choice. And the questions are very few. After all, 31% of Indians are vegetarians(according to this study). While living in USA, the choice for veg. food got drastically reduced, but the situation was still managable. There was a veggie burger,a veg. pizza or cheese pizza,  a veg. sandwich, a bean burrito or  veg noodles available somewhere nearby. The situation is quite similar in Europe as well. But China was an altogether different experience.

During my initial days in China, I did not have the courage to go to a restaurant alone. Either the menu is all in Mandarin, which I could not read, or in some cases when a menu had the pictures of the dishes, I could not ask and confirm if a dish was vegetarian. So, one of the first things I did was to get a note written in Mandarin from one of my Chinese colleagues which said ” No meat, no fish, no egg please”. I showed this note to the waiter while ordering food. Whenever I went outside my house, I never forgot to carry my home key, mobile, wallet and this “food ordering note”. And when I started my Mandarin classes, the first thing I learned was how to say I am a vegetarian.

The “fun” didn’t stop there. China is a predominantly non-vegetarian nation where only Buddist monks or very pious people are vegetarian. So when I order a vegetarian food, the unmistakeable look on the face of the waiter(es) is ” Is this guy from Mars or Jupiter?”. During a couple of occassions, I heard some giggling immediately after I ordered food. Perhaps I was the butt of some joke ??!!

Even though I have been a vegetarian for so long, I didn’t know quite a few things about vegetarianism. Like, some of the classifications of vegetarians or some jargons. There are also different definitions of who is a vegetarian. But now, I know better, thanks to an article from BBC. The article talks about a “classic vegetarian, vegan, meat-avoider, meat-reducer and green-eater”. Then there is a “flexitarian”. The article also points to “The Vegetarian Society” , which has been in existence since 1847(long time indeed).

The list of jargon doesn’t end there. Here is a sample.

  •  Lacto-vegetarian – a vegetarian who eats dairy products but not egg
  • Ovo-vegetarian – a vegetarian who eats egg but not dairy products
  • Lacto-ovo vegetarian – a vegetarian who eats both egg and dairy products
  • Fruitarian – someone whose diet has only fruits and related things
  • Raw vegan – one who eats only raw vegetables

There are more definitions, but I guess most of the vegetarians fall in one of the categories above. So, next time someone asks me what type of vegetarian I am, I have a two word answer – “Lacto vegetarian”. Only thing is, I will still have to explain what it means 🙂

PS: The BBC article titled “The rise of the non-veggie vegetarian” is available here – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8341002.stm

Image credit –http://www.flickr.com/photos/yolagringo/ / CC BY 2.0

Delicious Swiss cheese Fondue

Food & Drinks, , ,

Last Sunday started just like any other Sunday. I slept more, and by the time I woke, the sun was already strong and beating down. After having breakfast, as I was lazily  browsing through the mails and other news, my landlord invited me to join him for lunch. The previous week, I had shared Sambhar rice(that I cooked) with him and he said he liked it. At that time, he said that he will help me understand Swiss food better. That moment has come now.

I quite happily accepted the invitation, since I would get a first hand experience with some authentic Swiss food(I also didn’t have to worry about cooking lunch that day!!).

The dish was called Fondue, which is usually eaten during winter. Fondue basically has two items. The first is bread in the form of cubes. 

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And the second item is cheese. The cheese used in this case is a mix – Moitié-moitié (or half ‘n half): Fribourg Vacherin and Gruyère. The former is a greyish-yellow cheese and is made of cow milk(and originates from the canton or state of Fribourg). The latter is a yellow cheese, also made of cow milk and is from the town of  Gruyères. The Gruyère cheese is slightly salty and the Fribourg cheese is a bit resiny and acidic.

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The cheese is melted in a pot.A burner keeps the cheese warm and prevents it from solidifying. 

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Now, it is the time for eating. Take the bread cubes, dip it in the melted cheese and, savour the taste. I must tell you, this is a really delicious dish. And a heavy one too.

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The people here usually take pineapple or pear with the Fondue. In our case, we had pears and we dipped the pears also in the cheese. Yummy, Yummy..

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As we were having the lunch, I was told about the other popular Swiss dishes РRaclette and R̦sti.

Raclette is also similar but the cheese is half-solid and potato slices subsitute for the bread cubes. Onion, meat and other vegetables are also used instead of potato slices.

Rösti  is also made of potato and is usually considered a breakfast item. It is basically potato grated and fried and is very similar to Hash Brown potatoes.

When we finished the lunch, the landlord said that when they make Raclette next time, he will invite me again. “Wow! Thank You”.

I eagerly look forward to having Raclette soon. I am also pondering what Indian dish I should cook and share with them next. Shahi Paneer? Rajma Masala?

Of Starbucks, Morgan Freeman and Kupi Luwak

Food & Drinks

It all started with a casual conversation with one of my senior colleagues from Sweden. While having coffee together, he mentioned that people from Finland drink the most coffee in the world(on a per capita basis) – about 12 kg per year in 2007 (the similar figures for USA is 4.2 kg). He added that the other Scandinavian countries are at the top of this list. I found this very amazing and started to dig a bit deeper. Here is what I found.

The other top coffee consuming nations are Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden. It is quite easy to see the reason behind this. All these countries have extended winters and drinking coffee is one of ways to keep the people refreshed. It is perhaps not a coincidence then that Seattle, where people have to stay indoors for a big part of the year due to rain, is the Coffee-capital of USA. Starbucks was born in Seattle and so was Seattle’s Best Coffee. Another popular US coffee brand, Caribou Coffee was born in another cold state – Minnesota.

This might seem ironic because coffee is grown in tropical climate and was consumed extensively by people in the Arabian deserts, before spreading to Europe. And another interesting twist here is that, Starbucks and other coffee majors are putting so much of effort to convert a tea drinking nation like China to a coffee drinking one.

Speaking of coffee, one of the most unforgettable scenes in a movie comes from the Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson starrer ” The Bucket List” (Warning : spoilers ahead). Freeman(a mechanic) and Nicholson(a billionaire) are cancer patients and they become friends while sharing a hospital room. Nicholson has the habit of drinking only the costliest coffee in the world, Kupi Luwak(costing about 50 GBP per cup of espresso), and invites Freeman to try the coffee. Freeman politely refuses the coffee with a strange smile.

Later on, they create a “Bucket list” of activities that they want to do before dying. One of the items in Freeman’s list is to “laugh until I cry“. Together, they do most of the things in the list before they are discharged from the hospital. Sometime later, Freeman gets hospitalised again and Nicholson visits him. At that point, Freeman hands over a paper to Nicholson and asks him to read it. As he starts reading, Nicholson’s face turns red with embarassment, which prompts Freeman to “laugh till he cries”. Wonder why? Watch the video and find out for youself  ðŸ™‚