yes, i'll have the vegetarian veal, please.

By anders pearson 20 Nov 2001

went up to harlem again to visit craig and the wife and and baby (19 days old now) and have dinner and beers with coworkers.

for dinner we ordered out from the soul food restaurant across the street. i was amused to see on the menu, under the “Salads and Vegan Corner” section of the menu that the first item was “grilled chicken with greens”. the next item under it was “fried jumbo shrimp”. now, call me daft, but when did chicken and shrimp become vegetarian foods, let alone vegan?

maybe us vegetarians just have a different definition of what “vegetarian” food is than the rest of the world. to me, it means, very simply: no meat. that’s it. not too complicated a definition. pretty easy to classify foods with it. from what i’ve seen of menu’s (particularly in chinese restaurants), a significant portion of the non-vegetarian world considers vegetarian food to be “it’s got something in it that’s not meat.” like “grilled chicken and greens” has some vegetables in it so it must be vegetarian. almost every chinese restaurant i’ve been in in new york has, in the “vegetarian dishes” section of the menu the item “spicy bean curd with meat”.

i’m not going to rant on now about how restaurants should have more vegetarian items on the menu or anything, but for the love of god, stop putting meat dishes in the vegetarian section of the menu.

Tags: vegetarian vegan food