Vegetarian Travails

While most of us have simple rules that we can use when eating, such as "if it is not moving, I'll eat it" or the safer "if it is not moving, and it does not look like it has been moving in the last ten minutes, I'll eat it", several people have more complicated rules. Take vegetarians, for instance. The only thing that veggies, as I affectionately call them, agree on is that they can't eat mammals. Some self-proclaimed veggies eat chicken. Several eat fish and seafood. Vegans, the purest and more annoying people to have lunch with, don't eat meat products - no milk, butter, yoghurt, eggs, etc.

Link: Vegetarian Taxonomy, by the Pure H₂0 Gazette

Veggies have a rough life when travelling. A veggie friend of mine recalled his visit to Lyon, the French culinary capital for carnivores, with horror. "In each restaurant, it would take ages to ask the waiter what they had on the menu for vegetarians. Most of this time would be spent explaining the concept of `vegetarian'. In one place, the waiter, once he finally understood that I didn't eat meat, wanted to touch me to see if I was real. He had heard rumours of there being such a thing as vegetarians, but had never believed that they really existed."

Such stories make me glad I am only a vegetarian between meals.

Of course, many people ask me when we go to restaurants if I am, since many ethnic Indians are. After much unsystematic experimentation, I have come up with an answer that usually ends up in a conversation like this:

Friend: Do you have any, um, dietary restrictions?
Me: Oh, yes, of course. I don't eat iguana.
Friend: Sorry?
Me: Iguana. I don't eat iguana. You know, that lizard thing?
Friend: Er, right. Have you ever eaten iguana?
Me: No. I don't eat it, remember?

Of course, my friend is really asking the question "Have you ever been in a situation where you could have, if you were not restricted dietary-wise, eaten iguana?" Similarly, I am really giving the answer "Wrong stereotype, bud."