Vegans in omnivorous places
I've been living in Seoul, South Korea for a little over three weeks now, and been a happy, well-fed vegan for just as long. The language barrier is pretty intense sometimes, but a veeg can, for the most part, get by pretty swimmingly with a limited arsenal of key words and phrases to parrot, a vague knowledge of which dishes are safe-or-mostly-so, and restaurants with picture-menus.
After a long afternoon without having eaten, I wobble my way into a restaurant with some enticing looking pictures of various edibles in hot stone pots. There's no menu, but a wall full of pictures of things one can order. I recognize bibimbap, the Korean vegetarian staple, in one of the pictures and stand up to point at it.
"Bibimbap?" I ask.
"Yes," comes the reply.
"Is there meat in this?"
"No meat."
"Fish? No fish?"
"No fish."
Appeased, I wobble back to the table and fiddle with my chopsticks. A moment later, red stew appears. Bibimbap, if you're unfamiliar, is a simple dish that rarely includes anything other than a pretty array of blanched vegetables, white rice, and red pepper paste. The stuff's not easy to confuse. This stew was not it. I grab a spoon to poke into it, and immediately fish out... fish?
"Fish?" I ask again. "No, oyster." Aggh, facepalm. I ask again in immensely stunted Korean why the dish in front of me doesn't match the bibimbap I pointed to, and get a laugh from the owner's husband, who points to a sign beside him that's almost entirely Korean, save for the English word "Oysters". A quick glance at the diners around me tells me that the pictures of the food were just for show, and that in actuality, all they seem interested in serving is red stew with oysters in.
"Vegetarian", I say a little too apologetically, pointing to myself. "No oysters, fish, meat, ham." "Vegetarian," I say again, just in case. "Bibimbap?"
The owner nods in assent, makes an affirmative noise, and heads back to the kitchen, red-stew-with-oysters-in in hand. I breathe a tentative sigh of relief, until she returns with.. red stew. The oysters have been fished out, the spring onions on top rearranged, and she's cracked an egg in it instead. Defeated, I ask again about the oysters. No, she says, none of those. I try asking whether the broth is fish-based, but all I can manage in Korean is "Seafood water?" She rattles off something I don't understand, makes encouraging gestures, and sits down beside me to coax me into eating it.
During my first week in Seoul, I met up with a solid dude who's lived here as a vegan for two years, give or take. To stay vegan here, he told me, was entirely easy, so long as you lived with the understanding that at some point, somebody was going to serve you food with animals in and without any Korean fluency under your belt, there wasn't a whole lot you could do about it, save for shrugging, feeling kind of gross, and not returning to that particular restaurant. What else is there to do?
To those who've been on the veeg in some seriously omnivorous places: how do you manage? What gets you by? Do you have comfort food shipped from home? Does your diet or your way of seeing food change?
After a long afternoon without having eaten, I wobble my way into a restaurant with some enticing looking pictures of various edibles in hot stone pots. There's no menu, but a wall full of pictures of things one can order. I recognize bibimbap, the Korean vegetarian staple, in one of the pictures and stand up to point at it.
"Bibimbap?" I ask.
"Yes," comes the reply.
"Is there meat in this?"
"No meat."
"Fish? No fish?"
"No fish."
Appeased, I wobble back to the table and fiddle with my chopsticks. A moment later, red stew appears. Bibimbap, if you're unfamiliar, is a simple dish that rarely includes anything other than a pretty array of blanched vegetables, white rice, and red pepper paste. The stuff's not easy to confuse. This stew was not it. I grab a spoon to poke into it, and immediately fish out... fish?
"Fish?" I ask again. "No, oyster." Aggh, facepalm. I ask again in immensely stunted Korean why the dish in front of me doesn't match the bibimbap I pointed to, and get a laugh from the owner's husband, who points to a sign beside him that's almost entirely Korean, save for the English word "Oysters". A quick glance at the diners around me tells me that the pictures of the food were just for show, and that in actuality, all they seem interested in serving is red stew with oysters in.
"Vegetarian", I say a little too apologetically, pointing to myself. "No oysters, fish, meat, ham." "Vegetarian," I say again, just in case. "Bibimbap?"
The owner nods in assent, makes an affirmative noise, and heads back to the kitchen, red-stew-with-oysters-in in hand. I breathe a tentative sigh of relief, until she returns with.. red stew. The oysters have been fished out, the spring onions on top rearranged, and she's cracked an egg in it instead. Defeated, I ask again about the oysters. No, she says, none of those. I try asking whether the broth is fish-based, but all I can manage in Korean is "Seafood water?" She rattles off something I don't understand, makes encouraging gestures, and sits down beside me to coax me into eating it.
During my first week in Seoul, I met up with a solid dude who's lived here as a vegan for two years, give or take. To stay vegan here, he told me, was entirely easy, so long as you lived with the understanding that at some point, somebody was going to serve you food with animals in and without any Korean fluency under your belt, there wasn't a whole lot you could do about it, save for shrugging, feeling kind of gross, and not returning to that particular restaurant. What else is there to do?
To those who've been on the veeg in some seriously omnivorous places: how do you manage? What gets you by? Do you have comfort food shipped from home? Does your diet or your way of seeing food change?