Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A vegetarian abroad

When I first started coming to Bavaria with Stefan 21 years ago, it was a challenge to find vegetarian fare in restaurants. Times have changed, however, and it's much easier now to find at least an ovo-lacto option such as Käsespätzle mit gerösteten Zwiebeln und Blattsalat (little boiled egg dumplings, pan fried with cheese, served with fried onions and a side leaf salad), or a Gemüse Teller mit Spiegelei (plate of cooked vegetables with a fried egg). Salads have also undergone significant changes, shifting away from arrangements of potato salad, cooked cabbage, and corn kernels, toward a variety of green leafies. Still, as in the U.S., the vegetarian in Bayern occasionally faces limited options*:
and has an excuse to cobble together a tasty if questionable complete protein.
(The beverage pictured above is Mineralwasser mit Kohlensäure, of course, because fizzy water is always available in this cultured society.)

*You'd think the carnivore has limited options here too, as all there is to eat other than french fries is Wurst--but the Wurst connoisseur understands the differences between grilled pork sausage, beef 'n'pork sausage, white pork sausage, and hot dog chunks in curry sauce.

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