(Bill Marsano)
Since I have been on this almost 100% vegan diet, it’s been hard, if not almost impossible, to eat out and stay loyal to the diet. My husband and I eat out, I would say, more than your average middle class American couple, although we both cook and we cook well. But we also love food, and one gets tired of one’s own flavors.
Last month, we traveled to London, UK, for our anniversary. We spent about 5 days in the city, walking (a lot!) and taking pictures, re-learning history and visiting landmarks. We also ate. A lot! Everyone had told us not to get our hopes up about English food, as it is B-O-R-I-N-G, or at best “fair”. But I have to tell you: to us, it could not have been further from either of those words. They know how and what to do with a piece of meat and some potatoes, for sure! And every dish tasted like the ingredients, not like sugar or excessive salt, or heavy oils, or heavy buttermilk batters, like American dishes do. There was a purity to the British tastes that I have yet to find in our own country.
I have mentioned here before that it is close to impossible to get PLAIN, un-buttered toast in America. Even when you specifically ask for that, they cook it on the greasy grill, not in a regular toaster, and you get fat on it, regardless of what you ask. In Britain, toast is …well, toast: just a slice of bread of your choice, popped in the toaster, slightly dried out and on the plate. With butter on the side, if you wish to add. Some places in the UK get more creative about the spread on the toast, too: not only do they have all sorts of jams and preserves, but they have roasted pepper, avocado, olive spreads as well.
Soups are not heavy with cheese, either. In America it’s impossible to go to a mainstream lunch place and get a vegetarian (I don’t dare hope for vegan) soup where milk, buttermilk or cheese has not been added to the broth! Not so in London: I ordered this tomato soup one night which was delicious, and the freshly grated cheese (and plenty of it), came on the side. The soup was freshly roasted pureed tomatoes with a hint of basil in it. So fresh!
My breakfast one morning: left side was roasted pepper spread with mushrooms, right side was avocado garlic and herb spread with grilled tomatoes. The "potato patty" on the side was deep fried and cheesy, but it was on a separate plate and it did not "contaminate" the rest of my food.
This is the tomato soup I got one night: cheese on the side. And you cannot see this, but there was another dish with croutons, on the side as well.
My favorite, very, very plain and no frills breakfast: naked bread, a cup of fruit and three jam options (top right of the picture). These are the most enormous pieces of nine grain bread I have ever seen. Not sure if you can tell, but they were longer than my silverware!
The only dish that "broke" the rules: vegetarian bangers and mash! How cool is that, though?! The bangers did have soy in them (which I knew they probably did and which I cannot have, either), and the mash had cheese in it - I only ate some of them.
It is very hard to travel, for business or pleasure in The States Рtravelling is the ultimate eating out experience, as you really have no other options. I am pretty sure all the saut̩ed veggies are either cooked in butter or chicken (or beef) broth, which I cannot do on my no meat and no animal products diet.
And back to the US: I went out the other week and ordered a salad. All salad, with fruit on top and raspberry vinaigrette. I am not sure if you can tell, but the vinaigrette was creamy, definitely not all vinegar and fruit, but something else to make it creamy.
I still have no idea what this food intolerance is, 4 doctors later and counting! But I do know I feel better when I stay vegan. It’s like playing Russian roulette every time I eat out, though – and it’s not fun. I don’t live in a super-cosmopolitan town, to be sure, but even when we travel to more “worldly” places within the US, I struggle to find something that is honestly “clean”. Yet another challenge I have to live with, I suppose, and as we know: no one lives in a bubble!
