The vegetarian experiment

The comments on the post about whether vegetarian restaurants should only be reviewed by vegetarians have been really interesting - if you haven't read them yet, please take a look here. This has made me decide to do a small experiment. I'm here in Provence for three weeks, and I'll be cooking most of our meals (that's why we like to rent a place with a kitchen whenever we come here, as I wrote about last year). So, I'm going to make all of our meals in-house vegetarian. Lacto-vegetarian to be precise, since not having any of the delicious cheeses here would be too much of a sacrifice and the self-proclaimed 'bovo-vegetarian' in house will rebel before we've even started. We will be giving up eggs though (a hardship in itself since I love eggs), and meat and fish. (We might have a bouillabaise once at a restaurant.) I'll also try to stick as much as possible to locally produced food, though I'm not going to be as strict there. (E.g. I will use spices and things like lemons from elsewhere.)

Admittedly, here with all of the glorious locally produced fresh produce it should be a breeze. I doubt it will change my palette much but it will help me concentrate on coming up with different and tasty vegetarian dishes. The better results will be posted here of course!

Filed under:  essays food travel vegetarian provence

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Comments

Just a quick reaction to "I will use spices and things like lemons from elsewhere."
The town of Menton, which is closer to Monte Carlo than Cassis, is famous for its lemons (citrons de Menton), and you can find those in markets all over South East France. They are very sweet and delicately flavored, so if you get a hold of those don't miss them!
It will be very interesting to see what you come up with, this season is just great for vegetables.

Thanks for the tip Fred! I will look out for those lemons for sure - they sound delicious!

I wish you luck in your experiment. I'm sure there will be many tempting moments along the way, but as long as you try and remember to enjoy whatever you eat, I would consider it a success.

Hey---I read your recipes often and recently I am trying to do a birthday picnic this Saturday for just a friend and me. I wanted to make obento but she is totally vegan---no eggs, no dairy. I can fill it with rice and vegetables but I'm not sure what I should replace meat with. Do you have a suggestion for a good replacement for meat and protein and flavor in a vegetarian obento?

Good luck with your experiment. Can't wait to hear how you go, and whether it has any effect on your cooking or palette! Being surrounded by fresh produce sounds like a great opportunity to try vegetarian.