Vegetarian cuisine (was: Re: [EuroPython] Europython 2004 feedback results)

[Beatrice Fontaine]

On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 20:28, Albertas Agejevas wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 12:51:59AM +0300, Aiste Kesminaite wrote:
> > > >Weddings or no weddings, the food was simply outstanding.
> > > >
> > > The food *and* the service was outstanding. I was amazed at how well the 
> > > service went.
> > 
> > The service was outstanding, true. But as far as the food goes...
> > I know, that vegetarians are a minority in most social groups,
> > pythoneers are not an exception either. That does not mean that we don't
> > need food.
> > The amount of nutrition and taste in the food that vegetarians were
> > served was appaling in my opinion.
> 
> I thought it was fine.  Not brilliant, but definitely not appalling.
> Anyway, I wouln't have traded my potato for a piece of meat ;-)

I think it has been duly noted by all us carnivorous ones that an effort
must be made to have a truly excellent vegetarian meal available at that
dinner. I am a meat eater and had a wonderful and special experience. I
didn't mean to personally put vegetarians at a disadvantage by harping
on about that evening. I was just sitting here drooling. But then, as a
foot lover, I would probably need to have a living slug served at the
table to come up with the qualifier "appalling". Since I had an
excellent meal, I am really sorry that the food there disappointed
vegetarians that badly.

First of all, we could say, for instance, that we would ALL have
vegetarian food. The danger here is to forget that some people actually
mean that they are vegan and didn't want the milk, fish, cheese and eggs
that the chef used to make something nutritious, but they didn't mention
that fact in advance. If it's vegan, I know _I_ will go hungry. I would
therefore therefore suggest to come up with a few recommendations
yourself. I have several chefs as friends and they all will confirm that
vegetarian cooking is a whole other school (apart from our Punjabi
friend who knows how to from birth...), and if you haven't gone through
that, you know fairly little of how to produce a good meal without
license to literally fatten things up - no matter how brilliant a cook
you are. As a veggie, you know all about that, obviously.

Wouldn't it be great to actually come up with a list of wants and hates
and submit that as a road map? It would make life easier on the one who
plans the meal, and we won't see disappointed faces. Just make sure that
Albertas gets his potato :)

bea



-- 
bea at webwitches.com
"My agenda is so hidden that I can't find it myself". Me.